CONTROVERSIAL CLAIMER AT DUNDALK DOES IRISH RACING NO FAVOURS

We are in unprecedented times. The Covid-19 crisis has changed our lives in an incredibly short space of time. So often, the horse racing bubble can offer sanctuary from the stresses and problems of the real world, but Covid-19 has invaded that too.

The only horse racing left in Europe is in Ireland, so understandably there has been a great amount of focus on it as people long for some brief semblance of normality in what are very worrying times.

Thurles on Saturday was a roaring success. The audience for the coverage of it on ITV4 peaked at 544,000 and one can only imagine that many more thousands tuned in on both sides of the Irish Sea on Racing TV and Virgin 2.

The decision to continue racing in Ireland under strict behind-closed-doors protocols has been controversial, but it is undoubtedly serving its purpose of keeping the Irish horse racing industry on the road and generating significant amounts of economic activity on both sides of the Irish Sea.

However, much bigger audiences bring much greater levels of scrutiny. The card held at Dundalk on Friday was also the subject of hugely-increased interest, so it really was a head-in-hands moment for supporters of Irish racing for the Crowne Plaza Dundalk Race & Stay Claiming Race at 14:30 to generate as much controversy as it did.

To briefly surmise what occurred, it was a race that was clearly set to be dominated by trainer Denis Hogan from the moment the declarations came through. His two runners Yuften (rated 92) and Tony The Gent (rated 75) - both of which were owned by the same connections - were rated much higher than all their rivals and were sure to be the dominant players in the market.

Given they raced off level weights, Yuften had 17lb in hand of Tony The Gent based on official figures and having won seven of his nine starts in claimers since coming to Ireland, he was understandably put in as the short-priced favourite. Overnight, the betting was in the region of 4/9 Yuften and 9/4 Tony The Gent.

For any single trainer to have such a strong hand in a race is notable, but that both runners were trained by Denis Hogan served to fan the flames of scrutiny for some. Many trainers are regularly labelled as “gambling yards” by the racing public and media. It isn’t always justified. Rightly or wrongly, Hogan’s yard has attracted such coverage in the past, so the moves in the betting markets around his runners tend to attract more attention than others.

As well as that, Hogan was in the headlines last year as at least four of his runners in Britain attracted pre-race enquiries from the BHA, seemingly due to the betting patterns surrounding them.

Thus, purely from a perception point of view, these elements of the case added up to a situation whereby multiple commentators had flagged last Friday’s race at Dundalk as being one to tread carefully with until the market moves played out close to the off.

As the race approached, Yuften opened up at 8/11 with Tony The Gent at 15/8. What transpired in the final exchanges in the market was one-way traffic, with Tony The Gent being punted into 10/11 and Yuften drifting to 6/4.

Given that Yuften was so far clear of his stable mate Tony The Gent on official figures, betting moves that strong and late in circumstances such as those served to set alarm bells ringing for all those that were watching. It’s fair to say that, by and large, betting people are cynical people and they don’t need much encouragement to think the worst of every situation. However, even the most fair-minded observer would have had concerns about this race even before the stalls opened.

Rather than relieving any concerns, the race itself served to throw petrol on the flames of suspicion that had been ignited by the market moves.

The easy-to-back Yuften missed the break and was immediately driven along. It should be said that Yuften is inconsistent from the stalls and has missed the kick more than a couple of times in the last year or so, but he is anything but a habitual slow starter.

Still disputing last position as the field entered the straight, Yuften briefly didn’t get the clearest of runs and then made headway under hands-and-heels riding, with his rider choosing not to use his stick until just inside the 150 yard pole, at which point he still had approximately four lengths to make up on his stable mate Tony The Gent, who had been given a much more positive ride and had the race in the bag at the furlong pole. In the end, Tony The Gent prevailed by an easy 2¼ lengths with Yuften finishing a never-nearer second.

As could only be expected, this lit up racing's corner of social media with comment. The international reputation of the integrity of Irish racing isn’t in the greatest place as it is, so for a controversial series of events such as this to happen on such a high-profile stage predictably resulted in a furious reaction.

Attention soon turned to what the raceday stewards would do. While this space has regularly been critical of Irish stewarding in the past, in this case they did exactly the right thing once the race had concluded. They called a running-and-riding inquiry focusing on Yuften, collected all the relevant evidence from those involved and from the vet, then referred it to the IHRB for further investigation.

This is clearly a case that warrants deeper investigation than is practical in a time-restricted racecourse environment and it seemed fairest to all involved to refer it on rather than come to a rushed decision based on incomplete evidence. Here are the details of the initial inquiry that have been released.

Referring the case to the IHRB will allow the investigators ample time to dig deeper into it. Last month, it was revealed that the IHRB had signed a deal with the BHA for them to offer additional integrity monitoring of betting patterns on Irish racing.

The IHRB has confirmed to me that the BHA have recently commenced this role and that their betting investigators covered last Friday’s meeting at Dundalk. This could turn out to be significant for this investigation, as the betting patterns and any accounts that placed suspect bets on the race in question will be subjected to a much deeper level of scrutiny than would have been the case had the race taken place just a short time earlier.

As mentioned earlier in this piece, there have been cases in Britain where jockeys have been spoken to before races to make them aware that the betting patterns on the race have raised suspicions and that their ride will be subjected to particular scrutiny. The rules in Ireland allow the IHRB to take such pre-race action, but it won’t be clear until the referral hearing whether that was done in this case.

If it wasn’t, one wonders might such intervention have brought about a different conclusion. As a general point, making such action more common is something for the IHRB to consider going forward now that their ability to monitor betting patterns has been significantly beefed up.

As regards the initial inquiry, while some have attached significance to the fact that Yuften was found to be lame post-race, personally I wouldn’t consider this to be relevant mitigation. Post-race lameness is only relevant if the rider of the horse reports in his initial evidence that the horse didn’t feel right and that it led to them not fully extending the horse.

While Joe Doyle reported that Yuften moved poorly throughout, it didn’t appear to impact on his willingness to ask him for full effort, as he rode him out to the line and was at his most vigorous inside the final furlong. Thus, the post-race lameness doesn’t appeal as being a significant factor in this case.

In the interests of balance, it should be said that there may well have been nothing untoward in this race at all. One recalls the case of a number of very suspicious and large drifts on Melon and Yorkhill, both trained by Willie Mullins, at the Dublin Racing Festival in 2018. Following a very thorough investigation into the betting patterns and those that drove them, it was found that nothing untoward had taken place, with large players taking a form-based view having caused the betting moves. There is every possibility that was the case here. The moves in the betting market could have been driven by form-based opinions, with the circumstances and the way the race panned out making it look far worse than it actually was.

It will be the referral hearing that will judge whether any rules were broken by those involved with a full set of evidence in front of them to guide them. Thus, it would be irresponsible for anyone to give a strong public opinion on the guilt or innocence of those involved prior to the case being heard.

However, regardless of what the referral hearing concludes, the fear would be that the damage has already been done to Irish racing’s reputation as the perception of it was so poor. Barring a judgement of notable severity is passed down, only a small percentage of those that saw what played out at Dundalk on Friday and drew their own conclusions are likely to be aware of the outcome of it.

If the wider reputation of the integrity of Irish racing is to be improved, there has to be significantly greater deterrents and better processes put in place to achieve that. That the IHRB have significantly increased the monitoring of betting patterns in Irish racing is a step in the right direction, but greater levels of scrutiny and reporting from raceday stewards is the key to bringing about real change.

The case has been put forward in this space for many years that a centralised panel of professional stewards would be much better placed to achieve this than the current stewarding structures. Whether that ever comes about remains to be seen, but until then it is the raceday stewards that have to be brave and lead the way in policing the sport with a rigour that allows the racing and betting public to have confidence in it.