How can you possibly know this? Country House was not significantly affected, but two other horses were. War of Will might have more to complain about than Country House:
A horse’s speed isn’t the only thing that affects the race, it also includes how the jockey controls the horse, how it reacts to the crowd and other horses and other factors.
If the horse had tripped and fallen, it would have lost even it it was unintentional and an accident. It’s unfortunate that the jockey wasn’t able to control it, but if it violated the rules in effect at the time then it seems to me the outcome is fair.
I heard that the standard is to move the ‘offending’ horse to just below the level of the last ‘offended’ horse’. So if that ‘offended’ horse finishes last, now the offender is places there.
Yes, this. I don’t play the ponies anymore but I did a bit and was a little more in tune with the sport 15-20 years ago (I had to cut it out of my budget). But back when I was going to the races more, I saw a handful of incidents where horses got tangled up resulting in gruesome injuries to jockeys and the death of the horses. That’s why, intentional or not, a horse isn’t allowed to drift into a spot where another horse is running. I was stunned that they made the call they did under the circumstances, but I think it was the right call. I heard one of the trainers (might have been Country House’s trainer) say that if that had been a claiming race without a lot a stake that it would have been a no-brainer DQ. Same rules apply here. It took a lot of guts for the stewards to make that call, but they did it unanimously after a long and careful look.
You make some good points here, and I’d just like to add that this is why I don’t agree with those who want to separate so-called judged sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating, from other sports. Every sport has aspects of judgement, even ones seemingly as objective as racing.
Whether it is law or any sport, I’ve never been the fan of projecting “what ifs had it not occurred” types of thinking. First, from watching the race several times, I’m not sure that if not for the foul, Country House was not cost about a half of a step. After the horse behind him pulled up, he drifted to the outside causing a near bumping with Country House a few seconds later. We cannot really say definitively what would have happened but for the foul.
Second, the idea of disqualification in any sport, IIRC, is not to attempt to reconstruct what would have happened had the foul not occurred, but as a punishment and inducement for competitors not to commit fouls to begin with.
To me, that’s like saying if Lance Armstrong is disqualified from winning the Tour de France because he is found later having used banned substances during the race that we not disqualify him because after studying races where he wasn’t using banned substances, he would have won anyways without the banned substance. Or if a pitcher was found throwing a spitball, he is not ejected, because he would have struck out the batter anyways.
I am not knowledgeable in the ins and outs of horse racing rules, and it seems that this was an unfortunate accident with no ill intent, but if you make that the rule then unscrupulous jockeys will start having “unfortunate accidents” and feign innocence in the next race when they cut off a passing horse.
I agree that preventing undesirable behavior is why we have rules.
It’s the jockey’s job to control the horse. Intentionality does not and should not matter in this case. An uncontrolled horse is a danger to itself and everyone around it.
Eh, looking at the comments sections in a number of news media pages about the race I could already last night see a whole lot of people having the same kind of reaction – it’s a more generalized attitude of “how dare technicalities bring down a WINNER”… “the best horse did not win” … because of course, if someone is better or superior, then it is right that he win, even if he does it wrong.
And really, accusing Churchill Downs of “political correctness”?? Hilarious.
That was on a fast track and no one challenged it.
Anyway, the situation is unprecedented, and thoroughbred racing is already facing so many problems that you can bet there will be an investigation of the stewards, jockeys, betting patterns before the race, etc., so thorough that it will literally be a rubber-glove probe.
There was clearly a foul. What are they going to probe? It was CGI? It came down to a judgement call of three people. It happened in such a random manner that there is no way that it was because of a fix. If it was fixed for Maximum Security not to win there are much easier ways to run the race to make sure that doesn’t happen.
He was pretty diplomatic about it but he was right. I don’t claim to be an expert but I’ve been to a track a time or two and I’ve seen disqualifications for less. He’s right that the rules are supposed to be the same whether it’s a claims race or the Derby. It was clearly the right call but it was the tough call. If they let it go the story would be dead by the Preakness. As it is it’s now history.
As I understand it TWO jockeys filed objections. Not just Country House’s but also (I believe) War of Will’s, which clearly WAS impeded, and seemed to be mounting a charge.
Many forms of track racing have “stay in your lane” rules. In short track speedskating, you are not allowed to drift out to make it harder for someone to pass on the outside. In track, you can’t try to make the outside runner run even further around the turn. So the idea of such a rule in horseracing neither surprises nor offends me.
I don’t know how viewers can say it was clearly inadvertent. I presume the jockey has SOME control over the horse, which includes the direction in which it is traveling. And experienced jockey or not, I can imagine the thought of squeezing off a possible passing lane…
What surprised me most about the TV coverage, however, was the actions of the interviewers an the participants while the protest was being decided. As a lawyer, I wanted to scream at all of the jockeys and trainers, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Whether the one jockey saying his horse veered because of the crowd, or the other saying his horse “kind of” turned sideways, the lawyer in me wanted them to clam up.
Then, in my opinion, “most other racing jurisdictions” are wrong because that methodology is far too subjective. You’re basically ignoring a KNOWN FOUL because you ASSUME that it wasn’t the determining factor.
The rule is that a horse that interferes is disqualified. It is not “the horse is disqualified unless he would have won the race, anyway.”
Given the football example, if a kick returner steps out of bounds when returning the ball for a touchdown, the touchdown is called back. No one says, “well that was accidental and he would have scored anyway so the touchdown should count.”
The rule is there in the interests of fairness (if other horses hadn’t had to slow down to avoid a collision, they might have challenged or even won the race) and safety (if any of the horses had fallen due to the drifting out, it would have been a disaster). This may have been a hard case, but it’s clear that Maximum Security interfered. The stewards all agreed on this. So, if you’re objecting to the decision, you’re ultimately saying that, even though it was the right call, they shouldn’t have done their job and had let it slide.
Would you allow officials in any other sport to let an obvious infraction of the rules to let slide?
