FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK: POLICING RACING AND THE ON-GOING CHALLENGE TO FIND A BETTER WAY

By John Schreck | Wednesday, September 28, 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.

Policing racing ... then and now? An HRO reader has asked for my views on the subject!

Back in my day policing racing clearly was a much simpler way of life than it is today.

Absolutely it was ... for a variety of reasons.

For one there is the social media aspect. Secondly, back then we didn’t have the corporate bookmakers to worry about. There wasn’t the betting exchanges or mobile phones to be concerned with ... and so on.

Of course a lot of betting was done through SP ... we were always aware of that ... but you could look at the betting sheets and you could follow in real time what was going on with the betting.

These days, from what I can see, it is very difficult to know what is going on in real time. It’s become over complicated.

Also, at one stage, there were only two or three horses a day that were being sampled. Now there is two or three a race ... so it just is an entirely different manner of controlling the sport.

So very different in fact that it does make for much more difficult control.

Whether the outcomes in past times in terms of inquiries were better, that would be for others to judge, but certainly outcomes were reached quicker and the perception in the sport was that justice was being done and the business went on.

That perception of control today is very different and social media adds to that of course.

People can get on twitter and facebook and make all sorts of unfounded accusations which then fly around through space, irrespective of the facts of the matter.

That serves no good purpose for anybody.

***************************************************************************************************

For many in racing nowadays the perception is that the justice system in racing has become more and more of a legal minefield over time.

The thing about racing justice, legal minefield or otherwise, is that the people who have got the power to penalise should never be frightened of justice.

If they do the right thing and give people before them a fair go that’s all that can be asked.

The power to penalise is a very onerous one and some people can handle it better than others but the underlying responsibility is there for them give anyone charged a fair go and to find a fair verdict as set out in the rules of racing.

When I first started a person wasn’t given the opportunity of pleading in mitigation. They were convicted and penalised all in the one breath ... which, of course, in hindsight was completely wrong but they were the rules of the time.

That has changed for the better in terms of creating a fairer procedure but it can be argued that other aspects of that change, while in keeping with the ‘fair go’ mantra, have created problems of their own.

The point about cases becoming more embroiled in the legalities these days is a real factor.

This has come about, in part, because even when a review committee was in place, the penalties imposed back in the day were more readily accepted by participants than is the case today.

These days a far greater percentage of parties who have been penalised do tend to take their case to appeal.

While that is there right the back end of that story is just crazy.

It is just beyond belief how long some cases take to be brought to a conclusion once it gets to be a legal battle. The only ones who benefit then are the lawyers.

In my day, the system was not perfect, but it had the huge upside of getting things done quickly so that everybody could move on.

Certain aspects needed to be improved upon. They have been, but with the stifling side effect that everything now generally takes too long.

So, again, certain aspects need to be improved upon as the search for a proper balance continues.

If quick justice is good justice ... well, racing currently comes nowhere near to a pass mark in that regard.

In fact it has steadily been moving away from that sound criteria which just goes to show that administrators in every era encounter problems which challenge them to find a better way.