An unprecedented horse identification error occurred at Yarmouth on Thursday when a wrong horse ran in-and won-the course's opening race.
A filly believed to be the 2-year-old Mandarin Princess (GB) (Vale of York {Ire}) caused a 50-1 upset when coming home first from the 4-6 favourite Fyre Cay (Ire) (Red Jazz) in the six furlong novice auction race (video). That filly was identified later at the horse sampling unit as Mandarin Princess's 3-year-old stablemate Millie's Kiss (GB) (Aussie Rules), who had been due to run in the fourth race, a one mile one furlong handicap, for trainer Charlie McBride. Because the result had already been declared official, Yarmouth stewards could not amend it and have had to refer it to the British Horseracing Authority.
McBride told Racing Post, “It's a genuine mistake and humans make mistakes. It's an honest error and no-one stood to gain anything by it. I took a young girl who has been with me for two or three months to the races. She's ridden both fillies and knows them both. After we checked them in we got some lunch and I sent her to get the 2-year-old ready and I went to the weighing room to get the saddle. I like to weigh my horses out early but I had to wait over 20 minutes for the saddle. The filly was already out when I got back and as I was stressed and rushing I didn't look that closely–I just assumed it was the right horse.”
He added, “They are two brown fillies and if you stood them together I'd be able to tell them apart straight away. I know both fillies but in the heat of the moment I didn't look at the filly. In the paddock and after the race there were a lot of owners and people to deal with. It never dawned on me it was not the right horse.”
The BHA released a statement that read: “The incident at Great Yarmouth has been referred to the BHA's head office in order that we can carry out an investigation, in accordance with our rules. Since we introduced the microchipping identification system an incident such as this is, as far as we are aware, unprecedented. The issue had not been established until after the result had been made official. After the weighed in has been declared on the racecourse, the result cannot be amended by the stewards. The responsibility lies with the trainer to present and run the correct horse in the race. Having said that, and while we have not seen an incident of this nature in recent times, we will of course determine what steps need to be put in place to prevent it from happening again. We sympathise with the betting operators and betting public who have potentially been affected by this incident.”
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