What Is Going On At Wetherby? A follow-up

A recent blog questioning the race distance of this year’s Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby received a large and very positive response. In summary, it is possible – by using Google Earth and video analysis in conjunction – to establish that the runners in that race covered considerably less distance than the official version, thus helping to explain the remarkably fast time recorded.

Since then, the British Horseracing Authority has queried the methodology, stating that race distances should be measured down the middle of the track, on bends as well as on straights, despite the fact that almost no races are actually run in this way.

Even so, a previous Google Earth survey, conducted on Boxing Day 2013, when runners were taking a much wider route, has the 25-furlong chase course at 24.3 furlongs: still a long way short of the distance advertised.

Wetherby, as run on Boxing Day 2013. The course is still short of the advertised distance. You can see the full, unedited image here.

To err is human, and the BHA is nothing if not human. They could be forgiven such errors if their response to them was robust, appropriate and timely.

Their statement that Wetherby will be resurveyed this week, in advance of Saturday’s meeting at the course, could be seen as appropriate. But this has not been the first example of errors in such matters, and it appears as if the BHA responds to having errors pointed out to it rather than takes steps to prevent them in the first place.

It took an investigation by Timeform to get Lingfield to acknowledge earlier this year that some of its distances were wrong on the all-weather and to correct them after years of misrepresentation. Timeform also called into question in February the distance of the 2013 Betfair Chase, and of hurdle races at Wincanton, providing supporting evidence of its own.

Timeform has other firm evidence of distance anomalies, on the Flat and over jumps, that it has not gone public with to date.

You might think that the BHA – realising that if some British race distances are manifestly wrong then others may be too – would have remeasured all courses at some point in the last nine months. But the Wetherby example clearly implies otherwise. Whether or not this shows “complacency”, as I have suggested previously, the reader can decide.

Even more worryingly is that the BHA seems unaware of its responsibilities to be open with an increasingly sceptical public.

It conducted its remeasurement of Haydock earlier this year behind closed doors and provided no evidence to support its claims, stating that it was the BHA itself which provided the “independent verification” required. Furthermore, it has now denied a request by Timeform to have an independent presence at the imminent remeasuring at Wetherby.

The BHA may live in a vacuum, whereby it has been blissfully unaware of the existence of cover-ups and whitewashes by people in authority in British public life over recent decades. If not, it must be wondered why it does not welcome the opportunity to allay suspicions, and to shore up its credibility, by being totally open about its processes. What does the BHA have to gain by conducting this investigation behind closed doors?

Any official “findings” at Wetherby this week should be viewed in this context.