{"id":371816,"date":"2025-08-25T07:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T07:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371816\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T07:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T07:56:10","slug":"tasmanian-racing-stewards-stood-down-pending-investigation-over-bets-abc-understands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371816\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasmanian racing stewards stood down pending investigation over bets, ABC understands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">At least two Tasmanian racing stewards, including the chief thoroughbred steward, have been stood down as part of an investigation into betting on races, the ABC understands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">It is understood the Tasmanian Racing Integrity Commissioner has conducted a betting audit of racing stewards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">At least five stewards were alleged to have bet on races.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The ABC understands two stewards, including chief thoroughbred racing steward Michael Castillo, have been stood down while the investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Castillo, who is accused of placing bets on races, confirmed to the ABC he had been stood down, but denied placing any bets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">He said he had been &#8220;questioned&#8221; as part of the investigation and was &#8220;helping out&#8221; the commissioner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Mr Castillo said he believed he would be reinstated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The nature of the alleged betting, including which specific races and amounts alleged to be wagered, remains unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know more?<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ContentAlignment_marginBottom__4H_6E ContentAlignment_overflowVisible__N2zKU\">\n<li>Email <strong>Chris Rowbottom<\/strong> at <a class=\"Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-08-25\/tasmanian-racing-stewards-alleged-betting\/mailto:rowbottom.chris@abc.net.au\" data-component=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>rowbottom.chris@abc.net.au<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Government continues to &#8216;raise the bar&#8217; on integrity, minister says<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Former harness racing steward Janet Ainscow said if stewards were betting on races, it was very detrimental to the sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;They&#8217;re responsible for the integrity of racing, to ensure that they are run by the rules and they&#8217;re not influenced by anything else other than the rules,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;[So] that they have no monetary gain whatsoever from making any decisions that they make.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Ms Ainscow said if a steward bet on a horse, it &#8220;may influence their decisions in making decisions concerning the running of races&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;If they&#8217;ve bet on a horse and somebody has put a protest in and that horse has come second and they&#8217;ve bet on the horse that&#8217;s come second and they want it relegated to first, it could influence their decision,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">TasRacing and the racing commissioner declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">In a statement, Racing Minister Jane Howlett said investigations were undertaken by the independent office of the Racing Integrity Commissioner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;We have delivered the biggest reforms in decades to strengthen our racing industry, just like we said we would,&#8221; Ms Howlett said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;We continue to raise the bar when it comes to integrity in Tasmanian racing.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least two Tasmanian racing stewards, including the chief thoroughbred steward, have been stood down as part of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[130088,1071,79,130087,702,36342,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-371816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-race-betting","9":"tag-racing","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-stewards","12":"tag-tab","13":"tag-tasmania","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115088338798467167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}