WHERE WILL IT END?

​Due to global inconsistencies regarding to what constitutes a non-runner, the B.H.A. is giving the whole matter a jolly good thinking-about. In Hong Kong, apparently, where the sport is run to appease the voracious betting habits of the locals, incidents such as at Royal Ascot this year would have resulted in Harry Angel being regarded as a non-runner ‘because in order for punters to lose on that horse they had to be in a position to win, but that was not the case’.
Let’s fly for a while with this ‘moral model’ of how this aspect of the sport should be governed. You back a horse in a 3-mile chase and it falls at the first – you were never in a position to win, so you must have your stake returned. You back a horse in a five-furlong sprint and it stands still as the gates open and loses ten-lengths, a bit like Harry Angel. You were never in a position to win, so you must have your stake returned. You back a horse that is subsequently decided by the stewards to have been ‘schooled in public’. You were never in a position to win, so you must have your stake back’. You back a horse in a mile handicap at Kempton and a swan wanders on to the track causing your horse to take avoiding action, resulting in the jockey being unshipped. You were never in a position to win, so you must have your stake returned. If a mare was found to be in season, would this be a case of ‘punters never being in a position to win’?
I could dream up two dozen such scenarios where it could be argued that punters were never in a position to win. Indeed, I dare say between us we could recall two dozen cases where a horse has whipped round at the start, given the other runners the best part of a furlong lead and gone on to win. Would the Hong Kong model only apply to sprints – they basically only have short sprints and long sprints in Hong Kong – or could the B.H.B. fashion a rule to cover every race from a five-furlong sprint to the Grand National.
This debate will take place at the top of a slippery slope and will involve cans of worms and rabbit holes. When Harry Angel flounced about in the stalls at Royal Ascot it was not only the people who punted on the horse who lost out. Owner, trainer, jockey, stable staff etc lost out. Could they be compensated in some way, as they too were in no position to win.
The unfortunate circumstances that befell the Harry Angel camp in the King’s Stand was just one of those things that cannot be legislated against. Once you establish the principle that the punter sits at the top of the pyramid the foundations of the sport are undermined. The punter is one element of a rich and varied sporting tapestry, neither less nor more important than any of the other elements. This reform, or the ‘Harry Angel rule’, as I predict it will become known, of the non-runner rules, which as sure as eggs are eggs will be implemented as the B.H.B. does not have the balls to tell Hong Kong and others that they are misguided in this matter, will cause headaches for the sport for years to come. In this country and Ireland, especially, our sport is far more varied than countries where racecourses are all left-handed, round and where races are run on an artificial surface and are rarely longer than a mile. Barristers will argue long into the night over a strict interpretation of what ‘because in order for punters to lose on that horse they had to be in a position to win’. High Court judges will take as a precedent the incident of Harry Angel ‘when the stalls opened Harry Angel only had three legs on the ground and it could be argued that punters and connections could not win’.
Well, how about a horse that knocks its head on the stall door? The horse that veers sharply left or right as the stalls open? The jockey who is half-asleep when the stall opens? The two-year-old that simply dwells in the stall? The horse that pulls up lame at halfway? The list can go on and on. And I haven’t even got to disqualification on the day or months after the event.
Leave things as they are. Punters know the risks, the pitfalls, the joy of backing a runner-up that gets the race in the stewards’ room. Punting money on the outcome of a horse race is nothing more than a complex game of Snakes and Ladders. Some days you are up, some days you are down. It’s pastime for grown-ups and should be avoided by cry-babies at all cost.