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Raymond Reekie Ban - March 2020

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NZ HARNESS NEWS, SEPT 18 2017

The Judicial Control Authority (JCA) can’t suspend amateur driver Ray Reekie for 30 months as the maximum penalty for his driving offence at Addington on Saturday is a one-year ban.

The JCA initially slapped a 30-month ban on the veteran Canterbury amateur after his drive on outsider Zakspatrol (11 wins in 100 starts), despite harness stewards recommending a 12-month ban.

Reekie had Zakspatrol up vying for the lead with Russian Express for over 1000m, the horse hitting the wall at the 800m and drifting out, finishing second-to-last.

Stewards charged him with driving in a manner capable of diminishing Zakspatrol’s chance of winning and while Reekie, who owns the horse, defended the charge, he was found guilty and banned until March 15, 2020, by the JCA.

Reekie was set to retire from driving after his initial ban, but got a call from chief harness stipendiary steward Nick Ydgren on Monday to say that the JCA could only ban him for a year.

“The JCA can only impose a suspension for a period not exceeding 12 months for a general rule, this is not a serious racing offence,’’ confirmed Ydgren. 

“His 30-month suspension is not valid in my opinion.
“I’m applying to the JCA to have that penalty set aside and a new penalty hearing to be held. That will be at the discretion of the JCA.

“Ray was of the opinion that he was guilty and would cop any penalty that came.

‘’But in saying that it’s important that the process is correct and that any penalty is able to be handed down under the rules.

“It’s an unfortunate incident, but again the important thing is that we actually get to the right result.’’

Reekie has had 109 drives for 12 wins since 2009 and represented New Zealand overseas at the world amateur championships. He was initially outed for 60 drives (30 months) as stipendiary stewards worked on the basis that he drove an
average of twice a month.

Reekie accepted it was a bad drive on Saturday.

“I went out with the intentions of having a go … but I had to sit in the death (parked out) and the result wasn’t any good.

“The intention was always to lead and see how we got on, but it didn’t work out.

“John Dunn (stable foreman) and myself thought it’s not a strong field and he’s had a few chances lately and hadn’t lived up to it, so this was a last chance to see what he’s got.

“Looking back with 800m to go he didn’t get slogged after that, I did take care of the horse.’’

Reekie said that the other penalty option proposed, a $3000 fine, could have seen
him returning to the track next week if he had decided to pay it. He said a lower
fine at the second JCA hearing might see him pay up and return to the track.

“With amateur driving and professional driving it’s exactly the same when it comes to penalties, but we are not the same. We don’t get paid for our drives and we only drive twice a month.

“I’ve always believed that if amateurs do something wrong they should be suspended.

‘’The amateurs are being looked at very, very hard and if you go through the amateur records you’ll see thousands of fines dished out.

‘’But amateurs should be suspended not fined. That’s how you learn. You pay a $200 fine and you’re back next week and what have you learned?’’

Reekie, in his late 50s, has been in harness racing since working as a young lad in the stables of Jack Smolenski, Derek Jones, Cecil Devine and Jack Carmichael.

‘’l love the game … but you’re not doing it for the money … you do it because of the passion.’’

He pointed to the NZMTC met multiplier horse bonus system at Addington, where any horse starting 15 times or more on the course and winning once in 12 months, gets a $7500 bonus for his connections.

He said it was totally wrong that amateur race starts are not included in that bonus system.

‘’How can you do that?

‘’We pay driver’s licences, get the same penalties as professionals across the board, but we’re exempt from things like the bonus system.’’

He said such inequalities had to be fixed, but would take his ban on the chin.

The ban has created heated debate on Facebook, with many comments asking why the ban was so long.

“Ray has been involved in harness racing for a long time. This is like thanks for your contribution but now piss off. I really hope he appeals the length of the suspension,’’ said one.

Another said that no betting should be allowed on such races. 

‘’Amateur sport is very rarely offered up as a betting option. So why persist with it in harness racing? 

It goes from one bad headline to another.’’

- NZ HARNESS NEWS

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So our "professional", and presumably well paid JCA don't even know the maximum penalties they can hand down.

That pretty much sums up the level of incompetence that our judicial system is subjected to on a daily basis.

Ray, if they don't offer you a reasonable fine as an alternative penalty, you'd be well advised to get a lawyer involved. You really shouldn't be looking at any more than a 3 month suspension .... absolute maximum.

And for not knowing their own rules, those particular JCA members should be stood down indefinitely ..... with a 30 month absolute minimum!

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1 minute ago, JackSprat said:

So our "professional", and presumably well paid JCA don't even know the maximum penalties they can hand down.

That pretty much sums up the level of incompetence that our judicial system is subjected to on a daily basis.

Ray, if they don't offer you a reasonable fine as an alternative penalty, you'd be well advised to get a lawyer involved. You really shouldn't be looking at any more than a 3 month suspension .... absolute maximum.

And for not knowing their own rules, those particular JCA members should be stood down indefinitely ..... with a 30 month absolute minimum!

It's definitely not a good look.  In fact, one might say it's downright embarrassing...

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I guess if you look from the glass half full perspective it shows the maximum penalties for similar offences are currently set about right. Also from the reaction on racecafe it appears everyone realises people like ray reekie have a place in the sport,and if they put in the time, money and abide by the rules then they should be treated fairly.

Ive always credited punters with enough intelligence to realise the level of skill shown in an amateurs race will not normally be as high as when professionals are driving. From betting figures  it does not appear to effect turnovers at all, perhaps because the bigger fields in the amateurs have some reasonable odds on offer.  

Mr reekie does raise an interesting point about the met multiplier. Why does the addington club exclude them from that scheme. One can only conclude because it is set up to suit some more than others. Double standards it seems.

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2 hours ago, 45yearsofharness said:

The Judicial Control Authority (JCA) can’t suspend amateur driver Ray Reekie for 30 months as the maximum penalty for his driving offence at Addington on Saturday is a one-year ban.

Embarrassing.

You would think they would know the rules inside out.

 

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On 16 September 2017 at 11:17 PM, Shad said:

Why was the driver of Russian express not questioned,, after all it took the two of them to create the speed duel, with neither wanting to back down. 

The other driver was questioned, it was the first time it had raced with full blinds on and each time Ray got level with it Russian Express could hear it and raced harder. It may not look like it to the untrained eye but Allan had a hell of a job holding his horse.Coupled with that Ray was screaming at his horse of at least a lap and a half.

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6 minutes ago, Shad said:

I must have read a different report, none of the above said in the one i seen, only said Russia express was challenged for some distance

Luckily enough not everybody witnessed what I saw and heard from standing in the birdcage,if you had I'm picking this thread would have a totally different tone. 

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58 minutes ago, westview said:

The other driver was questioned, it was the first time it had raced with full blinds on and each time Ray got level with it Russian Express could hear it and raced harder. It may not look like it to the untrained eye but Allan had a hell of a job holding his horse.Coupled with that Ray was screaming at his horse of at least a lap and a half.

 It takes two to tango and Mr edge in my opinion showed poor judgment as well for allowing it to go on for  so long,and he should have got a mention in the stipes report.  You may be correct about his horse originally pulling a bit early on but the video does not confirm that his horse was being restrained at all.   Having said that his horse did stick on very well for fourth,perhaps too well for its own future good.  I wonder if either of them actually knew how fast they were going?.Thats where the fault lay.

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17 minutes ago, what a post said:

 

 It takes two to tango and Mr edge in my opinion showed poor judgment as well for allowing it to go on for  so long,and he should have got a mention in the stipes report.  You may be correct about his horse originally pulling a bit early on but the video does not confirm that his horse was being restrained at all.   Having said that his horse did stick on very well for fourth,perhaps too well for its own future good.  I wonder if either of them actually knew how fast they were going?.Thats where the fault lay.

You are correct about the video,but I can assure you from my position the video posted on the hrnz site is very flattering to what actually accurd. The second time they passed me on the track I was appalled and if you had my view even though it was for only about fifty metres you and every body else that tries to defend this style of driving should be ashamed of yourselves. Anybody on this site that wants to have a in person debate about this feel free to track me down at the races I'll be at Oamaru on Sunday. Cheers Nigel Armstrong Westview racing.

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28 minutes ago, westview said:

 you and every body else that tries to defend this style of driving should be ashamed of yourselves. Anybody on this site that wants to have a in person debate about this feel free to track me down at the races I'll be at Oamaru on Sunday. Cheers Nigel Armstrong Westview racing.

Think you have misunderstood Nigel. I,nor have I read anyone else on here, are  or has defended the reekie drive. All comments have been regarding the penalty.     If your referring to that style of driving, the same thing happened in race 8 and clearly cost the 2nd horse an easy win. It happens,its racing.

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57 minutes ago, westview said:

You are correct about the video,but I can assure you from my position the video posted on the hrnz site is very flattering to what actually accurd. The second time they passed me on the track I was appalled and if you had my view even though it was for only about fifty metres you and every body else that tries to defend this style of driving should be ashamed of yourselves. Anybody on this site that wants to have a in person debate about this feel free to track me down at the races I'll be at Oamaru on Sunday. Cheers Nigel Armstrong Westview racing.

I don't know where you get the idea from that even a single poster on this thread is defending Ray Reekie's drive. I'm pretty sure we are unanimous in the fact that it was a shocker, and fully deserving of a 3 month holiday.

Mind you, Alan Edge's effort wasn't much better. Quite simply, neither driver had a "Plan B", and in the end it broght them both undone. If either driver had been able to "think in the run", and adjust their tactics as things unfolded, they'd have got a much better result.

That said, this thread is about what happened in the stipes room, not on the track!

If Ray Reekie had come out guns blazingr, cut a few off to get to the death, then attacked and laid all over the leader,  knocked him down, and brought half the field down, he'd deserve 12, maybe even 18 months. To earn the 30 months he'd have needed to go "all Jack Litten" on someone as well!

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10 hours ago, westview said:

Luckily enough not everybody witnessed what I saw and heard from standing in the birdcage,if you had I'm picking this thread would have a totally different tone. 

Obviously what you heard was not in the official stipes report, which is poor, you keep that ear to the ground at oamaru.

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sometimes drivers and trainers say things in the heat of the moment ,even stipes but this flagrant breach of commonsense by the JCA. should itself warrant punishment. all the cafers knew its not possible to inflict an amateur driver with 2.5 yr ban even for gross negligence. or bad decision making during a race.. those responsible or even mike godber must receive some censure.

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1 hour ago, john legend said:

sometimes drivers and trainers say things in the heat of the moment ,even stipes but this flagrant breach of commonsense by the JCA. should itself warrant punishment. all the cafers knew its not possible to inflict an amateur driver with 2.5 yr ban even for gross negligence. or bad decision making during a race.. those responsible or even mike godber must receive some censure.

Why should Mike Godber be censured?

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The problem was the JCA (Judicial Control Authority).    Their members (employees) made the mistake and one would hope that HRNZ would take the matter up with them.    Whether the RIU (Racing Integrity Unit = Stipes) officers should have made the JCA aware at the time the decision was not permissible is a matter of whether these gentlemen had the authority or not to "speak out" at the time  I don't know.    It was certainly the RIU who alerted the JCA of it's error some time later.     

The problem does however appear to be rules based.    With the pro's they are stood down for a certain number of drives and these are assessed at how busy the particular driver is and the estimate of how many meetings would probably be involved for that quantity.    This is the same criteria being applied to the amateurs but with the few driving opportunities they get a very inflated result when working out a time factor.    Without doing quite a lot of research, for Reekie to get stand down for 30 months, if the driver was (say) Blair Orange the 60 drives would have probably meant he would have been outed for around 1 month (he has had 90 ish drives this season).    While this example shows extremes it does illustrate that really the amateurs (who not paid anyway for driving) need to be on a different scale of penalties to the pros.     A 12 month suspension would even be very harsh in comparison.

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This should have set a precedent then!

If a professional driver goes up and has another horse on and doesn't hand up and then continues to have it on, and then stops that driver should be suspended!

There have been heaps of examples of extremely poor drives and yet no mention is made.

There is no treating everyone equally when it comes to harness racing as there are many examples of this!!!

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1 hour ago, john legend said:

cantab matt, sorry with rius, jcas  got mixed up mikes GM of RIu not JCA. just feel someone n authority should accept blame. As well as emplotees at track. 

You may have got the RIU and the JCA mixed up, but if you read the reports from the JCA, there is always a recommendation from the Steward laying the charge, as to what the penalty should be, if found guilty.

I have not seen the report from the JCA, but surely when the penalty was handed down for 2 plus years, the alarm bells should have gone ding a ling ding from the stewards and then advise the RIU that this was over the maximum term allowed under the rule he was charged under, as i have said I have not seen the report, but I am picking they the RIU Stewards did not know this was the case,so now they do and they have cancelled the suspension and asked for a rehearing.

snr

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28 minutes ago, Midget said:

You may have got the RIU and the JCA mixed up, but if you read the reports from the JCA, there is always a recommendation from the Steward laying the charge, as to what the penalty should be, if found guilty.

I have not seen the report from the JCA, but surely when the penalty was handed down for 2 plus years, the alarm bells should have gone ding a ling ding from the stewards and then advise the RIU that this was over the maximum term allowed under the rule he was charged under, as i have said I have not seen the report, but I am picking they the RIU Stewards did not know this was the case,so now they do and they have cancelled the suspension and asked for a rehearing.

snr

I believe the RIU asked for 12 months but JCA increased the penalty.

The RIU I am presuming knew that this was the maximum penalty allowable, can't know for sure but once penalty was determined I am guessing that a process had to be followed. Is it really up to the prosecution to tell the judge that the penalty is too tough? 

The part of this saga which is most concerning in my view is the lack of transparency and accountability of the JCA.  On their website yesterday they had reports available for the 16th and even 17th of September race meetings  but no Addington reports. Today they even have a report from the race in question but no report on the Ray Reekie decision- this in my view is really poor and smacks of closing ranks.  It appears Russell McKenzie was chair and Stewart Ching was the other sitting panelist. By not publishing this report they are casting all other people involved in this process in a negative light.

The JCA cocked up, they should suck it up and own up to it-

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2 hours ago, Brodie said:

This should have set a precedent then!

If a professional driver goes up and has another horse on and doesn't hand up and then continues to have it on, and then stops that driver should be suspended!

There have been heaps of examples of extremely poor drives and yet no mention is made.

There is no treating everyone equally when it comes to harness racing as there are many examples of this!!!

Brodie he attacked for 1600m, 2nd fastest lead up time ever. As Westview rightly points out it was clear the lead wasn't for the taking-

Please give one example from your " heaps of examples of extremely poor drives" above that comes even close to what occurred on Saturday. I await with interest!!

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6 minutes ago, cantab matt said:

Brodie he attacked for 1600m, 2nd fastest lead up time ever. As Westview rightly points out it was clear the lead wasn't for the taking-

Please give one example from your " heaps of examples of extremely poor drives" above that comes even close to what occurred on Saturday. I await with interest!!

Cantab Matt, I agree it was a total shocker and Ray will agree no doubt.

He did attack for a long way, not for 1600m but for far too long.

Alan Edge if he was driving in the best interests of the owner, trainer and punter would have handed up, and I am pretty sure that he would have won, and yet nothing has been said there in the JCA report.

Mr Lowe got done for attacking Dexter at Ashburton for a long way awhile back, not sure what he got back then but it was nothing like 30 months and he is not classed as an AMATEUR driver, even though some might think he drives like one.

There was at least one extremely poor Drive at Addington on the same day from professional drivers but I am not going to name, but I will 

advise you of this at a later date.

 

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41 minutes ago, Brodie said:

Cantab Matt, I agree it was a total shocker and Ray will agree no doubt.

He did attack for a long way, not for 1600m but for far too long.

Alan Edge if he was driving in the best interests of the owner, trainer and punter would have handed up, and I am pretty sure that he would have won, and yet nothing has been said there in the JCA report.

Mr Lowe got done for attacking Dexter at Ashburton for a long way awhile back, not sure what he got back then but it was nothing like 30 months and he is not classed as an AMATEUR driver, even though some might think he drives like one.

There was at least one extremely poor Drive at Addington on the same day from professional drivers but I am not going to name, but I will 

advise you of this at a later date.

 

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story Brodie but I think you will find two of the three people Allan edge was looking after the interests of was indeed himself

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