Move to end brackets ownership

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32874, 24 March 1972, Page 1 (Supplement)

Move to end brackets ownership

A remit seeking the abolition of all ownership brackets in racing will almost certainly be one of the most controversial matters considered at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Racing Conference in July. The remit, to be sponsored by the executive committee of the conference, will, if adopted mean that the only brackets will be those which occur when the number of starters exceeds the 24 numbers on the totalisator. “To the best of my knowledge New Zealand is the only country in the world which brackets horses because of ownership interest, ’ Mr A. R. Algie, secretary of the conference, said yester day. On two occasions during the past 10 years his executive had considered the practicability of modifying the bracketing rule, Mr Algie said. . . . Consideration had been given to no brackets when a person’s interest in a horse was less than 15 or 20 per cent, but there were complications when it came to a practical application of such a proposal. For that reason the committee had decided that the abolition of ownership brackets could not be qualified in the practical sense and must therefore be absolute. A remit seeking the aboli-

tion of ownership brackets was forwarded to the conference executive after being carried at the eleventh conference of racing club secrethrifts. Ownership brackets, a spokesman for the racing secretaries advised the conference, had been first introduced in 1902 while bookmakers were still operating on the courses, probably in an endeavour to prevent a corrupt practice of some sort — an owner entering two horses, ‘‘pulling up” the favourite and winning with the outsider, perhaps. The spokesman for the secretaries raised the question of horses prepared by the same trainer not also bracketed, arguing that a trainer would be a better manipulator than an owner. (Such a submission must invite an immediate response from the supporters of the system long ago adopted in trotting in which stablemates are bracketed irrespective of ownership). Racing secretaries feel that few corrupt practices are attempted today, thanks to the filming of races, electric starting gates, photo-finish, an excellent panel of stipendiary stewards and the provision of opportunities for retrospective inquiries.

By

J. J. Boyle