Picture: Fort Lauderdale (far side) ridden by Kelsey Mayhew-Munger beats Someday Maybe by a whisker at the Vaal today. 

The first race today at the Vaal straight course had a desperately close finish and there were bound to be conspiracy theories surfacing after the TV replay appeared to show Someday Maybe as perhaps the one to side with and the judges then awarding it to Fort Lauderdale.

It wasn’t long before a photo-finjish appeared on social media that “proved” it was a dead-heat … except the line on the horses’ noses had clearly been thickened.

The official photograph above clearly shows a discernible gap between Someday Maybe’s nose and the line and if there is a discernible gap a dead-heat can not be declared according to the rules.

During the ensuing discussion on social media the controversial finish to the 2000 Durban July surfaced.

The judges took an age to declare El Picha the winner over Young Rake that day.

The length of time it took to decide became one of the main points of the controversy, because it was surmised that if the judges had taken so long to discern a gap between the two horses it should surely have just been declared a dead-heat.

The length of time it took has become exaggerated over the years and in one version today it had increased to nearly three times more than the actual time it took!

In any case an article was written on the tenth anniversary of the controversy and two people who were in the judge’s box that day explained exactly what had transpired and why the decision had taken so long to be announced. 

The article can be read below: 

This year’s running of the Vodacom Durban July (2010) will mark the 10th anniversary of one of the most controversial results of the big race when El Picha was called the winner from Young Rake after what seemed an interminable wait by connections and punters.

Three factors probably sparked the outcry, the first being the unusually long seven minutes it took to post the result, secondly a television freeze frame that seemed to indicate that it was a dead-heat and thirdly some false information relayed by a television presenter.
 
Bev McMurray was in the photo-finish room on the day.
 
She captured the photograph on her computer and then, with judges Warren Eisele, Colin Buckham and Lionel Bush watching on their monitor downstairs she placed the lines on the horses noses.
 
“I could see immediately that El Picha had won,” she recalled. “At the time I couldn’t understand why they were taking so long to declare the result. We always get a very good picture at the time of the July as the grandstand shadow is all the way across the track and the light is uniform. But looking back it was the first July we had used this new system where the photo is viewed on a computer. Previously we had used a dark room and a print. The judges had to make absolutely sure they were right.”
 
Eisele recalled, “It was nerve-wracking. The controversy really happened because it took so long to decide. With today’s equipment there would have been no doubt whatsoever.”
 
Rule 65.5 is very clear, “The judge shall base his decision exclusively on the horse’s nose and if there is a discernible difference, he shall not give a dead-heat.”
 
Eisele continued, “I personally think it is criminal that two horses can race for 2200m and then be separated when they are so close. But I was duty bound. The first picture showed clearly that there was daylight between the two horses. But to make absolutely sure we asked it to be blown up. When this was done the image, unlike with today’s equipment, lost its definition and it looked like it could have been a dead-heat. This was why it took so long. But the clearest picture was the original sized photograph which left no doubt.”
 
There are different versions of what happened post decision.
 
Eisele reckoned by request he delivered a print to Young Rake’s part-owner, Greg Blank, in the parade ring two races later and Blank was satisfied that the correct decision had been made.
 
However, Blank recalled, “It took them 15 minutes to call the result and then took them nine months to give us a photograph. We received one that was magnified 400 times by which stage El Picha’s nose looked like pinnochios. It gave them the result they wanted, but that’s all history now.”
 
Newspaper reports at the time and a DVD of the race would suggest that the decision took six to seven minutes to make, whilst the legal limit at the time for magnifying a picture was three times. To deny any member of the public the right to view a photo-finish immediately would also be illegal.
 
Trainer David Ferraris was not happy at the time and said, “It’s just not on that they didn’t declare a dead-heat after that length of time. You can’t separate them in the photograph with the naked eye.”
 
Judging by his comment one wonders whether Ferraris was mislead by the television presenter who said falsely, while thousands waited for the result, that “the judges are now looking at the picture with a magnifying glass.”
 
Eisele confirmed that this was nonsense and probably a lost in translation reference to the picture being blown up on the computer. In fact the naked eye view of the original picture is the clearest one and a look at the print ten years later, even in its weathered state, leaves little doubt that the judges called it right.
 
Kevin Shea, rider of Young Rake, said, “It was tough to lose a July like that, but I know nothing about photo finish procedures and have to have faith they are doing it right. As long as Warren Eisele is chief judge I will believe they are.”
 
Thousands of punters were reportedly angry on the day and called for a dead-heat to be declared.
 
But Eisele, who said he had received threats, countered, “I reckon 90% of the public don’t know how the photo-finish works. For example another factor that caused controversy was that the television freeze frame indicated a possible dead-heat. Firstly the television camera is not exactly on the line and can also easily be bumped. Television pictures also only record 32 frames a second so it would only be by fluke that you would get a freeze fame exactly on the line. Our camera, on the other hand, is set up by a surveyor and is built into the brickwork.”
 
The cameras at the time shot 769 frames per second.
 
Eisele feels that the Durban judges are the most meticulous in the country.
 
“We are the only judges that call by colours and not numbers. A number can often be blocked by the saddle cloth flailing. We go to the parade ring before every race and make a record of things like the colours, the bridles, the size of the girths, the colour of any headgear, the manes of the horses etc. When calling a photo-finish we are not only looking at separating the horses but also have to make absolutely sure that we have the correct horses by checking them against all this visual evidence.”
 
Eisele is a third generation judge and his grandfather Charles presided over the controversial Mowgli-Radlington photo-finish of 1952. Eisele himself was assistant to his Uncle Jack during the judging of the Sea Cottage-Jollify dead-heat of 1967 and was chief judge for the Pocket Power-Dancer’s Daughter dead-heat of 2008.
 

He concluded by saying, “One thing we absolutely cannot do is change the position of the line and the horses on the photograph, which some pundits suggested was the reason we took so long to decide the 2000 July finish!”

Share