The 17th HBF meeting took place at Pontefract Racecourse on the 21st October
Colin Hord was in the chair and thanked Matt Bisogno for all his work since the HBF was setup noting that this would be his last meeting. An update to the work program will be undertaken once the new forum members have attended their first meeting.
The new members of the forum will be Stephen Winter, Jane Leggett and Charlie Hart.
It was noted that BHA budget constraints may impact some of the initiatives that the HBF are interested in seeing come to fruition.
Following the news that Betfair/ Paddy Power will be trading their own prices to the off it was agreed to contact their representative and the Gambling Commission to discuss this matter.
Paul Johnson On Course Bookmaker joined the meeting and discussed issues of mutual interest, which included ensuring those bettors who go racing have as much information as possible to assist them with their betting, this includes displaying rule 4 messages on the big screen, ensuring that runners parade in front of the stands and that racegoers have access to some form of a racecard. It was agreed that the HBF would write to the Race Course Association to raise some of the issues noted above.
Graeme Smith BHA Handicapper joined the meeting and discussed some of the questions that the HBF had put to him in advance which included implementation of the recommendations from the handicapping review carried out by Lydia Hislop, the BHA’s approach to handicapping and penalty structures. It was noted that the BHA now provide performance ratings on their website for each horse’s run.
The forum also discussed ideas for speakers and arrangements at forthcoming meetings.
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