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From the Sunraysia Daily during the week...
Angry Cramp slams system
VICTORIA’S leading harness-racing trainer, Shayne Cramp, yesterday accused stewards of unfairly targeting him and bowing to pressure from rival trainers.
The South Mildura reinsman has been slapped with his third driving ban in the past 16 months, and said it was a “disgrace” he was hit with the maximum penalty of eight weeks after stewards found him guilty of denying his horse, Philtra Phella, the opportunity to win in a race at Mildura on June 13.
“I get scrutinised much more now because I am the main man up here, and I think I’m being unfairly treated,” he told Sunraysia Daily at the Birdwoodton stables yesterday.
Cramp, who has won more than $640,000 in prizemoney with 121 winners this season, accused stewards of bowing to pressure from rival trainers and drivers over the “greater focus” put on his driving.
The 30-year-old said sources inside the stewards’ office had told both he and his foreman, father Greg, that “they have been getting calls from other trainer-drivers up here about me for the past three years”.
“They are hitting me in the hip pocket,” a frustrated Cramp said.
He said the latest eight-week suspension could cost him up to $12,000.
“I’ve been driving at least four winners a week on average, so that’s at least $1500 a week it’d cost me,” he said.
“I am still trying to recover the loss of income from the six-month ban I copped last year.
“With this latest one, stewards are saying that there are two areas I am culpable in, and that I carried the weight of public money as the well-supported favourite, which was actually a false favourite given the horse hadn’t won in its 10 starts.
“Part of their determination was made because I had been previously charged under this same rule twice in the last 16 months.
“But what they are not actually saying is that in a 15-year driving career, before those two charges, I’d had only one breach of this rule before then.
“So, in effect, it was three in 15 years, which sounds a lot different than two in 16 months.
Originally Posted by Richard prior
