Quote:
Originally Posted by WP1981
So the bookies have the option of declaring a horse a non starter and refunding on an individual basis due to an unfair chance. I have seen some refund on certain horses while others do not.
Following twitter and watching people get absolutely livid they wont refund the massively backed Harry Angel after refunding a long shot earlier today for much less of an issue.
I guess the beat goes on everywhere. At least they have several people to plead a case with and yell at. We get none of that lol.
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No, the bookies cannot declare a horse a non starter, only the stewards can do that officially and in that case the bookies would have made what is called a rule 4 deduction on winning bets so they can balance their books. They can of course decide to refund stakes if they want to be generous and get a bit of good publicity (to pretend they're actually nice people) but that would have given them a huge loss (some would have been hundreds of thousands of pounds) on the race as they would have had to pay out full odds on the winner and not been allowed to make a rule 4 deduction. There was a stewards enquiry after the race and the jockey said he did indicate to the starter that everything was OK and he should start the race. No fault on anyone.
The case earlier in the week was different as it was a long shot and wouldn't affect the bookies margins too much and I understand it was only one or two bookies that did it. The unfortunate thing is that those getting angry are just talking through their pockets, it would have been nice if a few more of them cared about the welfare of the horse. You place a bet and take your chance, these things happen in racing.
