Daniel Ganderton has been having problems in the last few months and unfortunately for trainer Liam Birchley he inadvertently found himself caught up in the middle of it.

Birchley booked the ride of Ganderton on his filly Liesele at Scone on May 14th but unbeknown to him the jockey’s head wasn’t in a winning frame of mind.

Ganderton was found to have deliberately held up the horse on more than one occasion during the 1100m journey.

All up there were seven charges levelled against him resulting a suspension for the remainder of this season.

It does little for Birchley though who was left scratching his head after the race.

“He said it was a good run and he had a little bit of trouble getting up the straight,” Birchley said.

It wasn’t a story he bought though and knowing the horse as he does knew she had no right to be finishing so far back.

That was made especially clear considering how good a start she got out of the gates.

“She was one of the first out that was the thing,” he said.

“Not knowing the mare, she’s got a really good sprint, the more you hold her up the more she finishes.

“It just looked terrible.”

He has his own suspicions as to why Ganderton choose to deliberately put his horse out of contention in the race.

“It’s only my opinion but I think he was overweight and didn’t want to weigh in,” he said.

It’s a frustrating saga for all concerned especially considering Birchley has seen Ganderton at his best.

“He’s terrific talent but he’s found himself on the wrong side of things,” he said.

Despite that he has little sympathy for him and feels if anything he’s got off too easy.

“I think he got off a bit light myself,” He said.

“Maybe I’m a bit biased.

“Sometimes they need to hit rock bottom before the wake up.”

For Ganderton though it’s something that’s probably being brewing inside him for a while and it was seemingly inevitable something like this would happen.

“I have a few issues I need to clear up off the track,” Ganderton said.

“I want to get away from Sydney for at least a month.

“I don’t know if I’ll come back or whether I will ride again.

“I plan to go back home just to sort myself out.

“I want to get away from racing totally and just see whether I really want to be a jockey or whether it is time to pursue a different career.”

While Ganderton may never have his shot at retribution at least Birchley’s filly Liesele has another chance very quickly.

She’ll run in the opening event of the day at Doomben this weekend where she’ll be ridden by jockey Glen Colless.