I do agree with the majority of this, Ian, but the side-on replay I saw was distressing even for a hardened viewer like me. The horse had given Nolan a wonderful ride and was clearly brilliantly trained to run as he did given he had everything against him in terms of age and stamina limitations.
Nolan is no spring-chicken-apprentice any more and should have realised sooner that the horse had run his race. It's entirely possible pulling up sooner might not have made any difference but it looked very bad and unfortunately the optics have to be taken into account in this hypersensitive world in which we live. Adrenaline would have played a part in Nolan's poor decision-making but it was still a bad decision.
Such bad decisions aren't reserved for jockeys. We see people being rescued from mountains/hills regularly and think, "WTF were they thinking going up there in that weather or knowing how quickly conditions up there can change, to end up putting the lives of the rescuers at risk as well??"
Only yesterday when I was out on one of my jaunts I decided to take on a climb I hadn't done before only to ask myself halfway up if I was doing the right thing since I was starting to 'pech', as we put it, not having done this kind of slope for a good while. I kept going because my legs felt fine but found I had to work hard at controlling my breathing as I got near the top. If I'd had my dog with me and seen it panting as I was I'd have quit and started back down. It's one thing putting yourself at risk but you shouldn't be taking a horse for which you are responsible beyond its limits, as was clearly the case here.
As you say, there will be arguments both sides and the BHA certainly doesn't do enough to assuage the fears of the non-racing public (the ITV people do try but they also make big mistakes, in my opinion) but the side-on replay was gut-wrenching to me and, I admit, is definitely colouring my take on this incident.
