A CURIOUS POSITION.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 25 May 1911, Page 9

A CURIOUS POSITION.

In connection with the recent Grand National meeting (says the “Sporting Times’”) extraordinary confusion was caused in the ring at Liverpool over the settlement of one of the minor races, the Stand Welter Selling Handicap, in consequence of no one being able to rightly interpret the rules of racing. The difficulty arose through the conditions of the race stipulating that a gentleman jockey who had never ridden a winner at Liverpool was entitled to a 51b. allowance, while professional jockeys had to carry 51b. extra. Awake 11.,. ridden by Si. Wootton, and Eclat, ridden iby Mr. Gunter, ran a dead heat. Wootton put up the additional 51b, and Mr. Gunter took the 51b. from the scheduled weights. It was decided to run the dead-heat off, and Mr- Gunter calculated that he had forfeited his. right to the allowance under rules 144 and 122, which read together,, are as follows: “Every horse running a dead-heat for first place shall .be deemed the winner of the race until the dead-heat be run off,” and “Whe». any race is in dispute, both the .horse that came in first and any horse claiming the race shall be liable to all penalties attaching to the winner of that race till the matter is decided. This, taken literally, would mean that Mr. Gunter was no longer entitled to the 51b. allowance, and each horseshould have put up a 51b. penalty. No penalty, however, was carried by either Awake 11. or Eclat, and the former won 'by half a length. On returning to scale Mr. Chatterton theowner of Eclat, lodged an objection against the winner on the ground that he had not carried a penalty, but the stewards of the meeting overruled the objection, and an appeal was then made to the stewards of the Jockey Club, who, on the following day,’ ruled that the deciding heat was null and void. The stakes were then divided, but in the meantime ‘bookmakers betting ready money in the ring had paid in full over Awake ll.', and they will now have'to pay again over Eclat on the dead-heat and take their chance of getting iback from strangers at a distance half itheir Awake 11. winnings. The position is a decidedly unsatisfactory one for the men with the satchels. We can recall no case where horses have put up a penalty on running off a dead-heat, but when an apprentice has been substituted for a jockey the regulation allowance has been taken. This, to our mind, never seems quite fair. A dead-heat should be run off at the same weights and under the same' conditions as the original race- The rules as they now stand are not sufficiently clear and explicit, and it might well be argued that as the race was not absolutely decided Mr. Gunter had not yet ridden a winner at Liverpool. Rule 122, however, seems to stand in the way of this, for the race was still “in dispute.” It is certainly a point that ought to be cleared up before a similar case gives rise to another muddle.