Racing: When those starting stalls failed to open

Race starter John Humphries says he will experiment with positioning himself in front of starting stalls but is not convinced that is the best place to be.

His decision comes in the wake of the drama that developed from a straggly start to the $40,000 Rotorua Stakes at Arawa Park on Saturday.

It was later determined that eight of the 15 starters had been denied a fair start after a starting gate malfunction.

Following an inquiry, a Judicial Control Authority (JCA) panel declared the race void.

All bets were refunded including the Pick6 even though there were no live tickets after four legs. The Rotorua Stakes was the fifth leg of Pick6.

Humphries, who has been a race starter in the Rotorua and Bay Of Plenty regions for 15 years, has always stood behind the gates to despatch his fields.

But after speaking with chief stipendiary steward Noel McCutcheon yesterday, Humphries said he would try a position in front of the stalls.

He said he would experiment with the new position at a trials meeting next week and take it from there.

He would get an assistant starter to stand behind and wave a flag for an all-clear.

But Humphries said he had long preferred being behind the stalls.

"Everything is good starting from behind. You can see exactly what's going on with horses, riders, whether the gates are closed, the [power] plugs are all in ... but you can't see slow [opening of] gates.

"I've been doing it for 15 years and I've never had this problem before."

Humphries admitted that if he had been standing in front of the gates on Saturday he would have definitely signalled a false start.

He said he suspected something was amiss when he released the field, but he did not hear any jockeys or starting attendants yell out.

"I knew something was wrong - just the clang of the gates.

"As soon as it happened I said to the boys, 'What happened there?'

"The jockeys didn't yell out and neither did any of the attendants."

Garry Phillips, a long-time starter in the lower North Island, said he had always started from behind the gates and was unlikely to change because of Saturday's event.

"It's a hard one to pick. The reason I stand behind is at least you can see what the horses are doing."

Phillips said he couldn't blame Humphries for not signalling a false start just on suspicion.

"If you blew for a false start every time you weren't too sure, you'd be there all day."

Humphries said he believed that one of the batteries that powered the starting mechanism might have been faulty but that had yet to be confirmed. He said the batteries were not old.

"They were brand-new batteries two weeks ago," he said.

Humphries and Phillips both said they had never had a directive from racing authorities about where to position themselves at the start.

Humphries: "It's entirely up to me. Jack Mudford was the starter for 20 years in the Auckland district and he started from behind."

Rotorua Racing chief executive Jim Watters said if the decision had been his he would have allowed the placings to stand.

But he added that the decision by the JCA panel was not necessarily the wrong one.

"I thought they could have let the race stand and then considered the individual cases of each of the horses concerned," Watters said.

"But these guys are supposed to be the trained professionals and they chose to opt the way they did."

Watters agreed the situation was complicated by the fact that the first two horses home - Ascot Isle and Whatronnielikes - were among the eight denied a fair start.

"How do you then judge those that went on to win and run second against those that didn't run in the money? Who would ever know?

"It was one of those no-win situations, regardless of what would have been done.

Watters said none of the owners affected would be charged nomination or acceptance fees, and reimbursement of travelling costs was still to be discussed. Karyn McQuade, the trainer of Ascot Isle who would have paid about $26 to win, was devastated at her 6-year-old mare being denied a valuable win in a stakes race.

"It's one of the worst decisions I've ever seen and a total disgrace," McQuade said.

- NZPA