SAMPLES OF SWABS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29872, 12 July 1962, Page 5

SAMPLES OF SWABS

Half Proposed For Owners

(N.Z. Press Association)

WANGANUI. July 11. A recommendation 'to the executive that owners be given. half of any samples taken when a horse was swabbed at trotting meetings was passed at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Trotting Conference in Wanganui today. It was also recommended to the executive that the testing of the official sample should be done in the presence of the owner or the owner's representative. The subjects were discussed as the result of proposals put forward by a Nelson delegate. Mr J. T. Hill, who said that the suggestions were designed .to eliminate any possibility of mistake. "This double check, we feel, would be a very satisfactory solution to a very delicate and invidious position that any committee must always find itself in on such occasions as these,” said Mr Hill. Closed Inquiries Attempts by the Nelson club to have all swabbing inquiries open to the press were unsuccessful. In recommending that inquiries be open to the press, Mr Hill said that swabbing had been adopted for the protection of the public, and to give it more confidence in trotting, and thus increase betting turnover. “We feel that the _ releases that have been available to the press have been far short of helping to keep the confidence of the public,” he said. “Had the public, through the press, been presented with ail the facts, we feel there would not have been the harm done to trotting as there has been by the public being left to draw its own conclusions,” said Mr HilL A conference executive member, Mr J. E. Farrell (Oamaru), said the adoption of the Nelson proposal would be “dangerous.” He said he was of the opinion that anyone who reflected on the question would realise that the proposal would have the opposite effect to that desired.' He considered also that publication of a case as it proceeded could harm a defendant. even if the charge was eventually dismissed.