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Pru , sound enough !! makes sense, however Zorro  was merely starting the ball rolling : to get people to acknowledge that we have an ongoing problem
Somehow we have got to remove the set of chinless wonders , and replace by people who have smarts , who deal in real time as far as racing is concerned
Cost is always a factor (remember the stalls handlers)
but unless we have people who can deal with this cancer , we are lost
And please dont think a few ex policemen will be the answer as they dont have a clue
Lets get this issue out in the open and deal with it
<br>Ricky
A busy Saturday with 6 meetings and 38 races in all…
any sign of any "skulguggery" today? surely one of you "corruption detectives" must have found something or does it only happen on certain days or when you’ve done your money? :biggrin:
anyway keep up the good work, one day we will be free of all this ;)
I seem to have expressed myself badly. It never occurred to me that people would interpret what I wrote as a suggestion that every punter should be a steward IN FACT, with a right to impose penaties etc., or even that every berk who ever backed a loser should have the right to cry foul.<br>What I was suggesting was that those whose job it is to impose penalties should be alerted – no more – by those who invariably spot coincidences of serious drifting followed by inexplicable misfortune, and that the stewards should deal with these misfortunes within a framework that would enable them to get the crooks off the course, if only for a period of weeks or months.:( :(
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) However, we now live in an age of sophisticated telecommunications and there is no need whatsoever for this to happen. All there needs to be is a rolling panel of experts monitoring the day’s racing from the comfort of their own homes and liasing through a nominated leader with the small number of amateur stewards who would still turn up at the course to interview those involved and mete out justice if necessary.
This wouldn’t work either. A few years ago, in a race in which I had no financial involvement, I witnessed possibly the most blatant ‘hooking up’ of a horse I have seen in 40 years of racing.<br> I was so incensed by this that I phoned the Clerk of the Course and suggested the stewards have a look at the horse in question.<br> To my surprise they did interview the trainer, but then accepted his rather tepid explanation.<br> I am no longer that naive!<br>
There have always been instances when the stewards might have been too lenient, and there always will be.
My suggested improvements would have to go hand in hand with an increased ability to prosecute miscreants and an increased desire to do so as well.
If two or three amateur stewards at the course, assisted as at present by a paid stipendiary steward, prove incapable of achieving this then full-scale professionalism may be the only answer. ÂÂÂ
But, Zorro, if the effect of your penalty points system is that it will eventually result in a suspension for the alleged miscreant then this is a quasi-judicial process and therefore subject to challenge by way of application to the courts for judicial review. You will only be able to impose points if you can prove that an offence has been committed and you have already acknowledged the difficulty of that. In the interests of racing you and I might wish it were different but it ain’t.
On a related issue, it occurs to me that the jockeys’ stand last Autumn on the question of mobile phones in the weighing room doesn’t look to have much merit in the light of what we know now.
Gus, the point about the points:cool: is that they wouldn’t be given for deliberate wrongdoing – even though some might think, very reasonably, that this was the case. They would be given for incompetence – just like most points on a driving licence.<br> Mess up three times on a big drifter? No-one’s saying you’re a crook. Just: "Bye bye moron. You’re not fit to ride".
Who’s supposed to be my favourite jockey, by the way? If you mean Kieren Fallon, I don’t think he’d get many points. You may sneer, but how many of his drift markedly anyway?<br> And yes, I have heard of Ballinger Ridge.
Well said Paul , the important thing here is to keep this momentum going , the jockey club are  mostly well meaning but inept , bhb dont give a toss about races  or punters , all they want is revenue
We should be thankful to you for at least placing the issue in the public domain , my fear is however that all will go quiet and racing will trundle on until the next crisis, the next exposee, or scandal
why not have prifessional stewards and face it now ??
Damn Paul you are forcing me to buy that awful paper again <br>#
Ricky
But isn’t that more or less what they’ve tried to do with Bradley? Result: court proceedings.
Gus , you are right , court cases would be many
Great idea though
there is no chance in real life to all parties signing up to it , and to make it compulsury would be challenged in the courts , and inded would undermine the jockey club even further <br>Lets give Pro stewards a go , and I dont mean hiring some more ex policemen !!!
Ricky
I was going not to post anything else on this matter.<br>However I was at Fontwell when the Ice Saint race occured and the stewards only announced that there was going to be an enquiry around 10 minutes after the race had ended. The on course stewards saw nothing wrong with the race at the time and it took a phone call from the jockey club to inform them re the betting patterns on the race told to them by betfair.<br>These Qs are still not clear.<br>Why does a person not actually connected with racing have around 10 jockeys he could call up on his phone?<br>Why did the same person visit the stable 2 days before the Red Lancer race when that horse drifted alarmingly on the exchanges and run so badly?<br>Why was the trainer of Red Lancer still associating with a warned off person ie Chris Coleman who was also a contact of Brian Wright?<br>Why did Graham Bradley take jockeys for a freebie to Spain and to stay in the company of Brian Wright when he was living there?<br> I think even Tony Mc Coy went once.<br>
Thankyou for that Seagull, and for starting this debate.
Gus, surely members of any club could be suspended by that club – particularly if they had signed an agreement to abide by the committee’s decisions as a condition of membership.
I don’t think you would even get it off the ground, Zorro. It would be argued that it’s a restraint of trade to require an individual to belong to such an organisation and to enter into such an agreement in order to earn his living. Any decision which prevents an individual from working is going to be capable of review by the courts.
Also think Zorro’s idea is pretty good. It could help to target specifically the most seriously crooked jocks and trainers, who after all are known to the authorities.<br>As to court cases, not sure about that. Would serial perpretators want go into the withess box and face a question along the lines of,
Have you ever been involved in fixing a race Mr/Ms….?
Whichever answer was given, they’d be in a fix. Courts take a dim view of perjury.
Zorro, if I may say so, thought the way you drew attention in today’s RP to Turn Around’s latest run was superbly done. Please keep it up.<br>richard
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