We think it's our intellect, instinct and skills that get us through each day, but that's only partly true. Just as important are nuts and bolts. Unless the inanimate steel-alloy bits that hold our stuff together are kept tightened, well-oiled and rust-free - as in a car or plane, for instance - we can find ourselves marooned or worse.Take the race meeting at Kenilworth this week. All was going swimmingly until an axle of the wheels on the starting stalls conked out and the tractor was unable to tow the metal contraption to its position for the start of Race 4.Surely there was a spare set of stalls? Oh yes. But it was discovered that this standby had only eight gates, instead of the required 14.Us Joburgers sometimes make facetious remarks about how slow Cape Town people are, but one has to seriously ask: Can't they count down there?This fiasco brought to mind the occasion at Kenilworth when the starter, feeling a tad weary, leant on the "Off" button before all the horses had been loaded for a major race, causing untold anguish. His name was Clouseau, as I recall.On Wednesday stipes and trainers carefully counted gates again, then put heads together to consider options. The sensible solution would have been flag starts, as happens in jumps racing in Britain, with runners walking up abreast and the starter dropping the flag if he's satisfied they're fairly lined up. This used to be the system in all racing in the old days, sometimes with unhappy consequences - like when the hot favourite did an about-turn just as the flag descended.Tapes or netting strung across the track and lifted when all were ready was the practice when I was a kid, but mechanical stalls are obviously the best method. Except when they're stuffed.The brains trust at Kenilworth then twigged that normal flag starts were out of the question as the rules stipulate that they can only be resorted to with horses standing in the stalls machine with the gates open.There was only one thing left to do: eliminate the least worthy runners from each race in order to get just eight starters.Remember the great loose bolt incident that closed Koeberg nuclear power station in 2005? A cabinet minister yelled sabotage; the bolt didn't get into the works by accident but by "human instrumentality". After months of expensive investigation, said minister announced the breakdown was due to "general inefficiencies" and "general ill-discipline" among workers.See what damage a loose wingnut can do?Human instrumentality is at the heart of debate about Piere "Striker" Strydom and his riding in a race last week. The multiple champion jockey dropped his hands and stopped urging on a horse called Dublin Rebel and was pipped to the post by Andrew Fortune and Top Shot.Strydom, to his credit, said, "I'm sorry", asserting that he thought he had the race won and didn't notice a horse flashing up on the inside rail.Inevitably, some punters say he deliberately threw the race, but most acknowledge that the master jockey made an error of judgment - human fallibility as opposed to instrumentality.Nonetheless, Strydom is facing an inquiry and will probably get a fairly lengthy suspension from riding...