DUAL ACCEPTORS?

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 58, Issue 4105, 25 February 1949, Page 9

DUAL ACCEPTORS?

WHAT ARE THEY? RACEGOERS’ PROBLEM BALLOTING OUT OF VALLEY BOY What are dual acceptors ? Are they horses in one ownership which have accepted for one race, or are they horses for which acceptance fees have been paid for two or more races? asks the Morrinsville Star. This problem is exercising the minds of racegoers, following the “ balloting” out of Valley Boy, top weight in the Storey Memorial Handicap, of £l6OO, run at Te Rapa on Saturday. Valley Boy and Lyn Vaals were nominated by their owner-trainers, Messrs R. and D. Douglas, but following the acceptance a racing club official, presumably on the instruction of the committee, telephoned Mr R. Douglas stating that one horse would have to be withdrawn. Caught “on the hop ” Mr Douglas decided that Valley Boy should run, but after contacting his father, Mr D- Douglas, at Thames, it was decided that Lyn Vaals should take her place in the field. Therefore, neither horse took part in the ballot from which eight others,

Kaitawa, White Blaze, Peter Nelson, Silver Race, 'Cairnwhin, Mignonette, Prince Rana and Master Ballater, were eliminated. But had the committee power to order the withdrawal of either Valley Boy or Lyn Vaals Balloting Conditions In> the official calendar of the New Zealand Racing Conference, in which • conditions attaching to all races at the*Waikato club’s meeting were advertised, it was stated that all events would be run under the New Zealand Rules of Racing. Open races would Ke run as one race, with balloting conditions applying if the number of acceptors exceeded the safety number, subject to the following conditions:— (1) Where two horses in one ownership were included in the number to bd balloted, the committee reserved the right to eliminate one of such horses from the operation of the ballot and (2) where a horse was balloted out on the first day of a two-day meeting the committee reserved the (right to eliminate it from the ballot on the second day. Ballots would be conducted in the following order (a) horses eligible for hack flat races at that meeting; (b) horses handicapped on the minimum and (c) horses handicapped within seven pounds of the minimum. The committee reserved the right to eliminate dual acceptors as it thought fit. Complied With Conditions Mr Douglas maintained that nominations and acceptances for Valley Boy and Lyn Vaals complied with all the above conditions, and they should properly have been exempt from the ballot. “ If the condition giving to the committee the right ‘to eliminate dual acceptors ’ meant what the committee had ruled in the case of Valley Boy and Lyn Vaals, why did not the’ rule state that the committee reserved the right to eliminate one of such horses in the one ownership?” asked Mr Douglas. Mr Douglas recalled that at the Waikato club’s May (1948) meeting

two horses in one ownership, Honora and Hot Pursuit, were acceptors in one race, with Hot Pursuit also an acceptor in another event on which a ballot was held, and from which Lyn Vaals was eliminated, despite the fact that she was nominated for only one race.

Neither Valley Boy nor Lyn Vaals was nominated for other races on Saturday’s programme. On Thursday the club again advised Mr Douglas that Valley Boy would not start in the race.