Benhur begs: Protect the betting public

(BIGGER BOUT: Manny Pacquiao appears headed for  a big, big fight in the US, even before his opponent in the scheduled April 12 bout in Las Vegas could be named.  The Inquirer yesterday received a text message from California stating thus: “So I verified with the Los Angeles County Recording Office: there is an IRS tax lien on Emmanuel D. Pacquiao for $18 million. They are sending me a copy of the lien by regular mail.” The informant has vowed to provide all the official documents.)

* * *

HORSE of the Year Hagdang Bato was hampered by a mishap caused by a faulty starting gate in the 41st Presidential Gold Cup held on Dec. 1 at the Manila Jockey Club’s San Lazaro Leisure Park at Carmona in Cavite.

The accident that clearly robbed the top favorite of victory was witnessed by the regular crowd and recorded vividly on video.

However, what regular bettors and grizzled enthusiasts find irregular and unclear was the failure of the assigned race steward to act and function normally.

* * *

Did the steward suffer sudden blindness or did he decide to look the other way?

“This is very, very abnormal, these people are specifically trained to detect malfunctions and malpractices,” protested race enthusiast Nandy Charvet, a respected civic worker in Mandaluyong.

Charvet also finds it odd how it took a protest from Hagdang Bato owner Mayor Benhur Abalos of Mandaluyong City, who wrote the Philippine Racing Commission, the Manila Jockey Club, Inc., and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes, for authorities to finally react.

* * *

Abalos sent out the letter on Dec. 4 and was acknowledged by the Philippine Racing Commission the other day.

Abalos had to beg for a probe.

His horse was the winner of the 2012 Presidential Gold Cup and was thus seeking back-to-back championships.

It was not a simple slip, and it involved huge sums of money.

“It is not however because I wish to claim our losses that I brought this up,” Abalos explained in his letter. “Rather it is my sincere desire that steps should be taken to prevent similar events in the future.”

* * *

Abalos said that, in such an incident like the one that befell his horse, “the governing bodies should at least exercise their discretion to consider Hagdang Bato as a non-starter to protect the interest of the betting public.”

The normal thing to do, according to horse owner Vic Yam, was for the steward to promptly report to San Lazaro Park authorities, and for these supposedly responsible people to act.

“What they do in the US and other racing capitals is that they promptly refund bets on horses declared as non-starters,” Yam added.

There were other bigger prizes, totaling over P3 million, involved in the special race.

Hagdang Bato sold P599,329 out of the total  daily double pot of P672,656.

* * *

Meanwhile, Abalos said he found it curious how he was told “the starting gate used for that particular race was a renovated one constructed in the 1960s, instead of newer ones used in all other races.”

In a report for the People’s Journal on Dec. 6, veteran sports editor Joe Antonio quoted Daniel Aguila, a racing pundit from Fairview in Quezon City, who said he “sensed something fishy that, of all the gates, it was No. 4, Hagdang Bato’s, which malfunctioned.”

He said it definitely was not pure coincidence—the reason he had to cry “sabotage.”