Dawn Till Dusk (nearest) looks to have got up to beat Air Raid in the fourth race at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Sunday, but the photo-finish showed otherwise. (Picture: Wayne Marks).
The fourth race at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Sunday raised a couple of questions, one before the race and one after the race.
Firstly, how on earth did Dawn Till Dusk start at odds of 25/1 and Air Raid start at 14/10?
When the pair had last clashed over this distance they had met on identical terms to Sunday’s clash and Dawn Till Dusk had won the race with Air Raid a 0,75 length second.
Punters and bookmakers looked to have missed something.
Those who took advantage of the betting anomaly were congratulating themselves on a handsome win, when the wind was taken out of their sails as the televison picture which showed Dawn Till Dusk as the clear winner was at odds with the judge’s result.
Commentator Alistair Cohen called Dawn Till Dusk the winner and was flabberghasted when handed a result that stated Air Raid, on the inside of Dawn Till Dusk, had been declared the winner.
He even went to the extent of asking for a reprint, but quickly corrected himself and pointed out he was not entitled to do so.
The race provided a good example of a TV camera angle which provided a false impression of the order of finish.
The immediate impression of vitually all television and online viewers after hearing Alistair giving the result was was that the judges in their haste had somehow made a mistake.
Owner Greg Bortz even led in Dawn Till Dusk before it dawned that his horse had not won.
The photo-finish shows Air’s Raid’s nose to be ahead of Dawn Till Dusk’s
It turned out the judges were a hundred percent correct and perhaps the television camera was not aligned with the finish line.
A Sporting article on Tuesday revealed that the American company that manufactured Cape Racing’s photo-finish technology were contacted and a spokesman confirmed the judges had got it a hundred percent correct.
Read the article below:
A representative of the American company that manufactured Cape Racing’s photo-finish technology has confirmed that the Judges got Sunday’s highly debated Hollywoodbets Kenilworth fourth race result correct.
After leading in the runner-up, Greg Bortz sportingly congratulates winning trainer Candice Bass-Robinson (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Cape Racing Chairman Greg Bortz, who owns the runner-up Dawn Till Dusk in partnership with his fiancé Gina Goldsmith, told the Sporting Post that the equipment was regularly calibrated and maintained, and only two years old.
As a means of achieving further transparency, he had the fourth race photo sent to the suppliers for a comment.
For more than 30 years Lynx has been a world leader in the production of digital photo-finish and sports timing technology and a representative has subsequently confirmed that the favourite Air Raid did, in his opinion,beat the longshot Dawn Till Dusk.
“To me, it is obvious that the Judges made the correct call,’” said the representative.
As reported on Sunday, Aldo Domeyer was riding the Candice Bass-Robinson-trained 14-10 favourite Air Raid and looked to have done everything right as he hit the front at the 100m.
But JP ‘Winx’ van der Merwe, riding the 25-1 Dawn Till Dusk, had other ideas as he launched from nowhere to seemingly ‘pip’ the favourite.
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Many thought that the favourite had been nabbed.
Mr Bortz has reminded the racing public that all photo-finishes of races in the Cape and KZN are published on www.gallop.co.za
