Photo-finish illusion stumps race officials and leaves punters fuming

The winner of this horse race seems obvious — but bookies and punters were left fuming when the result was overturned by officials.

There were puzzling scenes at a horse race in the UK this week when the judge called the wrong winner in a photo finish.

An on-course official announced favourite Loving Glance the winner — before hastily changing his mind and correcting the result.

The winner was in fact the 4-1 shot Albadr, who finished strongly under jockey Jim Crowley to win by a nose.

But a photograph of the finish did nothing to clear up the result as an optical illusion left punters baffled.

Albadr (near) was initially placed second before being awarded the race at Kempton Park.

Despite the difficulty in picking the noses, bookmakers and punters weren’t impressed with the initial incorrect call.

Many bookies opted to pay out both results, leaving them out of pocket. “It’s just not good enough, we’ve paid out twice on the race,” Kempton layer Charlie Miller said.

Punter Len Brown never misses a meeting at the track and summed the mess up by saying:

“This happened at Sandown in the winter and they’ve gone and done it again. I had $50 on the winner (Albadr) at 4-1 but threw my ticket away. Someone else found it and went to collect when the result was corrected.

“Luckily Charlie (Miller) the bookie knew it was my bet and refused to pay the fella out. He called me over and gave me the $200 which was smashing of him.

“It shouldn’t happen though. If we can’t rely on the judge calling the result then the game’s in a right mess.”

They've got that Kempton photo wrong, haven't they?
Loving Glance's nose was the one at the bottom, which makes her the runner-up shurly

— chris cook (@claimsfive) August 20, 2019

Embarrassing stuff from the judges at Kempton. Loving Glance called the winner has now been placed 2nd with Albadr given the winner's spot. Incredible in this day and age they still make such mistakes.

— Stephen R Power (@racingblogger) August 20, 2019

A statement from the British Horseracing Authority said: “An incorrect provisional result was initially announced in the 3pm at Kempton, announcing Loving Glance as the winner following a photo finish.

“Shortly after the provisional result was announced, the error was picked up by the chief steward through verification procedures … the result was then corrected to announce Albadr as the winner.

“The official result was announced prior to the ‘weighed in’ signal, which is the point at which the result becomes official. We will now take steps to assess the cause of the incorrect provisional result.”

Shane Quinn posted this outline on Twitter to clarify the position of each horse.

A track official defended the cock-up, saying: “It just goes to show that our protocol works as the correction was made before weighed-in was announced. Any result before the weighed-in is not the official result. If the bookmakers paid out then that is their prerogative.”

This article was originally published by The Sun and reproduced with permission