British racing’s ruling body will be sued by at least one bookmaker over the Speculative Bid fiasco, despite restating its apology for the confusion caused by its officials at Ascot last month.
The British Horseracing Authority said it had taken disciplinary action against an unnamed member of its raceday team but refused to offer compensation to bookmakers who lost money because of a series of conflicting announcements after the Gigaset International Handicap, in which Speculative Bid, the favourite, emerged riderless from the stalls.
Read the background here.
“It has been established that there was a failure to carry out the established protocol,” the BHA said on Thursday in its report at the conclusion of an internal inquiry. That failure meant that the betting public were not told to retain all betting slips when a stewards’ inquiry was first announced and it also led to a premature announcement of ‘weighed in’ while the inquiry was in process. As a result, bookmakers started to pay punters as if Speculative Bid had been a runner, only to be told later that the stewards had ruled him a non-runner.
Speculative Bid passes the stands riderless
Geoff Banks, who was taking bets at Ascot that day, now says he will sue the BHA for the loss he incurred through having to refund Speculative Bid backers while also having to pay out winning punters without any deduction. The motivation, he said, is not his loss, which he described as trivial, but his disgust at the BHA’s failings and the performance of its head of raceday regulation, Jamie Stier, who was present at Ascot.
“What was he doing, permitting an inquiry to be announced, subsequent to the ‘weigh-in’ signal?” Banks asked on Thursday. “It’s clear that the head of regulation didn’t understand one of the basic principles of British racing rules, which is that, once the weighed-in signal is given, that is the end of the matter. In my view, Jamie Stier should be removed from his post.”
“Their response to me emphasises that they feel no contractual obligation to betting, nor a duty of care to the betting public or the bookmakers. They’re basically saying that anything they’ve announced over the decades, about stewards’ inquiries or Rule 4 deductions, that’s all been a nonsense, because they’re now divesting themselves of all responsibility for giving accurate and timely information to their customers.”
Banks said the matter might have been resolved, had the BHA acted on a suggestion of giving free entry to the affected bookmakers to Ascot’s recent Shergar Cup meeting, something that might have cost them £8,000 in Banks’s estimation. He now believes on-course bookmakers lost around £50,000 over Speculative Bid but does not expect all of them to sue.
“I have no desire in life to have squabbles over tiny amounts of money but there’s a principle here about being open, fair and transparent. This organisation needs to change. Nobody challenges them and they don’t consult. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s just that their lawyers are more important to them.”
A BHA spokesman said the authority disagreed with Banks’s analysis but would not comment in detail at this time.
Nick Rust – ‘number of errors’
Its report spoke of sympathy for bookmakers and punters but concluded: “The BHA is clear that there is no legal basis for such [compensation] claims and the organisation is unwilling to set what could be a precedent with significant consequences further down the line.”
The report quoted Nick Rust, the BHA’s chief executive, as saying: “This was clearly a regrettable episode and, on what was a high-profile raceday, the BHA was not seen to best effect. Our investigation has established what was, in effect, a number of errors on the day, several of them sadly not excused by the fact that they were well-intentioned and seeking to improve or rectify the situation, but actually compounded the original errors. We must and will learn lessons from this episode.”
Jamie Spencer – shouting
The starter was found by the report to be at fault in opening the stalls while Speculative Bid’s jockey, Jamie Spencer, was loudly calling for him not to do so, but not to the extent that disciplinary action was required. However, the starter in question was only a part-time worker, being observed by a more senior starter. The BHA will now ensure that “the senior starter on duty should start all races on any day Group 1 or Grade 1 races are staged”.
The BHA will also consider whether to remove the rule under which the stewards eventually decided Speculative Bid was a non-runner, the report suggesting that it might be seen as “unwieldy to operate even in straightforward circumstances”.
On the question of the premature ‘weighed in’ signal, the report said: “With hindsight … the issues for betting operators and bettors would have been avoided had communication taken place from the stewards room with the racecourse announcers, the media, the betting ring inspector and off-course bookmakers before the result of the stewards enquiry was made public. The communication should have advised of our error in announcing the weighed-in signal and reiterating that, for betting purposes, the result at weighed-in signal would stand and could not be overruled.”
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