FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK - STEWARD'S PROTESTS ARE NOT UNUSUAL IN MOST OVERSEAS RACING JURISDICTIONS

By John Schreck | Wednesday, February 3, 2016

John Schreck, a former Chief Steward in both Sydney and Hong Kong, has seen both the colourful and the dark sides of racing. His wealth of experience and his deep knowledge of racing matters across the board is unquestioned and the reputation he built as a racing ‘lawman’ remains firmly entrenched in racing’s history. Shreck’s personal blog, ‘From the Sheriff’s Desk', appears exclusively on HRO.

The steward’s protest, which ultimately decided the feature race at the Sunshine Coast on Sunday, has been the cause of some debate.

The first point to realise is that it is rare in Australia for stewards to put in a protest, but in other parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom and Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore it is not rare at all. In fact it is not unusual in most racing jurisdictions throughout the world.

In Australia, we think we lead the world in racing in all sorts of aspects, but we have much to learn from overseas countries.

Why Australian racing stewards do not use the "Inquiry" sign as it is used in good racing centres overseas I really do not know.

Secondly, it is always good to remember that protests are very divisive. Usually people will look at it from a particular point of view depending on which horse they backed.

That is only natural, but that would be a biased view ... and you would expect that the stewards would not have a biased view.

The steward that puts in a protest might have seen something untoward in the race and it is in the interests of all of the racegoers to properly determine whether the incident he or she saw affected the result of the race, or not.

It could be that a steward’s protest is sustained or it could be overruled. The important point here is that, contrary to some opinion, it is not always a given that a steward’s protest will be upheld, just as it if it is overruled, that outcome does not impact negatively in any way on the judgement of the steward concerned.

That steward has an absolute obligation to bring the issue he or she has seen to the attention of the steward’s panel and have the issue properly and independently determined.

By doing so he, or she, is doing their job.

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Talking about doing your job, Terry Bailey, Racing Victoria’s Chief Steward, returned to the job this week from a holiday and he stepped straight into the media spotlight.

Questions about the past, probing enquires about the future, professional and personal, he’s had to deal with all of that ... and more.

I have to say, I don’t know that I would have survived if social media had existed to the extent it does now in my time.

It’s just scrutiny upon scrutiny. Everybody is an expert. People put things up on the web and comments are left flying around in space for ever and a day ... and often many of the stories put out there are far removed from fact.

Take the big stories that broke around the Australian tennis Open in recent weeks ... it was just blind, crazy allegations. No names were mentioned. No games were mentioned. No bookmakers were mentioned.

That sort of thing is just dreadful and it leaves a smell over everybody in tennis.

Unfairly so, and those whose reputations might be compromised by default have little or no recourse.

The social media aspect of trying to judicially control sports today makes it very difficult.

My point is that the environment that people like Terry Bailey are working in today is much more difficult than it was in my time and I think anybody taking on that sort of job in these circumstances is to be applauded.

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Horse racing, in just about all aspects, is nothing more than a reflection of society generally.

There are good people in racing. There are bad people in racing. There are wealthy people in racing. There are poor battlers ... just as in society.

None of that is exclusive to racing, but that doesn’t make control of racing any easier.

Being a Chief Racing steward is probably the loneliest job I am aware of. It is a very difficult job.

The only thing I can say about it, as far as I’m concerned, it was one way of keeping me around horses. That was the only reason I survived in the job for forty years. I was pretty much with the horses all day, every day.

I been retired for quite a while now and I still miss the horses.

As for the ‘experts’ on social media though and the growing trend of an irresponsible press is concerned, I am very thankful that my career in racing belonged to a different era.

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