Racing: Judiciary promise to cut out delays

The days of protracted delays to the hearing of judicial inquiries should be over in harness racing.

A remit that all non-raceday inquiries must be held within four weeks was passed at the annual meeting of harness racing clubs in Auckland at the weekend.

Exceptions will be allowed where both parties agree to go beyond the four-week period or in extenuating circumstances.

A similar remit that any appeals must also be held within another four weeks was also passed.

An added clause said that any adjournment asked for beyond the four-week period would result that any stay in proceedings of penalty would cease after the four weeks.

Conversely, if Harness Racing New Zealand (HRNZ) asked for an adjournment beyond the four weeks, the stay of proceedings would remain in place, unless the parties agree otherwise.

HRNZ said there had been too many delays recently to hearings being heard.

In a comment associated with the four-week remit, the HRNZ executive said: "The proposed remit is designed to ensure the prompt disposal of proceedings, as there have been a number of cases recently where the executive considers the hearing of informations has become unnecessarily protracted."

An example of protracted proceedings is the blue magic drugs' affair but that has been exacerbated because much of the action has been taken in civil courts.

A remit to introduce a different type of start to harness races was withdrawn. The remit had recommended that in addition to mobile and standing starts there also should be a start described as a moving start.

This, basically, would have been a standing start but allowing horses to walk up to their starting positions before the tapes are released.

* HRNZ chairman John Penney said the racing industry had spent $560,000 on new detection equipment in the wake of the blue magic affair.

Penney said the $560,000 was for a mass spectrometer which would be installed at New Zealand Racing Laboratory Services in Auckland.

HRNZ general manager Edward Rennell said that until now laboratory staff had been unable to spend time searching for new substances because the existing machine was tied up 95 per cent of the time testing raceday samples.

- NZPA