Even more so if you’re Nash Rawiller, emerging close to 7pm on a cold and windy night flanked by just a few hardy supporters, Melbourne Cup dreams dashed for another year.

Not a camera crew was in sight, long finished rolling following Craig Williams’ ultimately doomed bid for an unprecedented triple crown.

But the real question was why did it even have to reach VCAT?

Google VCAT and see what you get.

Their website claims to deal with disputes relating to purchase and supply of goods and services, discrimination, domestic building works and legal profession services among other scraps.

Nowhere is horse racing even given a passing mention.

Yet on Melbourne Cup eve, VCAT was the hub for all things relating to the first Tuesday in November.

Williams and Rawiller were entering last-ditch pleas to escape sanctions with the most dire of consequences from careless riding charges at Bendigo.

Those pleas failed.

You can’t deny connections exhausting every last legal sinew available to keep their preferred jock on board.

But to have that matter still undecided 20 hours from the race start is cutting it very fine, to say the least.

The process should have ended at the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board.

That was settled on the Friday and would have put an end to a saga which detracted from the spotlight truly shining on our showpiece event.

You lose at RAD, you’re out. End of story.

As the sun sets on another outstanding spring carnival, this has to be one of the first issues tackled.

A consolidated national approach to the messy appeals process may go a long way to solving the issue.

Punters, without whom the industry doesn’t survive, shouldn’t be kept clueless so close to the event.

The matter shouldn’t leave the confines of the industry, of which RAD services as an independent arm.

The fact Rawiller’s ride on the part Wollongong-owned Unusual Suspect fell to younger brother Brad may have cushioned his fall. Slightly.

When quizzed on whether he regretted a lowly maiden at Bendigo ruining his biggest week of the year, Rawiller stressed interference was interference and should be punished irrespective of the race.

One wonders whether hoops will bypass mid-week thoroughfares in the week leading up to the Flemington carnival in future fearing a repeat of the Williams-Rawiller fiasco.

In his particular case, Rawiller maintained his innocence long after leaving VCAT.

Those steps at VCAT should remain a lonely place - without any horse racing interest.