What criteria do stewards use in selecting which horses to swab.

[THE SIVER FOX]

I would like to hear from readers on their experiences regarding post race swabs.


I remember attending a country meeting about 2 yrs ago and the 1st race was won by a horse having it's 8th start and it had not ran a place in it's 8 starts prior ,Now it didn't just win it smashed a long standing track record.and won by the length of the home straight.The second race begins and low an behold a stable mate of the first winner having it's 18th start and with dreadfull form (beaten 20mtrs in 2.07 last start and not mentioned in stewards report .)goes to the front and wins by a huge margin rating inside the old track record but just outside it's stable mates new time. 2 Races later my horse , who had won 2 of his last 3 starts including his last start at Newcastle in stronger class wins after getting a soft lead and starting $1.70 fav , my horse gets swabbed . Next race a horse having it's 20th start for 10 wins and a last start winner at Newcastle wins and gets swabbed. Can you imagine my dismay when I look up the stewards report for the meeting a couple of days later and see that the 1st 2 winners were NOT swabbed. Confused I attended the next meeting where the stewards that were in control of the country meeting were working at to seek an answer . The reason I was given as to why the 2 huge form reversal winners didn't get swabbed and the two winners with very consistent form did, to say the least was laughable . Being the suspicious person that I am I decided to look at this trainers % regarding winners to swabs, now I had won 11 races for that season and was swabbed 7 times which I thought was fair enough .Imagine my shock when I did a search on the trainer of the form reversal horses and found that he had won 27 races for the year and had only been swabbed 5 times . It seemed to me at the time to be a little odd, but with the events of recent times it makes me wonder if something sinister may have been going on way back then. Would love to hear if anyone has had similar treatment.

Would love to hear an opinion from Thevoiceofreason as Bill seems to have a good understanding of how stewards think.

[Danno]

My understanding, Harvey, was that it has always been random.

But I get what your saying --how random is random?? particularly after the unearthing of what has been going on in Sydney with some of the players involved.

No doubt when VOR gets on line he will be able to shed some light.

Cheers,

Dan

[Thevoiceofreason]

My understanding, Harvey, was that it has always been random.

But I get what your saying --how random is random?? particularly after the unearthing of what has been going on in Sydney with some of the players involved.

No doubt when VOR gets on line he will be able to shed some light.

Cheers,

Dan

Dan

I actually sent a private post to THE SILVER FOX requesting some more information and as yet I have not had a reply, however I have to admit on the facts as they are presented it seems strange.

I am not sure that I agree that post race swabbing was ever supposed to be random and to be honest it should not be, post race swabbing if it is not every winner should be primarily about improved performances especially those that are coupled with a firmer in the market.

In a true random system where every winner is not swabbed there over time would be a lot of horses that should have been swabbed that would be not then be tested in my view.

HRNSW were always keen to swab more winners but the cost structure is high, at the risk of being accused of being a HRNSW stooge which I am not it is a difficult balancing act.