Originally Posted by
arlington
Pretty sure we've never had a pre race swab in every race in Vic Kev. A quick flick through the results pages, meetings at random during 17/18, shows we didn't last year. What resource did you use to confirm?
What did happen was post race swabs dropped by nearly 50% during the previous nine or ten years under the previous CEO. I don't think there was a significant pre race regime in place during that period.
As far as funding integrity measures, from memory, a $3mil grant was sought and given to HRV from the state government in 2017 to double swab rates amongst other integrity improvements.
As far as funding integrity now and into the future, that is a concern, along with all expenditure needed. I haven't noticed what might be a decrease in integrity measures due to budgetary constraints thus far but with the employment of additional personnel and skill sets there could be a different approach to catching out cheats. In the case of the infringement highlighted in this thread, I believe the integrity department acted on a lead.
Even if pre raced swabbed as part of the 2 or 3% there's no guarantee a result similar to the stable visit would have occurred. If pre race's were that successful why do some participants continue to stomach tube in breach of the rules?
Would pre race's have caught out Aquanita?
Similar to Rick, increase in steward stable visits and more out of comp testing might have more of an overall impact than more pre race swabs.