THE BRITISH HORSERACING Authority is investigating an ‘unprecedented controversy’ after the shock 50/1 winner of the opener at Great Yarmouth on Thursday turned out to be a different horse to the one entered in the race.
Charlie McBride’s Mandarin Princess appeared to have upset the odds-on favourite Fyre Cay when she won the two-year-old novice race.
But a subsequent investigation discovered that ‘Mandarin Princess’ was in fact Millie’s Kiss, a three-year-old trained by McBride who was entered to run in a later race.
The result was made official on the course before the mistaken identity was discovered, and so still stands for now – although the BHA moved quickly to open an investigation.
A statement read: “The incident at Great Yarmouth has been referred to the BHA’s head office in order that we can carry out an investigation, in accordance with our rules. Since we introduced the microchipping identification system an incident such as this is, as far as we are aware, unprecedented.
“The issue had not been established until after the result had been made official. After the weighed in has been declared on the racecourse, the result cannot be amended by the stewards.
“The responsibility lies with the trainer to present and run the correct horse in the race. Having said that, and while we have not seen an incident of this nature in recent times, we will of course determine what steps need to be put in place to prevent it from happening again.
“We sympathise with the betting operators and betting public who have potentially been affected by this incident.”
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