A little over a month after its betting services crashed for the best part of a day, the Jockey Club has dodged another potentially significant bullet after catching errors in its sectional timing.

After the fortune of having its betting systems crash on a nondescript Friday during the off-season, the Jockey Club became aware of irregularities in its sectional timing after just three meetings of the new season.

“Having identified some irregularities in the published lead horse sectional times and individual sectional times for races held on Sunday 5 September, Wednesday 8 September and Sunday 12 September 2021, the club has identified the root cause and made the necessary adjustments,” the Jockey Club said in a statement.

“These adjustments have been uploaded to the Jockey Club website and the media communication system. It should be noted that overall race times, individual race times and margins were unaffected.”

A wall of horses thunders down the Sha Tin straight.

While overall times were not impacted, it is believed that – as a result of an alignment issue after new cameras were installed in the off-season – there was a delay to the timing of the first sectional of a race, leading to that being recorded as slower than it actually was.

The timing of the final section of the race was then compensating for that error and being recorded as quicker than it was to fit in with the final race time.

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While officials confirmed a discrepancy of “fractions of seconds”, that can make a difference in a horse race and it’s a mistake that would not sit well with an organisation that prides itself on the product it provides its punters. It was significant enough to be noticed by someone.

The issue was dealt with in time for last Wednesday’s Happy Valley meeting and the adjustments to times were made before Sunday’s Sha Tin card, but not before 17 gallopers backed up from opening day into the meetings on either September 8, 12 or 15, creating potential headaches for punters.

Moreira welcomes mental health measures

After questioning the Jockey Club’s commitment to the mental health of participants during the off-season, star jockey Joao Moreira has welcomed a number of new measures introduced to the riding ranks last week.

“The Jockey Club is always willing to do what has to be done to make sure the jockeys are safe and the jockeys are well and riding at their best,” the Brazilian told the Post.

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“They were just not understanding how important it is to be mindful about that subject, which is mind wellness. Once they realised they stepped forward right away.

“The Jockey Club stepping forward and doing something about it, I just find it amazing and I’m sure it is going to help some people here big time. Some jockeys are going to very much benefit.

Star jockey Joao Moreira.

“The Jockey Club provide us good medical care, physiotherapists, nutritionists and now this … it means they do care about us.”

The new measures include the introduction of specific sports psychologists, access to web-based mental health support and specific education around the subject, as well as assessment of each jockeys mental health baseline so that it can be proactively monitored and supported.

“So far as mental health is concerned the health professionals working with the club have in the past also sourced psychologists to provide counselling where that has been requested,” said Jockey Club executive director of racing Andrew Harding.

Jockey Club executive director of racing Andrew Harding.

“Building on this we met with the jockeys to take them through several new preventative measures we are introducing. Our chief medical officer team is developing a programme to establish each jockey’s mental health baseline by screening every 12 months.

“Education is also important and we are developing materials to increase mental health awareness. Sports psychologists, both English-language and Cantonese-speaking, have been identified to provide ongoing support throughout the year to jockeys who wish to take this up.

“We are also now examining what parts of these mental health measures could potentially also be provided as a support for trainers.”

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