Chief Stipe

Yeah we actually learnt Morse code without realising it.

LOL just thought of some more stories regarding pulling the wool over a few unofficial bookies.

Actually this reminds of my old man. A horse lover first - used to gallop ponies with his mates up and down the Blaketown beach. Anyway he got into Harness racing probably because even then it was a cheaper option for the average bloke. Loyal man my dad - turns out my mother was a reli of some pretty good horse trainers so dad invested. Had a lot of success - every horse he owned won a race. Never had a champion if only because injury and bad luck stopped his horses from reaching their full potential. So back to the topic at hand - dads great racing era was in the 70's and early 80's. He liked a good punt. So the trick as an owner was to set the horse up for the big win. In those days the first was often the best but later on you could place your horse on fitness and class to set up a killing. The trainer would ring after the last fast work and give the oil on his horse and the other stable runners. "Get On" was the phrase to be heard. So he would wander down to the TAB and put the undeclared cash on pick up his yellow hand written tickets and 90% of the time clean up. Unfortunately he liked to tell his mates the "oil" and as I argued with him not to I'm sure the divi's were smaller than they could have been. Unfortunately it was a small town and we had a manual phone exchange. We were on a party line our number 895M - damn sight harder to remember numbers now! But it turns out with a party line and a manual exchange and lax privacy laws you didn't need to wire tap. So after a while of dad and his mates cleaning up the whole town was in on it! Those were the true race fixing days!

I've just realised I must be in the inner circle as I do a damn sight better at picking harness winners than gallopers!

Yes but you could argue they achieved the best result for the punters. They didn't cut each other's throats having a speed duel in front. Isn't it driving 101 that when a better horse comes up alongside you that you hand up because you know they are unlikely to? You get the trail and if you pip the favourite everyone says "great drive"? I think legally this is going to turn into a circus. The only way to remove doubt is to run races in lanes like the Olympic 400m!

Yes please be careful about naming individuals. The last thing I need is REAL suits actually knocking on the door!

If I was you lot I'd be more worried if I was getting these ads:

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I'm putting together a compilation of race video extracts where the driver of the leading horse takes more than a 1 second look behind to see who's outside or coming round. Amazing the amount of material available.

Yes but my point is did the drug "crimes" delay any action on the race fixing? All well and good for Industry Management to come out and say this debacle proves that the integrity systems are working. Clearly they haven't been. So how long ago did the RIU become suspicious given that the Police were called in 18 months ago. How come these license holders were not tested by the RIU as soon as they had evidence that there were drugs involved? Instead of agreeing with Industry Management that the integrity systems are working I would say for at least the last two years (even more) the integrity systems have been woeful. For how long have we had that dude looking at betting records?

No I think the situation is different. Was the initial investigation set up to find Class B Drug use or to investigate possible race fixing? Or both? I suspect the drug use and supply was a bonus and wouldn't have been known when they first suspected race fixing. Now with the race fixing they are now talking at least 10 races. To fix a race in harness racing I would imagine is very hard to do. Ok so a driver hands up the lead to a better horse. If that driver contested the lead and it become a match race then the same driver would be questioned by the stipes over his choice of tactics. I'm afraid this is going to get murky and down to interpretation - the key will be to prove actions led to financial gain. The problem now is we are looking at races through a different conceptual lens that is what looks suspicious from a tactical viewpoint. I'd suggest you find something in every race that looked wrong or odd but could just as easily be tactical mistakes.

I disagree. If they knew just one race was fixed and had evidence for that increasing the quantum of evidence by allowing them to continue to commit an alleged crime in my opinion is totally inadequate. What if they had charged them straight away, hauled them over the coals and win or lose the prosecution at least they would have sent a strong message and probably have nipped the errant behaviour in the bud. A subsequent 18 month investigation is indeed toothless.

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