Horse Owner Craig Buckingham said yesterday he was seriously considering quitting racing after a huge cock up at Nottingham Racecourse where his horse was wrongfully withdrawn from a race after getting the wrong horse.
This embarrasing error by the officials meant that Buckingham's horse Magic Pulse was taken out of the £25,000 Sprint Final of the Grassroots series at Nottingham.
This latest on course blunder came about when another horse in the field Operative saddled by champion jockey Silvestre De Sousa went down. After the kerfuffle and good work from the stall handlers the jockey and horse was eventually released without anyone getting hurt.
However, instead of the Operative, the horse that was causing the problem being withdrawn, Buckingham's horse Magic Pulse was announced in error as the withdrawn horse.
Soon after that wrongdoing and the officials finding there mistake a correction was installed, then reinstating Magic Pulse and ruling out Operative getting the correct verdict.
But after a delay to the loading of the horses into the stalls a third announcement was then made came from the stewards on course that like the first decision magic Pulse should actually be withdrawn.
Craig Buckingham was furious and this led to his statement that was seriously considering quitting the sport.
However, another day and a another opportunity and this is what has happened to the owner after today at Warwick his horse Desirable Court was supposed to take on two other runners in the UBS Beginners Chase over 2 miles for the prize pot of £9,400.
Today the two other runners in the field, one of them including the spectacular mare from last season Maria's Benefit looking to make her seasonal debut and Knocknanuss, were both withdrawn leaving just Desirable court in the race.
This left the horse with a walkover which could easily been put as a void race but after the ongoings of yesterday the owner has meant the horse has been given the race leaving the owner to pick up the guaranteed prize pot for first place of £5,198 for just turning up for the race.
This might not have been the case after yesterday though as Dan Skelton who trains Desirable Court had to persuade Buckingham to let his horse race. The trainer took to twitter to release what had happened.
Skelton's Tweet Read:" I've spent 20 mins on the phone to Craig Buckingham placating him and getting him in the frame of mind to run two of his horses tomorrow. Mistakes like today's fiasco @nottinghamraces must be learnt from and accountability must be had to give stakeholders confidence."
Thankfully for Buckingham he did let his horses go to post and he picked up the easiest win of his career. This can now be seen as a slice of justice for what happened at Nottingham yesterday.