Rules for inconsistent stiping...

From this weeks sands of time article ()


Racing takes place at the Vaal on Saturday, to celebrate the inauguration of the track’s R10 million facelift of its facilities. Vaal meetings normally take place on weekdays only.
The stipes report (according to Computaform) joins in with the celebrations: “Jewel of Jamaica distressed after race and lame near fore. Just Joyce injured mouth, lame near mouth. Drunk As A Lass specimen taken for analysis.”
Stiping is not all fun, though. For the feature race winner at the Vaal is Hint, who’d finished almost 40 lengths back at his previous start, in Kimberley. The Stipes interview trainer Miller, and draw his attention to the rules regarding inconsistent running. Inconsistent? Since July last year, Hint has finished out of the places only ONCE in his previous THIRTEEN starts, on average less than three lengths behind the winner (he scored 5 wins, 3 seconds, 2 thirds and 2 fourths). If that’s inconsistent, then the the Transvaal stipes better suspend 95% of the their horse population!
What the stipes should have done, of course, was to inquire at Hint’s last start, in Kimberley, about what went wrong and have made THAT public – which could have gone some way to prevent Hint’s SP of 20/1 when he won at the Vaal (R85 on the Tote), and certainly would have made the ludricous public questioning of Hint’s trainer at the Vaal quite unnecessary.
The Hint case (failure of the stipes to inquire when a horse unexpectedly runs below best, and rather leave the inquiry until the horse resumes his normal pattern after one below-best performance) is by no means an isolated one.
Which is why attention is hereby drawn to inconsistent (in-and-out) stiping, for which as yet no Rule exists.