FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK - FLAWS AND LOOPHOLES. RACING WILL ALWAYS FACE NEW CHALLENGES

By John Schreck | Thursday, September 1, 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.

It is a fact of life that when there are flaws or loopholes in procedures there will be somebody looking to take advantage of that shortcoming.

Almost as certain is the fact that some people will push that envelope until they are caught leading to a review, revamp and upgrading of the systems that allowed the indiscretion to happen in the first place.

Then the cycle starts again.

I was reminded of that fact when I was asked this week about how I would categorise the Fine Cotton affair in an historical sense ... looking back after all of this time, thirty two years after that infamous day in August 1984.

My answer to the question was that the Fine Cotton affair was a dreadful blight on the sport ... pure and simple. It hurt the sport badly and it hurt a lot of people badly also ... myself included ... as all sorts of things happened at that time and no good came of it.

The sport itself was to blame for the whole episode in some way and that is why the Fine Cotton scandal stands as an absolute example of what can happen within the cycle I referred to in my introduction.

Horse racing up until that time had been very, very lax in relation to the inspection of horses. The system was so bad at that time. It is almost hard to believe how bad it was looking back from where we are now.

For example, horses, all up and down the east coast, were inspected the first time they came to the races and after that, unless they went from say Sydney to Brisbane, the chances were they would never be inspected again.

The system was just deplorable. It was designed to create problems like the Fine Cotton affair.

We had improved the inspection process a lot in Sydney ... a long time before Fine Cotton ... because brands and markings were available on computers, but they were still operating on the old system in Queensland.

Sometimes it is only when something like the Fine Cotton affair blows in your face that you recognise how bad the protocol was and you rush to fix it.

That applies with everything of course, including drug testing.

The use of elephant juice ... etorphine or elephant juice ... is another example.

The scandal that came about when it was detected was terrible for the sport, but once it was detected and dealt with, it was the end of it.

This syndrome is not particular to racing. It is the same in society. Sometimes when the laws of the land don’t work properly people manipulate them until something happens and those lax laws are tightened up.

Racing has come a long way with its policies and procedures in the thirty two years since Fine Cotton but, as the events of the last twelve months have shown, racing will always be presented with new challenges.

That too is a fact of life.

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The Hong Kong season gets under way this weekend and the club continues to go from strength to strength. Many point to it as the ultimate professional racing precinct.

I agree with that but I do hasten to point out that the more money you have the more professional you can be.

When I first went to work in Hong Kong the filming of races there wasn’t even as good as it was in Macau. Macau’s films were better than Hong Kong.

I spoke to my boss at the time Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, who is now the Chief Executive, and I explained that to him and he just said, well ... fix it. There was no talk about budget or anything like that.

That’s what happens with lots of things there. If you need a new set of starting gates they just go and buy them. As technology around the world improves they just go and get it so, in essence, they have an unfair advantage in terms of comparing them to anywhere else in the world.

It is a very unique racing jurisdiction. Obviously if you were starting up a racing jurisdiction anywhere else you would want to emulate their model.

Racing should control the product, the betting that flows from it, the television rights ... the whole thing ... as they do in Hong Kong.

It’s the perfect model for a racing industry and it is enhanced by the exclusivity that they enjoy through the lack of competition.

You see in Hong Kong the Jockey Club controls all of the betting that takes place in Hong Kong ... betting on racing, betting on sports, betting on lotteries.

It is all done by the Jockey Club and that’s what makes everything possible for them.

Even when you have all the advantages though, you still have to produce the goods.

So all credit to them as they continue to do just that.