Talk is cheap. The horseracing Secret Squirrel Society is alive and well.
Nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person. The words of American author and historian George Bancroft hold true on a daily basis in the lion’s den that is the sport of kings.
It took just one telephone call to ruin Anton Marcus’ perfect evening at Greyville on Friday 9 March.The reigning South African champion jockey won the first three races on the well patronised programme, and was scheduled to ride the favourite in the fourth, a Maiden Plate over 1400m, when all hell broke loose.
The KwaZulu-Natal Stipendiary Stewards apparently received a telephone call from an anonymous informant to advise that Marcus was ‘not on the job’ and would be losing the race.
They called the jockey in and informed him of the tip prior to the race. Was this a wise move and in terms of the laid down protocol and regulations? Are there any protocols in place one wonders? As an unproven allegation thrown at any individual in this pressure-cooker type situation is surely not too bloody clever?
The SA Champion. Anton Marcus is an icon of horseracing.
Why did the Stipes rather not keep the information and allegation private and watch the betting moves and money and then observe Marcus during the race? It could be argued on the flipside that had they done that and any serious damage been done, then they may just have incurred the chagrin of the punting public. Sort of a no-win scenario.
But maybe Marcus deserved the benefit of the doubt in any case in this instance. He is a well established champion jockey with a largely exemplary disciplinary record and hardly carries the tag of a punter or crook.
The tallest trees catch the most wind and Marcus really is a giant of the saddle. He has a remarkable win strike- rate of 29%, streets ahead of his rivals, in the course of his over 100 winners this season.
No Laughing Matter. But we need to keep smiling.
Interestingly, the Anonymous Tip-Off line mentioned in the National Horseracing Authority’s most recent annual report is itself a well guarded state secret, it seems. We visited the website of the bastion and guardian of the sport’s integrity and could not find a number or any guidance as to how one can blow the whistle with any confidence and relative peace of mind. While the slogan ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ originated in World War 2, we live in different times. Transparency needs to be encouraged in this game, and folk should be encouraged to bring any deceit into the public domain and to the attention of the relevant authority.
In fact one would like to believe that the tip-off line would be promoted at every venue and in any publication remotely linked to horseracing. Anything that encourages moral hygiene and transparency in a sport perceived as a dubious pastime by many, can only be a positive.
A visibly angry Marcus slammed the caller in the post-race interview and said it would have just been his luck had he encountered traffic problems and gotten beaten. But the champion need not have feared, as in the end it all panned out well. The true professional rode a cool race from the best draw, grabbing a run down the inside rail that looked momentarily crowded and then rode the daughter of King Of Kings out to a smooth win.
So Marcus is a hero, and the caller is a villain. That’s a happy ending to the story. We’ll probably never know if it was a prank and in a game drenched in money and hard luck stories, the system has remarkably failed again.
