Those that follow horse racing closely will no doubt be aware that a jockey’s weight must be of that stated in racing form guides unless prior permission is granted by stewards to ride the horse at an alternate (usually higher) weight.
As part of this process jockey’s, their riding gear and any required lead bags (used for lightweight jockeys to ride at higher weights) are weighed pre race to ensure the correct weight and again post race. As it stands there is a 500 gram tolerance in place whereby if a jockey weighs in lighter than pre race by less than 500 grams there is no cause for concern. However, if a Jockey weighs in light by more than 500 grams then this becomes a major problem for all parties concerned.
In this instance the horse will usually be disqualified, meaning being first past the post might not provide that winning cheque that owners are looking for and perhaps most importantly the winning ticket in a punter’s hand is about as useful as last week’s newspaper.
Whilst I don’t want to focus on the individual perspective too much, experienced jockey Daniel Moor has managed to weigh in light twice over the past six months on winning horses. Firstly on Aajwaad on September 23rd at Wangaratta and then again on January 23rd at Seymour on Zuhayr.
Nobody including Daniel himself was quite sure how this could happen, especially twice in less than half a year. He tweeted “Bad enough the punters doing their hard earned. It’s playing on my mind how it’s happened. People have a right to be angry.”
These are not the only two cases though, on December 28th Mishani Gladiator was disqualified after winning by 3 lengths as a $2.70 favourite at Beaudesert, whilst going back to August 30th at Ipswich the third place getter in Masakari was disqualified. That is four cases in the past six months alone of horses being disqualified and subsequently a portion of punters losing their money through no fault of their own; this rule needs to be changed immediately.
Many within the racing industry do accept that such a change is required to the process of a jockey weighing in light and therefore the sought after rule change is that an offending horse be deemed a late scratching for betting purposes. Thus entitling those that put their hard earned on it to a full refund, and rightly so.
However like so many things in life it can be easy to state that things need changing, it is much harder to actually act and implement changes. From the outside looking in it appears that this is the current position of this issue, stuck between accepting that change is required and having the necessary plans and multiple party co-operation to get it done.
I have discussed this matter with a couple of individuals (who don’t want to be named) much closer to the inner sanctum of racing than I and one obstacle is a lack of coherence between states. After the latest debacle on Zuhayr the Victoria stewards, led by chief Terry Bailey have stated that they are pushing for change and that under their proposal, a refund will be given to those unlucky punters who have their winning tickets taken before their eyes.
One has to wonder why it has taken so long for this to come about. In July last year Racing New South Wales chief steward Ray Murrihy promoted this change after another horse Wouldn’t It Be Nice had been
disqualified from third position earlier that month at Rosehill Gardens.
He was quoted by AAP as saying “We can’t do anything about the horse being disqualified but we think there should be a way to get a refund for the punter. I have put it up before (the refund proposal) but have not been successful. There is a national stewards’ conference at the end of the month and we will raise it again.” Therefore one would have to ask the question as to why it has taken a minimum of four more horses to weigh in light since Wouldn’t It be Nice for stewards across the country to realise this is a very important issue in racing. One can only hope that at the next national stewards’ meeting that some serious progress can be made on the real issues in racing and this should be at the top of the list. There has been debate recently about changing track ratings, eliminating the word dead is in one proposal. Who cares! We have a 1-10 track rating
system now that everybody understands and if it isn’t the same as Hong Kong or England well so be it. Revisit the topic when the most important issues have been dealt with, as currently it seems the priorities are completely wrong.
The racing industry is dependent on punters, without them the entire industry begins to crumble. The overall objective is therefore to maximise the turnover on races wherever possible; it would only take losing on a “winning” ticket through disqualification once for some punters to never bet on the horses again; let alone if you were ripped off on more than one of the above examples.
It is imperative that this rule change occur before it happens yet again for the sake of the industry and those that keep it running. But I, as nothing more than a punter and fan of the industry along with thousands of others across the country can do nothing about it. We are all relying on stewards of all states to come together and get it done before the entire industry bears the brunt of the mediocrity of this rule as it stands today.