Whillans made a judgement call that his mount was capable of safely clearing the fence having been given a chance to catch his breath and his judgement proved to be correct.
Imho Whillians was a very lucky boy, because he firstly made a judgement call that his mount would not have cleared the last, a call I totally agreed with from my vantage point, so he pulled his mount up, gave it a breather and continued. Oh what a lucky boy, oh how lucky he was that his mount didn't stagger over the line and drop dead, we would certainly be looking at different headlines now and he would have been the bad boy. His mount was struggling for over a mile to keep up with the winner who was fairly tanking along, a better judge would have eased off well before the last and preserved enough to get round.
Ironically, much of the debate and ambulance chasing by the media focused on an obscure BHA rule relating to a horse not being allowed to jump an obstacle after being pulled up but, as that rule is in the section of the rule book relating to remounting, it seems obvious to me that it wasn’t applicable in this case as Gorgehous Lliege had not been dismounted during the race.
The reason the rule (46.4) is in the section for dismounting is so that they remove any disambiguation or decision on the jockeys part regarding any doubt over the horses safety. The race had beaten the horse the combination of ground, distance and pace had beaten the horse to a standstill. The rule states, "Where a Rider pulls up for any reason, he must wait in the area where he pulled up until all contenders in the race have passed by and, if the race is a steeple chase or hurdle race, he must refrain from jumping any further Obstacles".
Aside from the safety aspect, the owner of the winner was robbed of all the prize money and those punters that deciphered and staked the winner in Placepots and received £362 instead of £36,000, likewise the scoop 6 punters who saw only 11,000 knocked out of the place side instead of 12,030 and a payout of £2,182 instead of £40,000 must have been gutted by not only the Jockey breaking the rules but the stewards too.
Lets face it, if the rules had been taken literally then there would have been no debate, a small backhander to the Jockey for his concern for the horse and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Max