Just when you think things could not get worse in the horse racing industry, the fraternity was rocked by the demise of Republic Bank Gold Cup winner Mobthewarrior.
One can only feel empathy towards owner Andrew Fredericks.
Mobthewarrior was one of eight horses entered in a 1,750 metres handicap for horses rated 70 and above on April 27.
On the night before the race, his stall was broken into and the horse injected with a toxic substance. He was scratched from the event as soon as the tampering was discovered.
After failing to recover from attempts to treat the ailment, the gelding was humanely put down.
The race was eventually won by Galveston, owned by Shivam Maharaj and trained by Derick Mosca. Galveston was ridden by Santiago Gonzales.
The question on the minds of all race fans is why would someone permanently injure a racehorse to prevent the horse from competing in a run of the mill, 90k purse event? Who would want to do such a thing in what is supposed to be a gentleman's event?
To be clear though, horse racing has long since given up its claim to be either the sport of kings or a gentlemen's event. It is becoming increasingly clear that the sport in T&T is being overrun by thugs and criminals. What is surprising is the continued inability of the powers that be to do anything about it.
In any reputable jurisdiction, an investigation would be triggered and the first question to be answered would be who stood to benefit from the transgressions.
Who had the motive? Once you identify the possible motives, it is not difficult to shortlist the possible miscreants and take any investigation forward from there.
The ARC announced after the Jadoo incident that the police were being brought in as well as a private investigator. Presumably they will put this matter into their hands also, so that the two recent incidents can be jointly reviewed.
The investigators/police may be able to determine if there are any common parties and whether the two incidents may even be linked.
The old adage of "where there is smoke there is usually fire" does come to mind quite readily, however. So what are we to do in the face of inaction by those in authority? The second old adage of "when you neighbour's house is on fire, it is wise to throw water on yours" also comes to mind quite readily. That is to say, does every owner or trainer wait until their horse is tampered with to get out of the sport in Trinidad?
If that is the approach then there is more than one way to achieve that objective.
One needs to ask the question, why would someone continue to train for an individual who is being widely alleged to be bringing the sport into constant disrepute? Equally important, one needs to ask the question why other owners would place their horse in the care of a trainer who seems indifferent to the allegations surrounding one of his owners. One can only wonder what would happen if owners decided that they would not leave their horses in the care of this trainer.
Then for there to be a race, you need more than one horse to compete. For the Arima Race Club to make any money at all, you need more than one horse owned by at least two different individuals to compete. As an owner, do you wait for the needle to be injected in your horse when it is scheduled to compete against a horse(s) owned by that individual?
The solution is a simple one–once the declarations are announced and there is a horse owned by that person in the race, scratch your horse! The horse might get scratched anyway if the miscreants are desirous enough of winning the race, in which case you also run the risk of losing the animal as occurred with Mobthewarrior.
In an ideal state (and I admit that T&T is far from ideal) even punters will refuse to bet on races in which that individual has a horse slated to compete, but maybe this is already happening given the moribund state of turnover on local racing compared to what is happening on American and British racing.
Natural justice might prevent the ARC from taking action against the individual.
However, concerns over natural justice do not apply if trainers decide not to train for the individual, or if owners decide to withdraw their horses from trainers who are willing to train for that individual or if owners decide to withdraw their horses from races in which that individual also has horses slated to compete or if punters decide to withhold their bets.
There are alternative avenues for owners to race horses in their colours–Jamaica and Barbados are not far and, as far as we know, horses get an opportunity to compete on their merits.
Failure to act by the authorities is reprehensible, but failure to act by owners, trainers and punters is really testimony to our failure to appreciate the wider implications of our inaction.
While we dither, racing will just continue to go from worse to worst.
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