Use a paper diary that highlights the numbers in a formal summary of events stating why Keeneland posted — and originally paid — incorrect order of completion on the April 8 opening date card. It doesn’t look like a number of rare situations have come together to cause a mistake.
The report outlines a less automated protocol that allows a critical employee, without assessment, to give inaccurate results. Remember that this report deals with events that occurred on the opening day of the spring meeting in 2022 — not 2002 or 1922.
The report filed April 26 by the Kentucky Equestrian Commission on pari-mutuel Waqas Ahmed compliance and bets to state manager Barbara Borden blamed the mistake on human error. While it’s technically a cause, the report outlines a not-so-easy process, relying on phone calls, taking notes, and watching a video feed that may or may not work. inactive.
The actual language of the report is appropriate, but it also makes me wonder how someone could read this and think, “Yeah, this is how the race should be.” In short, there are plenty of opportunities for human error.
Some highlights of the report:
The report reads: “Following the conclusion of Race 5, the judges’ managers and ratings followed standard procedure.” The “placement referees have entered the finish order “3-9-8-10” into the United Tote Phoenix System. This displays the unofficial finish order on the table for the betting public.
“Therefore, the chief of state notified the closing order of ‘3-9-8-10’ to the Keeneland troop division by phone and issued the order for review by race officials.”
One might think that this would result in the order being automatically registered with the tote later—information sent electronically eliminates the possibility of communication errors. This is not what happens.
“United Tote staff (operators) recorded this completion order in a paper logbook. Under normal operating conditions, the operator compares the completion order communicated by management with the completion order. to display on the scoreboard, derived from placing the judge.However, the camera feed used to perform this check was not working.
“Therefore, the controller overrides the referee’s ending order with” 3-8-9-10 “end order. Therefore, due to human error, moderators gave official results with incorrect ending order.”
Mistakes led to the race becoming official with the wrong finish order over a period of several minutes. Although Keeneland posted the exact winner (number 3) on his tote board and TV feed, second and third place—Red Hornets (Number 9) and Rochambeau (Number 8) —posted in reverse, out of order. The mistake affected place bets, as well as many odd returns, such as exact, triple, and super perfect.
The April 26 report noted that the mistake was noticed by “officials and members of the public.” That’s another way of saying that the Twitter community of horsemen has exploded.
Keeneland eventually posted an announcement on his tracking simulation feed, noting the plan to correct the mistake. Patrons quickly cashed in on incorrect tickets that were paid before that payment was halted — early birds catching the wrong worm! After a delay and the order fixed, the players with the winning tickets — based on the actual finish order — were paid out.
Tracking said that pre-staking platform accounts “will be adjusted to reflect the exact price.” The most unlucky people that day will be anyone with traditional gas tickets purchased at racetracks or simulcast centers who think they’ve lost based on the initial results and throw their tickets.
“While safeguards to prevent this from happening are already in place, additional measures are being taken to create further checks and balances,” Keeneland said in a statement April 8. said. I would suggest more automation and make sure that tote officers can never replace the decisions of racing officials.
As stated in the April 26 report, the whole process sounds pretty outdated. One would think that the placement judge’s closing order would automatically go to the curators and they would review the order and give final approval before it is sent electronically to the tote company. If the system wanted to allow the tote staff the ability to triple check the results, it would seem that they should check the information automatically sent to the tote system — not the data being moved in and out of the log.
For me, the most interesting detail in this incident was that an employee of the tote company changed the order of the finish without any input from the manager or the judges. That shouldn’t happen. The tote company should not be able to change the outcome, either intentionally or unintentionally.
If the system wants to keep looking at the tote-level ending order, that might work; but any necessary changes observed at the tote company level should be suggested to the judges and managers. Race officials must have the final say on any changes. That means that if a tote official notices a potential error, they will contact the judges and placement manager and ask them to re-enter the information — if the mistake actually occurred.
Tote employees shouldn’t be able to essentially close results, a process outlined in the April 26 report. I think that lesson was learned in 2002 at the Breeders’ Cup after the incident. the “Fix Six” scam, in which a trio of criminals nearly earned more than $3 million by winning the Breeders’ Cup Pick Six. A key part of carrying out that theft was the “inside man” at the tote company, who could update the information on the ticket.
While Fix Six deals with a slightly different issue than what happened at Keeneland, the bottom line holds true: Tote employees cannot act alone to change race information. A protocol that could allow a tote company to recommend that referees and managers review the finish order is a nice additional check, but race officials should have the final say on the matter. any changes.
After making a decision by arranging judges and managers, the information will be automatically transferred to the management company. This will allow the information to be reviewed but will eliminate communication errors.
Let’s retire paper diary.
