No. They are adding. 801(1)(s)(iii)
You are missing the point I think. The Rules of Racing do not supercede any statute as MF suggested. In this case, in particular, the Bill of Rights. Changing the rule doesn't alter that.
They are changing the rule if you read the first post again.
The Morton case was tested against the rules at THAT time.
Given the crap vitriol spewing from some individuals I support any measure to rein that in. However I would have thought the Harmful Digital Communications Act would cover most issues.
since i posted this comment,the horse akula has had its ownership changed officially on hrnz records,obviously done in the last 2 days by hrnz.So at least its finally been done i suppose.
sold a year ago to n40 racing,according to hrnz records,the ownership is now k butt and n40 racing and that ownership was from 4.1.2026.
Even though it met qualifying standards in a trial a week ago,its official racing status is shown as "unqualified or current qualification status unknown".
the other 2 horses sold a year ago at the sales still have not had the ownership changed,but all 3 of the horses are shown trained by k butt.
Correct procedure and what the rules say,seem simple enough to follow.
The thing about yearling sales, is there doesn't appear any ambiguity to when a horse changes ownership,its pretty straight forward.
But in this case,obviously not.
HRNZ are the ones who promoted through lots of publicity on their website the horses concerned, yet its turned out they have been examples of hrnz official oversight which seems not to follow their own rules.