BHA considering mandatory declaration of wind ops

ear plugs next  - Final Assault winner today

pardon

I think this is spot on. I've been hoping this would happen for ages. I was gutted when The Rainbow Hunter won at the weekend as I back him often, but finally lost my patience a run or two ago. I knew he'd had breathing problems in the past, but I didn't know that he'd had a wind op prior to racing. If I did, I guarantee I would've been on him. Bailey mentioned it on a blog entry, but that's not transparent enough for me. Hoping this is made mandatory.

...or at least *back* on him. + the amount of horses that improve massively, seemingly out of nowhere, after wind ops is substantial. Can be far more beneficial to a horse than a new piece of equipment.

I'm with you, biccie. Good on Bailey for posting the information, eventually, almost 2 months after the op, but how many punters are going to be trawling trainer websites on a Saturday morning, looking for clues?

excellent idea......I never forget the t shirt I wore after I had my operation......got an extra couple of inches put on to my middle leg......the t shirt I wore in the clubs explained to the ladies about the new improved me.....
Was getting knocked down by the girls......

Exactly, blimey. It's fantastic that some trainers do make the effort to publicise the inner-workings of their yards and manage expectations, but the time investment for punters would be absolutely colossal if one felt that blogs/twitter feeds/articles had to be trawled through on a daily basis just to extract information that should, for all intents and purposes, be as up-front and visible as whether the horse is sporting headgear or not come raceday. To be honest, I was looking at Bailey's blog just last week, before Milord ran at Towcester! Doubly narked I didn't have the time on Saturday, and then freaked the eff out just before the off when old bobby-joe Luck happened to slip in: "ohandtherainbowhunter'shadawindop".

Lol, a nasty experience. There shouldn't be so many different ways for punters to get hoofed in the nads in this game

You should get your staff to check all trainers websites,twitter etc surely...

Say some dodgepot yard doesn't declare a wind op being done,how easy/hard would it be for the course vet to check every winner or placed horse to see whether they had had one or not ?? esp in cases where they have already had one previously ??

Thesecret, I was just wondering about that on my way home. Might be pretty tricky. I imagine the clues are there but you might need invasive equipment to see them.

To some extent, the incentive to declare would have to be about the risk that you might get found out at some point down the line if you kept schtum. Would have to be backed up by serious punishment, as opposed to the fine of a few hundred that is so often meted out by the BHA for rule breaches. What we can't have is someone hushing up the wind op so the odds aren't imperilled, knowing they can hand over £500 from the winnings if they get found out.

Another way forward might be to put equal responsibility on vets to notify the BHA when they've carried out a wind op on a racehorse. If it became a normal routine part of any vets practice to notify the BHA, much harder to subvert

Yeh,that crossed my mind too,but how many boxer dogs etc do you still see walking around with docked tails even though it's illegal for the breed ? google and you will find a vet to do it,if your a trainer with connections a vet to cauterize a soft palate will be no problem and do you have to declare the 1st time or every time ? I guess there's plenty of issues to solve..