By MIKE DILLON
Kevin Myers may have partly earned his nickname this week.
A few years ago, Myers tagged himself with the handle "Dummy," because of his personality as someone who loves to turn his hat backwards and pretend he is not really up with what is going on.
If you know him, that persona is about as far from reality as you can get. Myers is smart, but he may not have been too smart admitting he could have been a bit more forthright about his pre-race television TAB Trackside comments on Stacey Jones before winning last weekend's Waikato Hurdles.
Loosely, Myers said he felt Stacey Jones might have trouble with a sticky track.
There was probably an element of truth in that, but Myers upset everyone later when he said he had tried to assist the horse's owner to get slightly better odds.
How much is wrong in that? Well, if you apply the strict letter of racing law, very little.
There is no rule of racing binding a trainer to telling the public anything.
Nor is there one which involves giving misinformation, something the bosses in this case are suggesting can be covered by the rule about bringing racing into disrepute.
Try to get an English trainer to tip the public into a horse - but don't wait too long, you'll miss lunch. It won't happen.
Overall, owners and trainers are exceptionally generous in giving their time to talk to Trackside about their horses, but it might be stretching the imagination to think there wasn't the odd one here and there who tried to assist the price on the tote.
How much different is that to hearing Graham Mourie announcing his Hurricanes team minus three top players to tackle the Brumbies a few weeks ago, only to see them join the run-ons?
The TAB produced a betting line on the original team announcement and the public made their bets on the same basis.
Mourie's plan was almost certainly to deceive the opposition rather than the punter, but that should never be tolerated where betting is involved.
It is simply that sport has not caught up with racing or overseas sports betting in its professional approach for the punter.
Myers claims he acted properly in protecting the owner's rights to get the best price on the punt and that is difficult to argue against. Trainers' Association president Chris Wood defended that attitude and now there is a suggestion Wood could be charged. For having an opinion? Is someone kidding?
The idea that Myers could be charged with bringing racing into disrepute for his comments is off the mark. What he did was not illegal, simply dumb. He proved how smart he was with the nickname.
Racing: Trainer comments row case of dumb and dumber
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.