With reference to the title of the thread, i would argue that the stupidity of the BHA has no limits. They are the most incompetent (dis)organisation on this tiny planet of ours. Racing will continue its long, slow painful death whilst this bunch amateur idiots remain in charge. Off the top of my head in just five minutes i thought of the following.
The complete f**k up at Nottingham about 6 or 7 years ago when the wrong horse was mistakenly announced over the tannoy as a non runner whilst the horses were at the post and it wasnt allowed to run.
Around the same time two horses from the Ivan Furtado stable were mixed up ran in the wrong races. This was obviously not the first time it had happened but the BHA (yet again) said they would put measures in place to make sure it didnt happen again. A few months later it happened again with a couple of Charlie McBride horses. It has happened a few times since.
We had the fiasco of Lossiemouth being allotted the wrong weight at Cheltenham early last year. That wasnt too long after four horses carried the incorrect weights in a race at York. They hadnt even noticed that they had changed the ratings in the race conditions.
How many photo finish cock ups have we seen ???? I remember Absaloms Lady in the Christmas hurdle many moons ago. There have been many since The clowns at the BHA say after every f**k up that they are putting measures in place to "make sure it doesnt happen again" What a load of f**king tosh !!!! A mate of mine who likes piling into a shorty now and again got well screwed over when the clowns at Kempton (again) called the wrong result in the Bird For Life/Oregon Gift race. If i remember rightly his bet was a 550/500.
Then there was the Gavin Cromwell horse that they refused to let run because they had f**ked the weights up. The name of the horse escapes me but i know it was at Wolverhampton.
Or the case of Sean McBride in the Danny Brock affair when the BHA morons first of all said that the penalty guidance system had been changed since a previous case and then at a later date realised that it had NOT been changed. He was banned for 7 years but his lawyer argued that it should only have been 6 months. When the idiots tried the case again they moved the goalposts and reduced his ban from 7 years to 5 years.
I could go on but it is winding me up. No doubt many of you could add plenty to this short (?) list of mine.
So in summary, the BHA are a bunch of f**king useless morons who cause more damage to an already dying sport and they havent stopped yet.
Just you watch !!!
As with everyone else, you are entitled to your opinion. I see things a bit differently though. As my comments are generally supportive of the BHA, I’m not imagining they will garner a lot of support here, but that is no reason not to put them forward.
You could argue it is a low bar, but I would say the BHA is very far from being the worst Sporting Governing Body in this Country and it is way ahead of many International Horse Racing Authorities in terms of Equine Welfare, Drug Testing and Control, as well as in Integrity issues. Unfortunately, they will never be able to effectively oversee all aspects of this Sport, as vested interests within it, jealously protect their own interests.
I’m sure the BHA is far from perfect, but Horse Racing must be quite a difficult Sport to administer, as it has so many separate Stakeholders, who understandably want to push their own, mainly financial, interests. It is also the norm in life, for any discontent (fairly, or unfairly) about any issue to be directed at whatever Authority exists in that sphere, be it Government, Police, Referees, Governing Bodies, etc. However, Horse Racing has managed to, by and large, avoid the types of controversy that have engulfed other UK Sports, like Athletics, Gymnastics, Cycling, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Table Tennis and probably many more, whilst continuing to be well run. This is more impressive in this day and age, given the opposition to, and obvious risks of, it being a dangerous sport involving a much-loved animal.
The BHA employ about 250 people and rely on many more, from other organisations on a race day - they can’t all be “useless morons”. However, these are human and they will sometimes make mistakes. I understand it can be easier to accept others mistakes if they do no cost you, or they may even benefit you, personally, but I think most would confess that at some point in their life they have made a mistake, and probably a silly one.
The focus of your discontent with the BHA, as expressed, is mainly related to mistakes made on race day. For context, there are about 10,000 races a year, involving around 88,000 runners. I don’t imagine there are too many people celebrating the 99.9% of races that proceed without incident, but there are a lot of people, many employed by the BHA, that facilitate the enjoyment we have of those races. This never seems to acknowledged.
When, I first got interested in racing as a very young boy, about 60 years ago, I’m sure there were loads of wrong results called in photo finishes and I’m sure lots of “ringers” turned up in races and won them. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of racing then, and we have progressed massively since then and it is now very rare to see these types of mistakes made. So a rare error now is no big deal in the grand scheme of things, as long as lessons are learnt for the future. You assert that they always say they are putting measures in place to make sure things don’t happen again. Well, it is true, and these measures have worked. The Bird for Life race in March 2018 you mentioned was I think the last race where the wrong result was called and not corrected before weighed-in was called. The judge that day was then sacked 4 months later after a further error (which was corrected before weighed-in called). The same system corrected a wrong call at Sandown, where they have 2 winning posts, when RaceTech provided the judge with the wrong photograph of a hurdle race finish. I’m not aware of any similar wrong results in the approximately 75,000 races since then, so that is pretty good going.
Whilst the BHA accept responsibility for these Raceday cock-ups, they aren’t always at fault. They did accept blame for Charlie McBride running the wrong horse, but it was the Trainers fault and he was fined £1,500 for his trouble. When Ivan Furtado committed the same offence 6 months later in January 2018, there was a new procedure in place whereby horses were scanned upon leaving the stables. I’m not sure how these were circumvented, but Furtado ended up with a £2,000 fine. Again, the BHA promised further measures and this mix-up hasn’t happened since, more than 75,000 races later. However, it has happened in Ireland, with a much smaller horse population and racing calendar, on at least 2 occasions, at Galway in 2021 and Killarney 2 years ago.
With so many races, often with complicated conditions, I’m surprised there aren’t more errors with weights. The three you have highlighted from the last 5 years (50,000 races) were all picked up before the race was run. Lossiemouth had been allotted a 6lb penalty for winning a Grade 1, which was correct, were it not for the fact a further condition meant this should have been halved if that success was as a juvenile.
The race where 4 horses ran with wrong weight was due to a change of previous conditions and connections were all offered the chance to withdraw the horses and be refunded. They all still ran.
The Gavin Cromwell horse had the wrong weight allotted as a result of 2 quick wins that hadn’t been picked up on. It is no credit to the BHA, but if they had been, he wouldn’t have been qualified to run anyway. That particular error doesn’t appear to have happened in the almost 5 years since.
The photo finish farce involving Absalom’s Lady, happened in 1994, 12 and a half years before the BHA came into existence, so I don’t think they can be blamed for that one! Worryingly though, the judge involved was still around and making mistakes 12 years later and had been involved in the training of judges (again before the advent of the BHA)!
So, all-in-all, I am saying the BHA are doing a pretty good job. However, in case it appears that I am an apologist for them, I would say that one massive issue I have with them was their slavish adherence to the interests of the big Bookmakers when reducing the FOBT’s limit was being debated 6 years ago. I know the financing of the Sport is reliant on the profitability of Bookmakers, but if your Sport can’t survive without a machine programmed to make you lose and cause untold harm and misery to many of your customers, then you don’t deserve to survive. Furthermore, it was their actions at that time that have made the arguments to deal with the currently proposed tax equalisation of Gambling taxes, so much harder to make.
), but every time i see the name of the new chairman of the BHA (whenever he decides to bother to start the job) Lord Allen, i immediately think of Ray Alan and Lord Charles. You can see where i am coming from here. And just to further the point, we all know that the BHA are a bunch of clowns and comedians and they have just now added a ventriloquist to the outfit.
doh) is bet builders, bet builders and more bet builders.