Trentham false start could have boosted three horses in later run

The starting field in Saturday's race at Trentham, with the supplementary gates on the left.

OPINION

An unusual obstacle stands in the way of replacing the starting gates that turned Saturday’s $400,000 TAB Classic into a farce.

Desert Lightning won the Group 1 event at Trentham – no issue there, as he is a class horse beautifully ridden by Vinnie Colgan – but the actual race was a debacle after a false start saw three of the 17 horses locked in their outside starting gates while the other 14 jumped and ran distances of up to 600m.

All 14 horses which attempted to race in the first start were cleared by vets to start in the second attempt and no jockey or trainer asked for their horse to be scratched.

But when the second take of the race was run, the three horses who didn’t spend any energy in the false start because they were locked way – Desert Lightning, Fraglioni and Aegon – finished first, second and a luckless fourth.

Logic would suggest the trio was advantaged by not being able to move in the false start, so those with connections to the other horses - and of course, those who bet on them - can rightly feel aggrieved.

The issue is caused by the use of “supplementary gates” - up to four extra gates added to the standard 14 starting positions when required for bigger fields.

The extra gates require an extension of power from the main gates and sit noticeably wider, and while both New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) and Racing Integrity Board staff believe the starting mechanism on the extra gates was tested before the false start, it simply didn’t work.

The stipendiary steward in charge of the meeting, John Oatham, says he believes all the right protocols were followed, but added he and most of his fellow stewards don’t like the use of the supplementary gates.

“I don’t think there is any human fault here, even though the whole incident is a shame for the race and the industry,” Oatham told the Herald.

“We [the stewards] are not fans of the supplementary gates: they just add another layer of things that can go wrong.

“The gates were tested a couple of times after the false start and again didn’t work, but some work was done on the connection [and] they did start working.

“So after that, and with the horses having being [confirmed as] fit to start, we allowed a second attempt at the race to go ahead.”

The issue clearly comes from the use of the supplementary gates, as all 14 gates normally used worked, and that trainers, jockeys and even the stewards themselves promptly called for use of the supplementary gates to be halted.

But it may not be that simple.

NZTR chief operating officer Darin Balcombe says they would prefer a full set of 18 starting gates, but they are a logistical nightmare to transport to the other racetracks in the Central Districts.

“The region has two sets of starting gates – one that is kept at Trentham, and one at Awapuni – and they are taken to all the Central Districts meeting and looked after by the Central Starting Gates Consortium,” explains Balcombe.

“But they are only allowed to transport 14 of them at any time on the back of their truck. Otherwise, they need a special licence and a pilot car because anything more than 14 gates is considered an extra-long load.

“So, at the moment when they take the gates to tracks which have 14 or more starters in a race and might need the supplementary gates, they actually have to make two trips and take the supplementary gates separately.”

As difficult as that all sounds, Balcombe says the reality is the Central Districts clubs can’t afford a full set of starting gates for each track.

Which raises the question: What can be done to stop a similar problem next the supplementary gates are used?

“More maintenance and more testing is what we will be advocating for.”

Balcombe will meet with NZTR chief executive Bruce Sharrock on Monday morning to discuss Saturday’s mess, and part of their discussion will be about whether the connections of those horses who finished out of the placings are offered compensation to at least cover their horse’s travel and fees.

Punters waiting for compensation shouldn’t hold their breath, though, as while TAB bosses discussed what they could do, they won’t be issuing refunds or bonus bets after as much as $500,000 was bet on the race with the NZ TAB alone.

“We don’t want to set the precedent of doing that every time there is an unfortunate racing incident,” says TAB/Entain NZ boss Cameron Rodger.

“We realise some punters are really angry and frustrated by something like this, but we don’t oversee the running of the races. That is the role of the clubs, NZTR and the RIB.

“Once they deemed the race was able to go ahead, we have to respect that process and the result.”

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.