Saftote’s exotic bet late scratching rules once again came to haunt punters when the strongly fancied Candice Bass-Robinson trained Rocket Master was withdrawn at the start of the Greyville third race on Boxing Day.
Festive cheer was not the general tone of the calls and emails received by the Sporting Post after the replacement tote favourite Son Of Silver ran out of the money.
The fact is that punters choose to play by the rules that say that if your horse is withdrawn, it gets replaced by the tote favourite.
The fact that the tote favourite may well be a horse last on your selections list or a beast you’d never consider including is neither here nor there.
“Are we supposed to be celebrating that the guys got nailed and some of us are sitting on a minimum PA of R7 and a Bipot of R24,” asked one regular punter after the third race and who said the Saftote management seemed to ‘get a bigger thrill’ out of big dividends rather than ensuring that more punters win.
“This happens once a month. Vee Moodley and his colleagues don’t have an interest in making our lot a better one. Maybe it’s time we voted with our hard-earned rands,” said another, who assured us he wasn’t speaking from his pocket.
Another faithful follower acknowledged the fact that the horses were taken out of the stalls and that punters were given time to restructure their bets.
“But those are only the guys at home on a pc or in the tote. What about the thousands of punters without connectivity and those that were spending the public holiday with their families? One way to alienate your customer is to give him the feeling that he has been robbed and was out before he had a run for his tom.”
To add insult to injury, we still couldn’t tell our readers why Rocket Master was in fact scratched.
The subject of late scratchings has been raised countless times. Punters must take it or leave it, because nobody is listening.
