Tricast tightens up

Shrewd punters will soon be deciding it is impossible to win after one of the last remaining loopholes in betting was firmly shut in their faces yesterday.

The Betting Office Licensees' Association announced that from Monday there will be a new formula to calculate tricasts. The aim is to produce a dividend which takes into account the stalls positions of the first three in any race and has been prompted by finishes on some straight courses favouring a particular side of the track. Had this been introduced last year, dividends for popular tricast races such as the Ayr Silver Cup, the Ayr Gold Cup and the Portland Handicap would have been significantly reduced.

Among the 26-page release detailing the mathematics behind the move, BOLA released the statistics that, based on exhaustive research, "69% of tricast returns will be increased, 7% decreased and 24% will remain unchanged".

But explaining the reasoning behind a move which will apparently cost the bookies more in weightier dividends, Frank Dixon, the secretary of BOLA, explained: "There will be savings on dividends where the first three are drawn together. Many of our members have brought up the matter and said 'this can't be right' after the first three have all come from a favoured side of the track."

n The trainer Jimmy Harris failed to overturn the disqualification of last Saturday's Lingfield first-past-the-post, Monkey Zanty, when the Jockey Club Disciplinary Committee rejected his appeal yesterday.