Trainer John Zielke vows to support jockey Skye Bogenhuber following Dalrello suspension

JOHN Zielke was stunned to learn of Skye Bogenhuber’s two-month suspension and says he and owner Evan Hartley intend to give the jockey their full support at appeal.

JOHN Zielke was stunned to learn of Skye Bogenhuber’s two-month suspension on Saturday night, and says he and owner Evan Hartley intend to give the jockey their full support at appeal.

Bogenhuber incurred the ban for not giving Zielke’s Happy Event every chance to finish in the best possible position in Saturday’s Dalrello at Toowoomba. Zielke also had runner-up Spot The Diff in the race.

Bogenhuber’s mount Happy Event raced the favourite Love Spy for most of the race, with the pair setting up a big lead on the rest of the field in the first half of the race.

A comparison of times with the other 1200m races on the day showed just how hard the two fillies went.

The first 600m of the Dalrello was run nearly half a second quicker than the Weetwood and a full second faster than the Class 6 Plate won by Trubia.

Zielke was given permission to leave Clifford Park well before Bogenhuber was handed her suspension at 6.15pm on Saturday, and said he was shocked after being notified of the sentence.

Earlier Zielke had pointed out to stewards that Happy Event had lost its tongue tie either in the pre-race preliminary or at the start, because it was not visible in any of the footage.

“I don’t get it. The evidence was there that the horse lost its tongue tie and that was the contributing factor in her wanting to over race,” Zielke said.

“Do they expect her (Bogenhuber) to wave a magic wand? If the tongue tie is gone, how is that her fault? They have completely thrown that out the window.”

Crack Me Up takes out the Dalrello with the tiring Happy Event (Skye Bogenhuber) in the background. Picture: Supplied

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Chief steward Rion Hitchener told Bogenhuber the suspension would have been three months, but for the fact she has already missed six weeks of riding this calendar year because of injury.

Hitchener said the penalty needed to be a strong one because it was a “bad look” on a metropolitan race day in a feature race.

Stewards did not accept Bogenhuber’s explanation for why she did not ease in behind Love Spy.

Bogenhuber told stewards she had tried to restrain Happy Event more than once, but each time the filly wanted to “run off the track”.

Stewards contended they could not see anywhere on the video footage where she had tried to ease.

“Just because I’m not one of these riders that does this (raises arms), doesn’t mean I’m not trying to restrain it,” she said.

Originally published as Trainer John Zielke vows to support jockey Skye Bogenhuber following Dalrello suspension