HANDICAPPER-JUDGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 174, 26 July 1933, Page 5

HANDICAPPER-JUDGE

RACING CONFERENCE EDICT. THE CLUBS AFFECTED. The decision of the executive of the Racing Conference to instruct clubs that a handicapper must not act as judge for races on which he has also framed the handicaps was the result, it is understood, of a complaint in regard to the Feilding Jockey Club’s Easter meeting. This club’s handicapper, Mr. J. E. Henrys, being necessarily absent attending the Wairarapa and C.J.C. meetings, had the club’s judge, Mr. A. Tronson, act as his deputy to frame the second day’s handicaps. It was evidently considered that this was an unparalleled affront to the spirit of the Rules of Racing, but those who viewed it in this light were apparently quite in ignorance that the procedure was thoroughly well established, and had been tacitly approved of for several years by district committees and by the Racing Conference itself in passing programmes for other clubs that had the same man appointed to act both as handicapper and as judge. A course through the programmes of the various clubs M that have held meetings during the current season reveals the interesting result that at least three clubs have had the same man named as both handicapper and judge. They are the Dargaville Racing Club, the Waipa Racing Club, and the Bay of Plenty Racing Club, for whom Mr. F. J. McManemin has acted in the dual capacity. Mr. McManemin has so acted for the Dargaville Club for many years, it is understood, and previously he also so acted for some years for the Bay of Islands Racing Club, though now he is handicapper only for the latter club. Then there is the Waipukurau Club, for which Mr. W. P. Russell is assistant-handicapper, as well as judge. So the Feilding appointment was by no means anything unusual. The search through programmes revealed that in the South Island the positions of handicapper and judge are always kept entirely apart.