STILL FREQUENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 163, 12 July 1945, Page 6

STILL FREQUENT

INTERFERENCE IN RACES

STRONG ACTION URGED

Special. WELLINGTON, this day. "Notwithstanding the efforts of the stipendiary stewards and judicial committees of clubs cases of interference in races still continue to be numerous, but I feel that the action taken by the association last year in disqualifying one driver, suspending three others and endorsing the disqualifications imposed by two clubs must act as a deterrent," stated the report of the president of the New Zealand Trotting Association, Mr. H. W. Kitchingham, presented to delegates to the New Zealand Trotting Conference at the annual meeting this morning. , The decisions given had all been supported by appeal judges, and the association again urged on clubs the necessity for strong action where parties were proved guilty, added the report.

Reversal of judicial committees' decisions by the association had brought prominently under notice the injustice suffered by investors on a horse ultimately declared on appeal the winner, and this would continue so long as the present rule directing that dividends shall be paid out on the horse declared by the judicial committee to be the winner remained in force.

"My own conviction is that justice should not give way to expediency, and that observance of the old rule of racing that bets follow the stake would, from an investor's point of view, give greater satisfaction than the present rule. One can imagine the feelings of a large number of investors on a horse recently declared a winner on appeal when the sum of £5725, which should have been paid to them, was paid to investors on a horse declared by a judicial committee to be the winner, but was, on appeal, disqualified for the race. And clubs should seriously consider whether the time has not arrived for altering the present rule, so that an injustice may not in future be inflicted on patrons of the sport," concluded the report.