On Thursday afternoon, Trot Insider received an official statement from Ontario Racing Commission Executive Director John Blakney on the recent ruling concerning driver Brad Forward
.
In September of 2010, Forward, along with fellow horsemen Gene Piroski and Kevin Wallis, was fined and suspended as a result of an investigation into allegations that certain licensees racing at Windsor Raceway were conspiring to affect the outcome of horse races. Wallis and Piroski were cleared of charges last August. The ORC decided on Wednesday that no evidence will be called against Forward and he is eligible to re-apply to be licensed.
The statement from the ORC appears below.
On January 9, 2012, a panel of the Ontario Racing Commission (ORC) released a ruling in the matter of the appeal and request for hearing by standardbred licensee Brad Forward.
The ORC Administration's decision not to proceed with the matter was carefully-considered, with a number of complex legal issues at stake. It would be difficult to go through every consideration in detail.
However, a very important consideration was that most of the evidence available to be called in a hearing of the Forward matter was already called in the Wallis and Piroski hearing.
After a lengthy hearing, the ORC Panel concluded that this evidence was insufficient to prove that these individuals had participated in illegally influencing the outcome of races.
(Please refer to: Ruling on Wallis and Piroski)
This was an important factor in deciding that it was not in the public interest to continue the proceedings against Mr. Forward.
The Panel has now ordered that Mr. Forward is eligible to re-apply for a license in the future. There is a need to protect the fairness and due process of that application procedure. That is why it is not appropriate to add any further comment.
(ORC)
(In an effort to consolidate discussion, comments on this topic should be posted in the Forward Suspension Lifted news story.)