Chin weight inquiry adjourned

A 90-minute inquiry into the overweight discovered when Stanley K.M. Chin weighed in after a winning ride at Sha Tin six days ago was adjourned last night as speculation mounted over the incident.

Chin rode 48-1 chance Monza to a shock victory when officially carrying 115lbs at which he weighed out at Sha Tin at the Lunar New Year meeting last Friday. Eventually, it was discovered that the local rider had weighed in at 117.6lbs which made no difference to the official placings in the race as Monza, the winner, had carried his declared weight.

Last night's inquiry began over an hour before the first race and heard evidence from Chin, the clerk of the scales and the assistant clerk of the scales together with trainer Peter Ho and his assistant Robert Mak. Closed circuit television tapes of the scales in the weighing room for this race were also studied.

Rule 141 (ii) states: 'If a rider weighs in at more than his correct weight he shall be reported to the Stewards. The horse shall not be disqualified under this Rule.' While relatively rare, weighing in overweight should normally have no grave consequences other than a possible warning or fine on the rider in that the horse was actually carrying more than his allotted weight - unless deliberate cheating was involved in the weighing out procedure where the rider in some way 'cheated' the scales so as not to lose the ride by being more than two pounds over.

This might be done by deliberating leaving behind a piece of equipment.

A more common occurrence - and it has happened here before - is the changing of boots after the weighing out. A pair of boots weighing virtually nothing are used for weighing out and are then switched to the jockey's normal - and heavier - pair.