Jockey Tyler Gaffalione was fined $2,500 for his ride on Sierra Leone down the homestretch in Kentucky Derby 2024, but he avoided a suspension Friday.

Gaffalione met Thursday with stewards to review video of the stretch run.

“After a hearing before the board of stewards, Tyler Gaffalione is hereby fined $2,500 for touching a rival with his left hand nearing the finish line while aboard Sierra Leone in the 12th race at Churchill Downs on May 4, 2024,” the stewards said Friday in their written ruling for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. “Upon receipt of this ruling, it is required within 30 days to pay any and all fines imposed by the (KHRC).”

The fine contradicted early reports that stewards did not sanction Gaffalione at all.

The Kentucky Derby was won by Mystik Dan by a nose over Sierra Leone, who was second by another nose over Forever Young. As Sierra Leone and Forever Young were both making outside rallies down the lane, they “swapped bumps repeatedly … through upper stretch” according to the Equibase chart for the race.

In still photographs corroborated by head-on video, Gaffalione on Sierra Leone appeared to reach to his left and maintain contact for about two seconds with jockey Ryusei Sakai on Forever Young to his inside.

Sakai and Forever Young’s trainer Yoshito Yahagi did not object, and his team’s racing manager Hiroshi Ando said there was plenty of give and take with “fighting all the way to the wire. This is racing.”

Stewards took a normal four minutes to examine the win photo before posting an order of finish, but it was an abnormally long seven more minutes before they declared the Derby official. They did not post an inquiry, and they did not explain why in their ruling Friday.

Friday’s ruling was signed by chief steward Barbara Borden and Butch Becraft, both of whom work directly for the KHRC, and Tyler Picklesimer, who is appointed by Churchill Downs Inc.