Damien Oliver has won the first of two VRC autumn carnival-defining appeals, reports Racing Netrwork.
Oliver was successful on Monday in having a 12-meeting suspension imposed by Racing Victoria stewards at Ballarat last Thursday overturned by the Racing Appeals & Disciplinary Board.
The Hall of Fame jockey now needs to win an appeal against an eight-meeting suspension imposed by RV stewards at Caulfield or have the sentence varied if he is to ride Wandjina in Saturday’s Australian Guineas.
Oliver needs to have one meeting shaved from the penalty to allow him to ride Wandjina, a tenacious first-up winner of the C.S. Hayes Stakes.
The RAD Board will hear Oliver’s appeal against that suspension on Tuesday at 1.30pm.
RAD Board chairman Judge Russell Lewis said on Monday that the board was unable to say “one way or the other” if the stewards could make their case against Oliver given the head-on film was of “limited value” with the running rail out 15 metres.
Judge Lewis said on the “balance of probabilities” the appeal by Oliver had to be allowed.
He said Robert Montgomery, the RV deputy chairman of stewards, conceded the steward in the tower closest to the incident was unable to have a firm view of the incident.
Stewards suspended Oliver, riding Cornrow, for causing interference to Dwayne Dunn’s mount Comadi at the 500-metre mark.
During the appeal Oliver told the RAD Board that he had established a run on the outside on Comadi and that Dunn had “simply missed the boat”.
Stewards said Dunn’s evidence during the inquiry was that he had been in the run for two or three strides before Oliver forced him back in and caused him to check to avoid the heels of the horse in front of him.