Sentence can be life-changing

There are some important messages to come out of Central Districts jockey David Walker last week being disqualified for seven years.

Yes, the sentence sounds harsh, even to some who were disgusted by Walker's actions.

It needs to be remembered that horse racing is the only business where a participant can have their right to earn a living suddenly ripped away.

If an All Black seriously flaunted the principles of rules in the game, they might be heavily fined or stood down for a few games.

But chances are their income would be largely unaffected.

When the Sharks ripped up Todd Carney's multimillion-dollar contract over the “bubbling” incident, things looked grim for the hugely talented bad boy.

But within two months, Carney has signed with French-based Super League side Catalan Dragons.

Licence holders in horse racing are bound by rigid international regulations. If a jockey is banned in New Zealand he or she is banned in America, South Africa, England and Iceland. David Walker cannot ride anywhere in the world for seven years.

He has a youngish family, so that is an extremely harsh penalty.

More often than not jockeys gravitate into their race riding careers because of their lack of size and often at a very young age.

They are snaffled as young as possible in case nature decides to blossom their bodies beyond a reasonable weight level at a time when many other youngsters have still to make up their mind about a career path.

As a result, very few jockeys have time in their teen years to learn and develop alternative skills.

Rip their livelihood away later and there is nothing to fall back on.

Which sends a very powerful message to those in the industry and to everyone on the outside looking in that integrity in horse racing is taken very seriously.

As it should be. Millions of dollars per raceday are at stake.

Head-to-head betting is dangerous for jockeys. You only need to have two riders agree that one certain horse will beat home a certain other horse and, bingo, you have a winning bet without having the difficulty of selecting a race winner. Nothing could be easier than that. The seven-year disqualification will be career ending for 38-year-old Walker. He and those looking on will have a long time to consider that.

● Yes, on the surface Silent Achiever may have been a fraction disappointing as the beaten favourite in Saturday's Underwood Stakes in Melbourne.

There are a couple of factors to consider. It was a second-up performance and often the edge can come off a horse from a big first-up effort racing in this elite class.

The other is that the Melbourne Cup is more than six weeks away and it is a knife-edge to have horses peaking right now and be still there on the big day.

Damien Oliver was not downcast over the run to finish a couple of lengths behind the main players. Next start will tell the story. Japanese Melbourne Cup runners Bande and Admire Rakti looked serious horses and in great physical shape when they arrived in Australia.