Steve reflects on what’s been quite a tumultuous week in Australian racing
It’s a decision which highlights a disease which now seems to have afflicted most senior stewards in Australia, not just Mr Van Gestel whom I’m sure is a very fine steward. It’s a disease which compels them to want to ‘play God’ when it comes to adjudicating on protests.
I can assure the stewards that nobody in the racing game wants them to adopt this approach. Uphold the absolutely bloody obvious, dismiss the rest.
It is virtually impossible to come up with a numerical measure for interference. At best, everybody – including the stewards – is guessing. Even the smartest, numbers-driven ratings guys struggle to quantify interference or checks in terms of lengths.
It will remain guesswork until someone comes up with some extraordinary laser technology which may be able to make a more scientific calculation.
I remind the stewards that the rules of racing state that they ‘may’ uphold an objection if ‘such interference not occurred blah, blah’. It does not say that they are obliged to make that call. And I remind them that there is no recourse for any party stripped of a win by something that will never be any more than an arbitrary decision.
It seems bizarre to me that last week’s panel was happy to overturn the result and yet did no more than reprimand jockey Tye Angland who was aboard the horse who was first home.
This penchant for wanting to calculate the incalculable and uphold protests inadvertently panders to the corporate bookmakers who offer protest payouts. This is not a product offered by Tabcorp whose return to the industry is so much greater.
The philosophy is intellectually unsound. It can only ever be speculative. Take the Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) away from me on protest and I am entitled to feel aggrieved forever. Fail to uphold the runner-up objection and that party can never feel or be as hard done by. It’s a race and their horse was not first across the line.
Would any stewards’ panel have the ‘balls’ to uphold a similar objection to last week’s in a Melbourne Cup or a Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m)? Or, heaven forbid, in New South Wales (NSW) – The Everest (1200m). I hope not because it would not serve anyone well.
THE EVEREST
Speaking of The Everest, I suspect there’s a hell a lot of detail still to be sorted out, and I wonder if it can be sustained beyond the first three years for which the slot holders are already locked in.
As I wrote last week, nobody is really going to know the field until acceptances are taken five days before the race. Nobody’s queried that, so I’m taking it that I am right. Nobody’s locked in to any horse they’ve announced unless they failed to have an ‘out’ clause in their contract. And there’s still plenty of question marks around the emergency runners.
I’m a Mexican (Victoria), of course, but I hasten to add I’m not knocking The Everest. I can’t stand this ridiculous NSW-Victoria rivalry and The Everest may be potentially great, and I have no doubt a Victorian club would have instituted something similar had Racing NSW and the Australian Turf Club (ATC) not beaten them to the punch.
I think the prize money structure is wrong. The first prize is not big enough at $4,800,000 (after the percentages paid to trainer and jockey, which incidentally are far too great). So, at $600,000 a slot, you are taking 7/1 about your chosen horse winning. That’s not a great gamble in my book if you are choosing a horse very early on or running the risk of missing the best ones if you leave it too late.
And remember some of these slot holders will be represented by a horse owned by somebody else and therefore will be taking less of that first prize.
I suspect the original slot holders have been motivated by various factors. Some, simply goodwill; others, a sense of adventure; some by ego and perhaps some even by a hint of pressure from officialdom. These motivations could well subside for those who ‘do’ their money over the next three years.
This race is $600,000 to run in. That’s roughly ten times more than it costs to get a run in the Melbourne Cup, and yet you to stand to win much less than double. Yes, I’ll concede you have twice as many rivals at Flemington but…
Racing is all about the gamble and some will win and some will always lose. But I suspect The Everest might need to keep people motivated by an ever bigger prize for first and/or a break-even scenario for more runners.
The uncertainty about the composition of the final field also raises the possibility of some manipulation of pre-post betting markets. That’s another area which may need to be considered.
HATE – CAULFIELD CUP PENALTY CHANGES
Yes, hate’s a strong word but this is a terrible decision and I hate it. The Victoria Racing Club (VRC) is obviously not too enamoured with it either having been left out of any consultations.
I’m not sure who’s driven it (but could make a fair guess) but I am sure it’s plain wrong. I can now win the Caulfield Cup, within certain weight parameters, and not be penalised but I could be for winning the Geelong Cup or any other handicap lead-up race.
I don’t know how Racing Victoria (RV) managed to push this through. I refer again to the rules of racing. “Principal Racing Authority shall… not have reserved to it the right to make new Rules (other than Local Rules) or to rescind or alter these Rules, and a Principal Racing Authority which does not comply with this requirement shall ipso facto cease to be a Principal Racing Authority.”
Perhaps they’ve determined this a ‘local’ rule but it affects horses from all over the world and this race – the Melbourne Cup – is the property of the nation.
Anyway, they seem to have lost the plot at 400 Epsom Road if they’re the lamenting the likely non-appearance of top weight Order Of St George (Galileo) in the Melbourne Cup. He’s a wet-track steeplechaser – okay, the steeplechaser tag’s a bit harsh but he’d be 66/1 against winning a Melbourne Cup on a firm track.
VRC chair Amanda Elliott expressed her displeasure at the lack of consultation with the VRC on Melbourne’s RSN radio this week, and yet the mainstream media failed to follow up. What’s going on there? Trust me, I will.
MATT STEWART – HERALD SUN
Speaking of the media, it’s a sad indictment on that newspaper and it’s senior management, and perhaps racing in general, that the Herald Sun would opt – on the eve of the Spring Carnival – to make redundant their chief racing writer; the man who is, unquestionably, the most entertaining mainstream racing writer in the country.
They have, I believe, underestimated his influence and failed to realise that ‘bums on seats’ on non-carnival race days is no longer the measure of the interest in racing in this country. It’s far too comfortable to sit at home and open up your online betting account. The racing industry has failed in their duty, over the past 20-odd years, to court the sports editors and news editors around this country to hammer that point.
That, the issues outlined above, and the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’ somewhat bizarre decision to suspend the direct transport of horses from Hong Kong to Australia, has made it quite a week.