Cliff Williams
AFTER MY periodic exercise of polling the punters, commencing last week in this column is a series on some of the practices and policies that militate against the ability of these persons to have more enjoyment of the local version of the Sport of Kings.
For those who may have missed it in starting this series I dealt with the lack of anything in the architectural design of the accommodation at Caymanas Park to facilitate the physically challenged amongst us, referring specifically to the absence of a lift, to make it easier for such persons to access the top floor.
I also mentioned that in the designing of the totalisator software there is an obvious error in that the display of place betting odds was given equal time with that of the win odds.
I even reflected the view of a discerning punter that based on the paltry sales turnover the offer of place wagering on races held outside of Jamaica through simulcast should be withdrawn.
Speaking of software design, it would seem to me that there must be something very wrong with the way it is utilised in Jamaica as far as the Caymanas totalisator system is concerned.
The dividends seem to take an inordinately long time to be displayed following the clearance of a race by the raceday Operation Stewards.
In any event, the old time wasting exercise of waiting for the riders to return to scale for weighing-in before a race is declared official is still followed slavishly and should be abandoned as it is no longer strictly necessary.
WEIGHING OUT
The exercise of weighing-out with a responsible and trusted official faithfully verifying the weight to be carried, is still
a critical one but not necessarily that of weighing-in.
These days the availability video technology to monitor the horses and riders after they enter the race track ensures that there is very little possibility that anyone would dare tamper with the saddle gear in an effort to reduce the weight to be carried.
In any event, before the start of any race the racetrack becomes a sterile area occupied only by identifiable official personnel and only in the event of the saddling gear becoming loose during the running of a race should weighing-in become necessary.
In North America, the practice of weighing-in has disappeared from most if not nearly all racetracks and dividends are posted even before the riders dismount, once the Stewards did not detect any incident that may have altered the result of a race.
Incidentally, there is a pre-arranged signal that a rider gives immediately at the end of a race if he or she intends to lodge an objection.
Whilst I appreciate the fact that raceday operation stewards worldwide work under pressure, there can be no question that it takes far too long in too many instances for decisions to be made once an inquiry is declared.
The fact of the matter is that with the availability of sophisticated video technology providing different angles to view any incident it should lead to speedier decision-making but, in my view, very little has changed since it came into existence.
Stewards, against the background of well established and basically standardized guidelines should have less difficulty and ought to need far less time in arriving at an accurate interpretation of what has taken place in a race.
The stewards in Great Britain are some of the worst offenders when it comes to the timely delivery of decisions and there are still too many cases where the following race on the same card is run after which there is a return to the deliberations.
BIZARRE
Our local Operation Stewards do a pretty good job, given the pressure, in terms of timely delivery of decisions, but I find it bizarre that occasionally there is an inquiry of some length and in the final analysis the announcement is that a horse finishing sixth is disqualified for interference to one that finished further back as happened last Saturday.
There cannot be any rational explanation for this policy no matter how objectively it is viewed.
I appreciate the fact that this has implications for the disbursement of purses but surely those incidents that will leave the placings for dividends unaffected can and ought to be dealt with in a different way.
In any event it would seem to make sense, as is the practice elsewhere in the world once a steward's inquiry is declared, is to announce immediately if the horse first passed the post is or is not involved in any incident that could lead to its disqualification.
The foregoing observations are not submitted to be strictly critical at all of, or call into question the competence of our officials, in fact it is not intended to be so, but merely to point out that there are ways of operating and policies implemented to enhance the punters' enjoyment of the sport and maximise wagering time.
There are several other issues having a negative impact on comfort and enjoyment of the sport for punters and as promised I will be continuing this series to highlight them.
