A Right Balls Up

Gamla Stan

Gamla Stan

At the Start
Joined
Aug 19, 2005
Messages
4,337
Stuff like this should not be happening...

From the RP:

THE BHA is to investigate why racegoers and punters were left unaware Danum Dancer had been gelded before he won at Southwell on Tuesday before deciding if amendment is needed to the procedure for trainers informing them of the operation.

The Neville Bycroft-trained five-year-old's victory was the second high-profile example in a week of a horse winning who had undergone a gelding operation - often cited as a means of improving performance - while still officially registered as a colt or entire.

Paul Struthers, the BHA's media relations manager, said due consideration would be given to both Danum Dancer's case and that of the Linda Jewell-trained R Woody, a 100-1 winner at Southwell on December 5 on his first run since a gelding operation, but still listed as a colt at the time.

Struthers said: "Danum Dancer has been running as entire when we know now that he isn't one. Mr Bycroft said he informed us of the change by completing the necessary paperwork at the time.

"That is something we will look into to establish if there has been oversight on our part. Once we know, we canthen consider whether any amendment to the current procedure is necessary."
 
Indeed. The thing is, it's not remotely funny. It's a disgrace in fact, information like this should be freely available, there's already a serious lack of data and information in racing without now starting to omit important facts like this.

I feel sorry for Struthers, he has to toe the BHA line so much, the temptation to scream "I work for complete clueless idiots" must be quite high at times.

They'd be strung up in the US and rightly so.
 
:lol:

Yes - and both horses agree wholeheartedly with the topic's title! It's true, though, of course the Punting Public should be aware that they're now g's and not c's, but if the BHA had the info to hand, it's up to it to ensure that the message creeps into the registration process and the race cards. I don't think there's the hint of wild betting coups here, is there?

Gamla, I'm not sure what this 'serious lack of data' is that you're complaining about. Christ, the race cards (newspaper, RP or course's) now contain almost every bit of data that a punter could want - days since last run, all the form, what going the horse won/lost on, RR, F, BD et al, first time blinkers, tongue-tie, visor, blinkers, gelded, new trainer, drop in class, blah, blah. The only things you could add would be using a different type of bit or noseband, and conditions since last run: WO (wind op), (Ti) tendon injury, (Co) colic, (Bi) back injury, (Spr) sprain, (Fi) foot injury, (RW) ringworm, (RS) rain scald, (Ei) eye injury, and on and on and on. If you think race cards are too expensive now, imagine their cost to cover all these services from Weatherbys and the extra two pages to fit in all the data, the majority of which won't mean Jack Schitt on the day!
 
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No, not at all but either the BHA should get their house in order (something which has needed to be done for a long time) or if connections didn't inform the BHA, the horses should be disqualified.
 
What I'm not sure of is whether it's solely up to the trainer or owner (or both) to tell the BHA if their horse is debobbillated, or whether the vet who performs the op has to, either as well as, or solely. But between the three connected to the op, one of them surely should have done so before the horse ran again. I'm not sure how helpful it would be to disqual the horses so far after they've raced, especially if in future, for example, they weren't even placed. Fining whoever should have filed the change in status would be a corrective measure. But sometimes these things get overlooked accidentally, with no malice aforethought.
 
The Racing Post have had Hurricane Fly down as a gelding for the past year or so, according to Willie Mullins in his stabletour for them the horse was gelded this past summer.

Too many inaccuracies in racing - agree with Gamla that both should be disqualified.
 
Widening the debate somewhat, how significant do people think a gelding operation is in general? I can see that where horses have proven difficult or shown temperament it can help, but I don't consider it as a serious factor in the cast majority of cases.

Not making a defence for it not being reported, but when wind-ops don;t have to be reported, I can't say I feel strongly enough that gelding ops should be.
 
davidjohnson said:
Widening the debate somewhat, how significant do people think a gelding operation is in general? I can see that where horses have proven difficult or shown temperament it can help, but I don't consider it as a serious factor in the cast majority of cases.

Not making a defence for it not being reported, but when wind-ops don;t have to be reported, I can't say I feel strongly enough that gelding ops should be.
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Being gelded can make a really significant difference in many individuals, but no perceptible difference in others. It's not quantifiable. It works like magic with some though.
 
There are far too many omissions, as far as giving or not giving punters any edge is concerned. For example, you have horses which are off for a while because they've picked up a minor injury, but one which precludes them being worked. They come back to the track with (245) against their name, but no reason given. Just something like "should be fresh from a long lay-off". But why the lay-off? Unless the horse is highly-rated, the middle ranks and certainly the serfs don't warrant a line of explanation anywhere. Same as wind ops, which are very significant: LADY FLORENCE, nice grey filly of the Coogans, was forever not quite getting home until they found an errant flap of skin in her gullet, which was flopping across her windpipe under the duress of a finish, where she consistently faded. Snip-snip, off comes the flap, and she zips out, stays zipping, and wins well. But who knew about that? Only the tiny yard, I'd venture. Not that there was any coup there - far from it. But it would've been nice for punters to have had that clue to figure in the equation. I personally think that all procedures which are likely to have an effect on a horse's performance should be reported in race cards. You'd surely like to know if a hurdler had broken down, leading to its long lay-off, wouldn't you? Or that a good sprinter had been off with ringworm? If the trainers don't want to tell you, they're not constrained to say a word - especially if they run a gambling yard, and would much prefer such intelligence to benefit themselves and their owners. You, the punter, are often the last person of interest to them.

Gelding can certainly tone down a horse whose mind is on bonking and who is distracted in the pre- and parade rings by 'the girls'. If he's too distracted and isn't likely to be the next STS, then snippety-snip, and the hormones calm down, leaving our lad to concentrate on his career. That's why the majority of male horses are castrated - there'd be far too much fighting, squealing, and naughtiness without the vet's attentions. Unlike the fillies, who are only 'up for it' when coming into season, I'm afraid the lads are always keen!
 
Firstly when you geld a horse, you fill in a form and submit it to Weatherby's in which they send you back a nice sticker to go on your passport which reads Gelded since registration. Now given all yards must do this, the horse would not have been allowed to run had his passport not shown that he was a gelding. Whilst the BHA info site is very good, most racing media sources take the details at the 5 day decs before all decs are confirmed and that. Only last week I had to ring up the Racing Post to inform them I had new colours as on their decs Stargazy was down in my ghastly red, yellow and green colours although on the BHA site my colours were shown as White, Light Green hoop. This would be the case on a gelding, and whilst it would say on the horses profile it is essentially down to the media to check they have everything up to date according to the BHA site. Now if these horses had the stickers in their passports then they would read as a gelding on their passport and also would show under the BHA site as geldings. If the media haven't updated this, or if the BHA haven't made the changes on their site, this is not the trainers fault. Also first run after a gelding operation the horse will appear on the passport check list at the racecourse to make sure the operation has been done. This list is sent by the BHA to the course. If the passport doesn't display the sticker, they either haven't informed Weatherby's or They haven't attached the sticker yet. Both are breaches and if this was found to be the case the horses would be disqualified.

My money would be on a media F up on this occasion.
 
krizon said:
There are far too many omissions, as far as giving or not giving punters any edge is concerned. For example, you have horses which are off for a while because they've picked up a minor injury, but one which precludes them being worked. They come back to the track with (245) against their name, but no reason given. Just something like "should be fresh from a long lay-off". But why the lay-off? Unless the horse is highly-rated, the middle ranks and certainly the serfs don't warrant a line of explanation anywhere. Same as wind ops, which are very significant: LADY FLORENCE, nice grey filly of the Coogans, was forever not quite getting home until they found an errant flap of skin in her gullet, which was flopping across her windpipe under the duress of a finish, where she consistently faded. Snip-snip, off comes the flap, and she zips out, stays zipping, and wins well. But who knew about that? Only the tiny yard, I'd venture. Not that there was any coup there - far from it. But it would've been nice for punters to have had that clue to figure in the equation. I personally think that all procedures which are likely to have an effect on a horse's performance should be reported in race cards. You'd surely like to know if a hurdler had broken down, leading to its long lay-off, wouldn't you? Or that a good sprinter had been off with ringworm? If the trainers don't want to tell you, they're not constrained to say a word - especially if they run a gambling yard, and would much prefer such intelligence to benefit themselves and their owners. You, the punter, are often the last person of interest to them.
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Totally disagree with this. When you are paying 15 - 20K a year for your horse to be trained, why should every decision you make be made public ????

You have normally been paying a lot of money when the horse wasn't right and been scratching your head. You are the one who pays to have it investigated and then pays for it to be corrected, which isn't guaranteed to work. If this means you may have an edge next time then brilliant, and some trainers are very open on their websites and state anyway. But next you will be asking for trainers to submit every bit of detail about every horse. What's more it stands to reason if a horse has over a certain amount of time off the track it has had a problem, it's not rocket science to have noticed that when Stargazy ran at Kempton he was showing as (296) which was a long time off for a frequent runner like him. It clearly showed something had been amiss with the horse, I'm pretty sure even David Blunkett could have worked that one out. But for the Racing Press I am hardly going to go into detail about what happened to him, or if he got injured again, or ran terrible then you would have the "anti racing" people and the Nature Freaks going on it was cruel to run and all that when they know sod all about the horse. For what it's worth, he may have been tailed off but he blew up badly having ran too free and given he doesn't really see out a mile, hates Kempton and never runs well first time, it would have been wrong to have made a judgement about the horse on that effort, but had I reported the nature of his injury I'm sure there are people who would have.
 
Flame said:
Totally disagree with this. When you are paying 15 - 20K a year for your horse to be trained, why should every decision you make be made public ????
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Because you're racing in public and the prize money you're racing for is only there because of the public.
 
Well, it's a free forum, Flame, so of course you can disagree. However, when there's been a significant enough change in a horse's condition that it can impact upon its performance, I do think that the public has a right to know. Hell's teeth - even some owners barely know what their trainers do! I'm not talking about when a horse has had some minor condition, but one where that condition has already affected its ability to produce its best, and especially where there have been breakdowns. If you see a horse has been off for over a year (and not between 2 and 3, where it might just be growing on), you've a right to be suspicious. Taking a horse out of training for such a long spell means summat's not right. When you re-present this horse on a track with nary a word as to why it's been absent, then, yes, Gamla Stan's words are perfectly valid - the public, which supports the reason for you having a horse in the first place - should know why.

I never said 'every decision you make' - you've just gone a bit wild there. If I switch trainers, nobody needs to know why. It could be that one's nearer to where I live after a house change, that's all, but there's no need for the public to know that. But if my very much up-and-coming 2 y.o. has had recurrent colic, then I think the punters ought to be in the know. The horse could now be significantly less fanciable after illness.

In all truth, anything that the trainer does which impacts the way a horse runs ought to be available to know. Most trainers are quite happy to burble on about why they're dropping/increasing the distance, why the horse is/isn't wearing blinkers, why it's in a tongue tie, etc., but when there are issues particularly about its health, then certainly these should be transparent to all.
 
I agree with Flame to the extent that owners have no obligation to make public everything about the horse… up to a point that is. It is however necessary for owners/trainers to notify the authorities if a horse has been gelded. They claim to have done this. The authorities are looking into it. I agree with GS most of all that this shouldn’t happen, whoever’s to blame.
 
krizon said:
What I'm not sure of is whether it's solely up to the trainer or owner (or both) to tell the BHA if their horse is debobbillated, or whether the vet who performs the op has to, either as well as, or solely.
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Nothing to offer to the subject eitherway but I must say what a fabulous word.
 
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