"TOO MANY BROKEN MEN"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 20

"TOO MANY BROKEN MEN"

EVIDENCE AT PONY RACING

INQUIRY,

(CKITID FBHS AStoCUTIOK. —COPTMGHT.)

SYDNEY, 23rd November.

At the pony racing inquiry direct denials were given to allegations against a stipendiary steward being connected with bookmaking, also that stewards betted on racecourses. In regard to the latter, an offer was made by one racing club that it would pay £500 towards the expenses of a tribunal to inquire into the allegations.

A bookmaker, in subsequently p" ing evidence, reasserted that he was well aware that stewards betted, and declared that racing could not be honest because there were too many broken men about it. He did not consider a man who pulled a horse was necessarily a "crook." So long as it suited the owner, it was quite honourable. Asked if the owner of a pulled horse was 1! a "crook," he replied that some of the most honourable men in the business pulled their horses. If nobody thereby was robbed of anything, a pulling owner was not a thief. He said that many "stiff" horses were run, but if they were going to rub "stiff" horses out, they might as well rub out the lot. They had to be there or nobody would attend. Occasionally there was a ring among jockeys.