Confusion reigns after button error

IT WAS a tale Trentham.

Experienced starter Garry Phillips pressed the wrong button when starting the third race at Saturday’s premier meeting, setting off the false start siren.

The error, which came after a series of incidents had already delayed the race by 10 minutes, resulted in a $20,000 three-year-old race being declared void.

It was a expensive outcome for both the Wellington Racing Club and the connections of the runners, though club officials have already decided to pay $500 to the owners of the affected runners.

An inquiry was opened into the action of the starter but adjourned.

Late scratchings had already reduced an eight-horse field to six runners and there was confusion among the riders when the siren sounded, despite the gates appearing to open normally.

The riders of Zamperini and Post D’france pulled their horses up soon after the start but the four other riders, though initially easing their mounts, continued in the race, which was won by Peter Piper, from Fredrick William, Jakob Gambino and Jabez.

Damian Browne, who rode Peter Piper, said he had been unsure whether a false start had been declared.

“I still don’t know what was happening but decided to play to the whistle,” he said after dismounting.

The stipendiary stewards requested a ruling from the judicial committee, which agreed with the views of chief stipendiary steward Cameron George that the race should be made void, ensuring that all bets would be refunded.

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The committee had little option as a false start had been declared, albeit inadvertently, and it would have been untenable, from the punters’ viewpoint, for the result to have stood.

Every runner was affected, to varying degrees, and punters, who had invested more than $170,000 on the race, had not been presented with a level playing field.

Phillips, who had been up and down the starter’s ladder several times before the start while he dealt with horses breaking through the gates and playing up in the barriers, said yesterday that the error occurred after he had placed the “starting mechanism” on the ground, after descending the ladder.

“It has two buttons on it and when I picked it up, as I went up the ladder again, it was the wrong way around in my hand.

“One of the horse’s was playing up again and I just wanted to get the race underway and pressed the button without looking down [at the handpiece] and it was the wrong one.

“It was a careless mistake on my part and if I’m in the wrong, I will put my hand up.”

Phillips, who has been the Wellington Racing Club starter for about 20 years, said he could recall only one similar incident.

“Something similar happened at Woodville one day, but that was a malfunction and we still don’t really know what happened that day.”