Cliff Williams
IT IS the general view, particularly amongst those who have been exposed to racing in North America and in the United Kingdom, that local racing is at best a semi-professional operation and there are many aspects falling short of what prevails in the so-called developed world.
Still, the promotion and regulation of the local industry is done by full-time professionals, therefore, it cannot be too much to expect, that these critical areas of administration be conducted in a manner resembling what takes place elsewhere in the world.
Colleague Ainsley 'Jimmie' Walters took a swipe at the clockers of exercise gallops in his Trackside column of February 25, for what he saw as a discrepancy in the time submitted for a particular horse, whose upset of a long odds on favourite would be far more predictable if there was accuracy of one particular published timed workout.
On the day the column appeared, the second event on the ten-race card had an interesting winner. A mare, Dixie Milano, having her first race in 25 months and well supported in betting, duly obliged scoring comfortably by just over two lengths. This inordinately long layoff ought to have been explained as the presumption by most punters was that this was an enforced hiatus due to lameness. As I understand it, the story doing the rounds now is that it was an unresolved administrative matter relating to the demise of the previous owner two years earlier that rendered the mare ineligible for racing.
FREE INFORMATION
Information of this nature must be freely available to the public to encourage confidence in the integrity of the racing product and drive betting to enhance the viability of the promoting company. At certain race tracks in the United States, horses must undergo timed exercise gallops in public when returning from extended layoffs before a declaration to race is accepted.
Operation stewards in Australia must be advised on the different tactics to be employed if, for example, a trainer intends to instruct the rider of a regular front-runner to try coming from off the pace. In the United Kingdom, an agency is in existence with a mandate to investigate unusual betting patterns related to performances of horses and the outcome of races deemed suspicious in appearance.
Performances of horses are under constant scrutiny and trainers and jockeys are required, with some frequency, to explain anything remotely resembling a lack of effort on the part of any horse in a race.
It would appear though, that the operation of the Claiming System has rendered this unnecessary in Jamaica and we no longer hear of any investigation of inconsistent performances. However, eternal vigilance must not be neglected as there cannot be a presumption of impeccable integrity in the intentions of our professionals.
Recently, a race was delayed by more than 10 minutes because of fractious behaviour of a couple of the declared starters and in that same event two others were declared late non-starters at the gate after having been found to be lame by the officiating veterinarian.
Lameness, when rendering a fancied horse unfit to start so late, creates all sort of problems for the punters in terms of altering bets. Separate and apart from the substantial refund of wagers the punters have difficulty in cancelling wagers since only certain of the betting machines have programmes to facilitate this option.
There are many other aspects of the operations that can be handled more professionally but the foregoing will suffice for now and I will be dealing with some other issues in a future column.
