Confusion over the distinguishing caps to be worn by two jockeys riding for the same owner at Newbury last week was, it can be revealed, the latest mistake to dog Weatherbys, racing’s longstanding administrator and data provider. The company’s fine reputation is not quite so gleaming, this being the fourth error which can be laid at its door in the past eight months, the only consolation being it was not so widely noticed as the previous three.
Insiders at the British Horseracing Authority, responsible for hiring Weatherbys to carry out racing’s admin, view the company as having “a bad run” and are keen for it to find a way of improving its luck. The hope is that a large-scale project to reduce manual data entry will cut down the chance of more mistakes in future.
Human error was apparently to blame for the Newbury clanger, when the first colours of Hamdan al-Maktoum were declared to be carried by Aleef and the second by Kitaaby in a maiden race. Someone at Weatherbys mixed them up and the colours appeared the wrong way round in pre-race media. Punters and spectators were spared a lot of confusion only when, by chance, Aleef became a non-runner.
Last month’s Derby was also affected by human oversight at Weatherbys, when a tongue tie was correctly declared for the French runner Epicuris but was not included in pre-race data released to the media. As with the Newbury race, that necessitated a hurried formal announcement to explain the true state of affairs.
Weatherbys’ bad run began back in the autumn, when its system failed to spot that The Young Master was not qualified to run in a valuable, televised handicap chase at Wincanton. He duly won and the result had to be altered by the BHA when someone noticed the relevant rule. Soon after that Weatherbys published an incorrect distance for a Saturday race at Towcester and, although a correction was issued, it did not reach all sections of the media.
“There has been the occasional error in the last few months and it is unfortunate that on occasion those errors have been quite high-profile,” said the BHA’s Robin Mounsey. “ There is a manual element to many of the processes Weatherbys use, which mean that it is inevitable that on occasion human error can occur.
“Such mistakes are taken very seriously, as we are well aware of the potential implications of any such mistakes for horsemen and the betting public alike. In every such instance we seek an explanation as to how the mistake has occurred and how a repeat can be prevented.”
Mounsey pointed out that Weatherbys has correctly processed “hundreds of thousands” of data items during the past eight months. He said the BHA’s service-level agreement with the firm requires a very high percentage of accuracy, which has not been breached by the recent lapses.
Weatherbys’ communications director, Nick Craven, said: “When these things happen, we feel it as much as anyone. We want to get it right every time. We do know how important it is and we appreciate the potential significance of a mistake.
“But, without wanting to sound defensive, we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of transactions. We have been working for some time on a very large project to overhaul our systems, which will cut out as many of the manual processes as possible and that work is continuing.”
Craven said the system for distinguishing between an owners’ first and second set of colours had been in place for a very long time and he could not recall a single precedent for last week’s mistake.
Connor Beasley was said to be “groggy” after surgery to his fractured skull was required, following the jockey’s fall at Wolverhampton on Tuesday, but the procedure was said to have gone well and hopes are high for his recovery.
