THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - QUEENSLAND TRAINERS IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

By Graham Potter | Sunday, September 11, 2016

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The new Racing Queensland Integrity Commissioner’s exchange with trainers at a meeting earlier this week was certainly an eye opener in several respects.

The topic of conversation was the Commissioner’s mandatory penalty standard proposal which had previously been circulated to trainers.

Mandatory can be defined as, ‘required by law’ or ‘compulsory’ meaning there would be no room for movement in terms of penalty for anybody found guilty at a Racing Integrity authority level under specific rules falling under the mandatory penalty clause.

Now there is an old chestnut that says that anybody who does nothing wrong has nothing to fear from any penalty for any transgression of the law.

Truth is, it is not as simple as that.

Some of the stories put forward by trainers can certainly attest to that fact.

A horse inadvertently returned to the wrong stall by a work-rider could have a catastrophic flow on effect when the wrong horse is treated and taken to the races.

A stable-hand, who is on some sort of some medication, relieves himself in a stable (it does happen) or somebody is using some sort of skin cream ... these were other examples given of how substances can unknowingly be passed on to a horse.

One person even brought up the fact that sand being used in the stabling area in a racing precinct up north possibly had contaminants in it which, if transferred to a horse, could lead to a positive swap.

Believe these stories or don’t believe them, but the principle behind each of these accounts opens up a real Pandora’s Box of possibilities that does not bode well for the trainer who simply cannot be every corner of his or her stable at every given moment. Neither can their vision cover a 360 degree arc.

Yet the rules say that trainers are held responsible for anything that happens to a horse under their care. If anything untoward happens the rule concludes that ‘the trainer and any other person who was in charge of such horse at any relevant time may be punished’.

Not the trainer and /or any other person.

Many years ago John Schreck, the well respected former Chief Steward in Sydney and Hong Kong, tried to get the wording of the rule changed to and / or but was unsuccessful, so the trainer remains locked in for any punishment that might be due.

This begs the question, is the rule a fair one or is it in place only because other options are too complicated?

Whatever the answer to that question is, even the small list of examples listed above surely emphasises the fact that every case cannot be generalised under a mandatory sentencing banner.

Mandatory penalties has been called a lazy way of imposing the law and it certainly can be argued that any justice in the mandatory sentencing system pales in comparison to the more thorough method of treating every individual case on its own merits.

There is a whole lot more to this story of course with racing’s justice system having a history of being plagued by loopholes and lawyers and, let’s be clear, nobody wants any offender to escape the net ... but mandatory penalties?

It’s the Commissioner's call.

He arrives with good intentions. Let’s see if that translates into good decisions.