FAILING TO REGISTER JOINT INTEREST.

Shannon News, 4 May 1923, Page 4

FAILING TO REGISTER JOINT INTEREST.

OWNERS OF- PENNILESS; ONE DISQUALIFICATION PERIOD REDUCED; CHRISTCHURCH; Last Night; * Last month, in Wellington, Messrs. C. P Skerrett, O. S. Watkins and W. E. B"dwell, acting as judges appointed by the president of the New Zealand. Racing Conference, heard the appeal lodged by John Archibald Cyril Fleming against the decision of the Auckland district racing committee in imposing certain disqualifications on him, and their decision was published to-day. The Auckland district committee had . held Fleming and L. H. Wynyard to be guilty of corrupt practice undeir the rules of racing., by failing to register a joint interest in the hors e Penniless, and ordered them to refund to the Whangarei Racing Club the stakes, won by that horse-in the Poroti Hack Hurdles on October 15, 1921, for which event the horse •was declared to be disqualified. At the same time, the d-strict committee disqualified. Fleming for five years and Wynyard for-throe-years, from March 15, 1923.

The appeal judges affirmed the decision of> the district committee in disqualifying the horse and ordering a refund of the stakes won in the event mentioned, but’ said they saw no reason for differentiating . between the guilt of Fleming and Wynyard, or of the punishment to b3> imposed; They therefore- reduced th e term of Fleming’s disqualification to three years, from March 15.