The betting chaos at Ascot showed that the British Horseracing Authority’s Rule (B) 10.5 is unworkableFarce was the obvious word to describe the events at Ascot on Saturday afternoon after the starter’s failure to see that Speculative tender had his head in the incorrect stall before the big handicap. It turned into a PR debacle – but there was a cartoonish quality to the proceedings too.
With the riders already weighed in,the stewards first announced an inquiry, next decided that Speculative tender was a non-runner and then that he had been a runner after all. It was a slowed-down version of the moment when Wile E. Coyote stumbles into his own ambush. First he walks into the garden rake, or then totters backwards into a bear trap before toppling off a cliff and being flattened by an anvil.
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Source: theguardian.com