THE DISPUTED RACE NOMINATIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 22

THE DISPUTED RACE NOMINATIONS.

It i 3 said that if the Racing Club had taken our advice, founded on a wellremembered precedent, and asked the consent of all concerned to the reception of the late nominations, they would have got that consent. If that is so, it is extraordinary that anybody should have entered a protest on the ground of the breach of rule. About the question at issue, it is impossible to resist the conclusion of Mr Justice Richmond. His very lucid and admirable judgment is absolutely conclusive. The place and date of nomination were settled by the advertisement, virtually ; and the subsequent action of the stewards is not in any of the three categories provided by the rules. The Racing Club have found that the rules, which were intended to cover every possible contingency, are, through the liability of all things human to error, not as perfect as they were thought to be. They have had the advantage of a judicial decision, which has shown them that the logical perfection of their rules makes them imperfect so far as their intended scope is concerned. They can protect themselves in future by the simple expedient of making the Post Office the place of nomination, and so prevent recourse to imperfect rules for righting Post Office blunders. That the stewards behaved with perfect fairness, and that no one was injured by their action, admits of no doubt, and has been handsomely declared by the Judge. He has also pronounced inferentially that the protest was scarcely sportsmanlike. It is not sportsmanlike to take advantage of a legal technicality for the purpose of converting the loser of a race into a winner. ‘ Wrong in law, right in justice and sport’—that is what the verdict amounts to. It is a verdiet of which any Racing Club has a right to be proud. The club pays Ll9O with costs and looks pleasant. The totalisator side of the question, of course, does not go with the verdict. There is a legal decision to the effect that totalisator bets are not recoverable in a court of law.