Racing: Discretion is a dirty word when real action is needed

Whether it is universally popular or not our racing rules should mimic those of Australia.

The greatest growth revenue stream is Australians betting on New Zealand races.

They are dollars our racing clubs are becoming more and more reliant upon.

How can we expect Australians to have confidence in our racing and be keen to bet when we race under different rules and, worse, rules they believe are ridiculous.

Australian racing widely rubbished the recent Arlingtonboulevard - Viennetta result at group one level at Te Aroha, where Viennetta lost the race because her late sideways movement was deemed to have cost Salsa second place and Arlingtonboulevard, not involved in the incident, was placed first.

That simply does not happen in Australia and whether you believe it should or it shouldn't, you have to be worried about the incident being lampooned on Australian television.

It's wonderful to beat the New Zealand chest and say we're right, but is that more important than financial health, especially when the rules themselves are nowhere near as important as consistency and that means punter confidence.

Has racing never heard of the customer always being right?

Then we have the Rotorua incident where last Saturday's $40,000 Rotorua Stakes was declared null and void when eight horses were denied a fair start because of a starting stall malfunction.

Yes, the Judicial Control Authority had the discretion to allow placings to stand then later individually decide which of the unplaced runners be declared a late scratching because of being slow away.

TRAC manager Jim Waters, who ran the Rotorua meeting, was quoted as saying that that option should have been taken.

He has slightly backed away from that.

"Only half of what I said was reported. What I said was that in taking my stance I was only replacing their (JCA) discretion with mine and they are paid to make their call, I'm not.

"Sure, the connections of the winner want the result to stand, so does the punter who has backed a winner, but what about someone who might have had $3000 to win on the second horse, he certainly didn't want the result to stand and he could say he was taking it further because his horse was denied an opportunity to carry that bet through and win because of a slow start.

"I think the JCA were aware they might have had an even worse problem on their hands if they didn't make the race null and void."

The problem here is the word discretion. It underpinned the Te Aroha result and the result on Saturday. The JCA had the option to leave alone the Te Aroha result, as they did on Saturday.

Why have discretion? What's wrong with having a hard and fast rule.

In Australia any horse finishing 1,2,3 cannot lose that result whether it was denied a fair start or not. End of story. Everyone knows where they stand.

The Australian rule came on the back of the 2005 Blue Diamond Prelude in Melbourne, which was declared null and void when a runner, or runners, were denied a fair start.

Punters are a tough breed. They know how to lose. Those that don't quickly get out.

Punters will cop anything, provided they know the rules before the kick-off. They don't want discretion. They don't want to think they've won then find out 20 minutes later they haven't.

The Australian rule takes away the possibility of the punter who has backed the second horse to win taking the case further.

Give the punter the option to sue and he might. Take it away and he'll turn the page to the next race.

Like much of New Zealand, racing is strangling itself with PC and so-called natural justice, which in horse racing is generally anything but.

Lawyers are strongly represented in the JCA. Experience has shown us that when lawyers and judges adjudicate on laws, rules and regulations they can come up with differing opinions.

We can't afford differing opinions on race inquiries.

What happens the next time Saturday's incident occurs. It will be in front of a different JCA panel and chances are a different result will occur under the banner of discretion.

You'd then have to feel even worse for Ascot Isle's part-owner Greg Meads. This was a race the sometimes underrated mare should never have lost.

Our racing rules, unbelievably complicated compared with Australia, need urgent revision.

The word discretion should be banned.