Christophe Soumillon, one of the most decorated riders in the world, has been handed a two-month ban after elbowing fellow jockey Rossa Ryan out of the saddle at Saint-Cloud on Friday.
The Belgian native was riding Syros for Francis Graffard in the Group 3 Prix Thomas Bryon Jockey Club de Turquie when making contact with Ryan, who was aboard the Ralph Beckett-trained Captain Wierzba.
In what looked a deliberate elbow, Soumillon edged Ryan out of the saddle and, while he denied any malice to the incident, apologies on At The Races afterwards by saying it was “not a nice act” and that he had made “a misjudgement”.
Syros went on to finish second but was disqualified by the French stewards who gave Soumillon his lengthy ban. The rider will be free to ride on Arc weekend at ParisLongchamp as the two-month ban does not come into effect until next week.
“I received a little bit of pressure from Rossa's mount on my outside trying to get a better position behind Ryan,” Soumillon said. “I was just behind Ryan at the time. And I put my elbow against him just to make him understand I wasn't going to the inside and unfortunately when I asked my horse to stay there and go a little bit to the right, I pushed him for one stride or two and he fell off.
“Straight away, I knew, I'd made a mistake. I'm terribly sad with what happened because I hate seeing stuff like this and when you are doing that it's even more terrible, so I want to apologise to everyone, not just only one person who owns the horse or trains the horse or even the jockey.”
He added: “I just saw him [Ryan] now and he's fine and the horse too so I'm happy for that, but for all the people loving racing it was not a nice act from my side and I am terribly sorry and I want to apologise for what I did today.
“I just received a big suspension from the France-Galop stewards. I'm going to be suspended for two months – 60 days of racing. So that's a very big thing. So unfortunately my end-of-season is now gone. But I accept the sentence for what I did, for the terrible mistake like I said.
“And for sure that sentence is an example to others then that's acceptable but for sure, I shouldn't do that. I didn't do it on purpose to make him fall off his horse. I was just trying to keep my position. But with the ground … I probably did with a little power. It was a misjudgment from my side.
“I wasn't trying to make him fall off his horse. Unfortunately he was side by side with me, his iron goes up and he goes over the horse. I don't really understand what happened in that moment because it's going really fast but it's a terrible thing for what I did. I know a lot of people are not going to excuse me, but I feel really bad at the moment for what happened.”
Ryan reported that he and his mount were fine after the incident. He said, “The horse is fine, I'm fine. That's the main thing. I'm 100 per cent.”
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