Past-posting incident reported

Golden Gate Fields has forwarded information to the California Horse Racing Board and other racing investigatory agencies about a possible past-posting incident on its third race on the Sept. 26 card, according to officials of the track and regulatory organizations.

Robert Hartman, the general manager of Golden Gate, said on Monday that the track received the first notification of possible past-posting on the race last week, when officials of Keeneland Racecourse presented information to racing authorities about a bettor being able to place wagers after the race had started. Hartman said that the track had already known a stop-betting command issued by Golden Gate Fields's stewards had malfunctioned for the race, but the track was not previously aware that any wagers had been placed after the race started.

"We've only heard one report, and that was from the mutuel department at Keeneland in the last week," Hartman said.

The bet-processing company that handles Golden Gate's wagering is Scientific Games Racing. Late on Monday, Scientific Games released a statement saying that the company's internal investigation did not turn up evidence that anyone was able to place a bet after the race was stated.

"We are aware of a suggestion by a bettor at another track in Kentucky that he purportedly placed a past-post wager," the statement said. "We are cooperating with the CHRB and the [Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau] in their reviews but have found nothing to date that validates that claim."

Curtis Linnell, the director of wagering analysis for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, said on Monday that a computer system maintained by the bureau to analyze betting patterns at racetracks did not show any suspicious betting patterns on the race. Because it was not possible to determine when the race went off, the TRPB has not been able to ascertain how much was bet after the race started, Linnell said.

"We couldn't find any significant spike in cashing, no significant spike in betting, and we didn't find any significant deviation in payouts from the closing odds," Linnell said.

According to Hartman, a back-up system employed by Scientific Games to stop racing in the event of a malfunction in the stewards' stand eventually closed the pools, though he could not say when the back-up system issued the command.

CHRB officials did not immediately return calls on Monday.

- additional reporting by Chuck Dybdal