I barely ever post here, but this topic has bothered me for some time. I owned a horse that at one point drew the outside post 7 of his 21 pari-mutuel starts, 6 outside posts out of 13 starts were drawn by one "race office". Statistically anything can happen, but I was frustrated and suspicious.
Most race offices where I race are using the online draw tool. To be up front I have not seen the tool in action, but I have a pretty good background in IT systems and programming. I have also communicated with the USTA (partnering with the IHHA on the topic) over my concerns with how the system is implemented and I requested some additional features that were denied. From my communication with the USTA the system uses a cloud based random number generator to assign the draw. It has provisions for a race secretary to list the horses in the race, create handicapping sets for races like a claiming range and Opens with assigned posts within the draw, it also allows the race secretary to redraw the race.
What it lacks is an accessible audit trail. Every system I know of can somehow be auditable, and the USTA stated that this system has the back end mechanism to allow an audit, but it would be basically a manual process for every time an audit was requested. So this is the piece of this system that incites topics like this. They need to create an auditing interface and publish the draw audits for the horseman. I would like to see how the race was handicapped? How many times did the race get redrawn? and why? (Yes, there are legitimate reasons for a redraw)
Most of the state laws and the USTA rulebook require a process for the draw that includes judges and witnesses in the old manual pill process. This was the process that was designed to give the draws integrity. The current system electronic system is very efficient and I welcome the progress, but as it is currently implemented (unless the USTA added an audit in the last 3 months) it bypasses any integrity measures. It is possible for the person doing the draw to assign an unlisted handicap set, or "hit redraw" as many times as they wish.
My final communication from the USTA was that they had other pressing projects before this would be considered and that if we wanted this done we would need the support of the racetracks using the system.
