Scratch early

Now that Peter V’landys has announced that he will be leaving his role as chief executive of Racing NSW, it’s to be hoped that his replacement will prioritise constructive engagement with counterparts in other states to seek national solutions to some of Australian racing’s more obvious problems.
One of these is dual acceptors.
Last weekend we had the ridiculous situation where final fields across the Sydney and Melbourne meetings were riddled with horses entered for both venues. While some of these were scratched from one race on Thursday morning (still almost a full day after acceptances), others were still in at both venues as late as Friday.
This is a persistent problem, and it’s not uncommon for dual acceptors to remain in both races until the Saturday morning.
The result is that for almost three days, racing’s customers — the punters — are expected to bet blind when it comes to race shape/tempo, speed map and the deductions to be imposed on the price they think they are taking.
Meanwhile, except in cases of genuine uncertainty about track conditions, the stable knows which race the horse is running in as soon as the fields and barriers are published.
Anyone privy to that knowledge therefore has a wagering edge over anyone who isn’t — just one of the many situations where the race wagering market happily accepts what would be regarded as illegal insider trading for any other form of investment.
In jurisdictions where connections are allowed to accept for more than one race at a meeting, there is a deadline (usually 5pm on the day of acceptances) for them to scratch from all bar one engagement.
It’s high time Australia’s administrators got together to impose a similar rule for horses accepted for more than one meeting anywhere in Australia on the same day.