New BHA unit to act on integrity intelligence

The BHA is reorganising its integrity department by introducing an operations unit, aiming to take a more proactive approach to corruption while retaining a balance within the existing intelligence-based model.

The move was revealed in a presentation on integrity on the second day of the Asian Racing Conference in Cape Town on Thursday by BHA chair Annamarie Phelps, who gave more details outside the meeting.

"As part of our 2020 strategy, we're creating the unit to help us to act more quickly to translate intelligence into action," she said. "We receive a lot of data and need to improve the way we use it and translate that into action.

"It's not rocket science, but it takes some thought to follow through the individual items that come into the department and collate what's true and what's not true.

"As with all these issues, trying to keep ahead is really difficult, so for us the key is being strategic about the priorities around integrity."

The reorganisation has been put together by BHA chief regulatory officer Brant Dunshea, who is also in Cape Town and added: "While recognising that we have well-established integrity systems, there is always the need for evolution.

"By establishing this new unit, we are effectively adding a proactive capacity to the way we action outcomes from intelligence. Rather than waiting to implement strategy we are tasking staff with exercising a more proactive response."

In her conference presentation, Phelps called on governments, including the UK's, to recognise the value the sport brings to individuals and communities, adding: "We could risk losing the support or neutrality of much of our community if we are seen as corrupt or accepting of cheating, or if gambling and betting are perceived as so toxic.

"We need to aim not just for acceptance or tolerance but for public and political trust in our systems and organisations. We always have to keep doing better if we are to continually deter those who actively seek to corrupt racing. Our key principles at the BHA are first and foremost to act to prevent corruption in the first place and when it does occur, as it will, to deter and sanction those people we catch."

Phelps also said that any global response towards harmonisation in significant areas of integrity would be "a huge step" and later added: "If cheating is happening in one part of the world, it will happen anywhere. It's like water, it will find the lowest level, so when one jurisdiction starts to look at an issue, the cheats will move their attention to somewhere else.

"There are global networks, with people making millions and millions, which is why it's so important for international jurisdictions to work together."

The BHA is about to embark on one such project having landed a tender with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board on a four-year deal to provide a betting monitoring service that was originally advertised to be worth €350,000.

Phelps said: "We're so closely linked with Ireland anyway that this arrangement is a natural progression."

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