TROTTING Harold Park Stewards Had Busy Season

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32360, 28 July 1970, Page 5

TROTTING Harold Park Stewards Had Busy Season

Stipendiary stewards at Harold Park, Sydney, were much more active during the season than their counterparts in New Zealand, judging by a release from the Information Bureau of the New South Wales Trotting Club.

During the season 48 meetings were run at Harold Park, compared with 133 for the whole of New’ Zealand.

night. Usually they hold anj •inquiry during the week' (after the incident 11 Harold Park officials also inspect all films on the Mon-; i day after meetings at ; Park. Often cases of interj ference, sometimes of a . comparatively minor nature, i are detected and the drivers . concerned are later shown . the film and warned about , their tactics. This close perusual of films —often they are run through [ several times—by the panel ; of stewards increases their ’ knowledge of the peculiarities of horses. : Filming of races in New . Zealand is only in its infancy, . but its value cannot be underi estimated. Some clubs use , ordinary filming, while others use videotape. Auck- ; land uses a combination of t both. f Trotting clubs have been 1 much slower than racing [ clubs to install filming facili- , ties, but officials are becoming : more aware of the necessity 1 for speeding up the building [ of towers and the letting of . contracts for filming or video- : taping races.

[dealt with a number of; horses regarding their bar-i Irier or racing manners. 21| being barred for between four and'eight weeks. In New Zealand 103 horses were dealt with regarding their barrier manners, 29 being stood down from racing for periods varying from one to three months. The connections of others were warned to improve the racing manners of their horses. Stewards at Harold Park have the assistance of full film patrols of races, which is not available to stewards on all New Zealand courses. However, fuller coverage is expected in the coming season, and the conference intends increasing pressure on clubs to instal the necessary equipment. Stewards, at Harold Park often adopt a different method' of handling cases of interference to that used in New Zealand. Where interference affects a horse finishing in a dividend-bearing place in New Zealand, the payment of dividends is held up until the inquiry has been completed. But in Australia the stewards do not always deal with such cases on race

Harold Park stewards disqualified two persons for 12 months, suspended driving licences of three for six months: suspended two for three months; suspended eight for eight weeks: and suspended 34 for four weeks. Earlier in the year a Harold {Park official said a term of suspension for four weeks! imposed on a driver in January meant the loss of 21 days or nights of driving in New South Wales alone. In New Zealand during the whole of the 1969-70 season there were 60 cases of interference warranting disciplinary action, according to the president (Mr R. J. Rolfe) in his address to delegates to the annual meeting of the Trotting Conference in Wellington earlier in the month. Suspensions ranging from five days to six weeks were given in 33 instances, and fines were imposed on the remainder. Harold Park stewards also