Trainer Ivan Furtado has been fined £2,000 after sending out two runners in the wrong races at Southwell on Jan. 14. Scribner Creek (Ire) (Roderic O'Connor {Ire}) and African Trader (Lonhro {Aus}) ran in each other's respected races, finishing third and a dead-heat seventh, respectively. The error was realized the following day after a routine test for African Trader.
It was the disciplinary panel's view that the horses became mixed up prior to arriving at the track and the switch was not deliberate. Nonetheless, it is the trainer's responsibility to present the correct horse to race, and a fine was deemed appropriate.
“It has been a costly mistake for a small training yard like ours, but we put our hand up that we made a mistake and we have to pay for it,” Furtado said. “It's not good that it happened, but we will introduce new measures in our yard to make sure it doesn't happen again. I believe it was a very fair hearing. The BHA was also very fair the way they conducted the investigation. Hopefully we can now put it behind us and concentrate on training horses.”
This was the second instance within six months of a wrong horse competing at a British racecourse, with trainer Charlie McBride sending out the wrong horse to win at Yarmouth in July, and the BHA has vowed that it will roll out a more secure scanning device in March.
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