The integrity and dependability of South African horseracing’s official statistics have been brought sharply into the spotlight after punters highlighted what appeared to be an unexplained spike in earnings reflected in the national trainer championship table last weekend.
For the sake of rounding off numbers, reigning champion Justin Snaith was approximately R1,2 million in front of his nearest challenger Sean Tarry ahead of the weekend.
But on Monday 15 July, with Snaith having not fielded runners since Wednesday 10 July, the lead had somehow increased to approximately R1,5 million.
Betting is offered by various bookmakers on the championships, and the statistics published on the National Horseracing Authority website are the official numbers utilized to determine outcomes by all stakeholders, including for a variety of industry championship honours.
NHA CEO Vee Moodley – an official investigation to follow (Pic – Supplied)
The Sporting Post spoke to NHA CEO Vee Moodley in a short call on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Moodley, who was in a conference at the time, explained that the statistics and results carried by the National Horseracing Authority were uploaded by the National Racing Bureau, and managed under the auspices of Gold Circle’s Information Technology division.
He undertook to launch an immediate investigation and said that he would call on the relevant management to provide a full and thorough explanation of the processes and audit controls in place.
He said that initial inquiries had revealed that a Hollywoodbets Kenilworth racemeeting on 23 December 2023, had not been uploaded into the NHA statistics data-base. This had been picked up and summararily uploaded without any apparent notification to any stakeholders.
Moodley said that the uploads were performed in three day cycles, and that it is possible that the holidays may have played a role in the error.
“It is too early to say whether other racemeetings have fallen into the net. This raises serious integrity issues and question marks against the reliability of the data. Despite the error having originated at the source, I take full responsibility as the data is published as official on our website. An official statement will be published in due course,” added Moodley.
