Sorry Bob, but I respectfully disagree with you. Yes,
— Maximum Security ran a strong race and was clearly, up to the quarter pole, the horse to beat, and yes,
— Country House did not have the closing speed to beat Maximum Security…
But, Maximum Security’s drift to the outside affected two horses, War of Will and Long Range Toddy, and impacted their chances of finishing better than they did. After the clear foul, War of Will faded and finished 8th behind Maximum Security, and Long Range Toddy finished 17th behind Maximum Security.*
Both War of Will and Long Range Toddy could have, and likely would have, finished higher. But Maximum Security cost them that opportunity.
Foul. Clearly.
The track stewards made the right call. At first I didn’t think they did, because I was focusing on Country House who did not have the speed and stamina to win on Saturday. But we must look at what happened to War of Will and Long Range Toddy, and they were clearly fouled.
— originally, Maximum Security finished 1st, War of Will 8th, and Long Range Toddy 17th. But with the DQ, everybody moves up a place: Country House gets 1st, War of Will gets 7th, and and Long Range Toddy gets Long Range Toddy gets 16th. And Maximum Security gets 17th, one plce behing the last horse he directly impacted.
It was the right call. The esteemed Bob Baffert is not right.
I don’t follow horse racing so this is something I have nearly zero knowledge of. However, and I bring this up sincerely, when people say ‘but Country House was affected’, isn’t that like saying ‘the other team would have one even if they didn’t cheat, so we’re going to let them have it anyway’?
In the end, I assume the biggest problem is with the people who lost money gambling on it and I would hope that they won’t or can’t influence the rules and/or how they’re applied.
To my untrained eye, Country House was not affected. And I have the race taped and watched and rewatched the incident several times. IMHO.
Most everybody, including me, says Country House would not have won it anyway.
That’s why there are track stewards who watch video replays.
In many ways, horse track video replays greatly predated replays in other sports. And I say that as an SF Giants fan, who benefitted from the first successful challenge by a manager in the World Series — 2014 World Series, Game 7, bottom of the 2nd.
Not much, is my guess. There wasn’t much that jockey Luis Saez could do at that split second moment — you’ve got a huge horse of solid muscle under you, and you weigh, what?, some 125 or so pounds. If a thoroughbred wants to drift out, he’ll drift out. Saez got him under control pretty quickly, to my untrained eye*.
Luis Saez said it was the loud sound of the huge crowd that momentarily startled his horse.
— I’m a casual fan of the sport, tuning in for the Triple Crown each year since Secretariat in 1973. While that may sound like a lot of years, some 46 years, I don’t follow the sport other than the TC.
Watching it live I said “uh oh, he’s come way out wide for no reason.” I was not surprised foul was called and after seeing the replay, not surprised Maximum Security was DQ’d. All that said, I wish he wouldn’t have been. I didn’t think it was egregious or intentional, but, unfortunately, by the book it was the right call.
Here’s a photo that clinches it. Note that the black horse has one leg between Maximum Security’s. That is extremely dangerous; if that leg had clipped one of Maximum Security’s, the horse would have fallen. Note the other horse behind behind. It would have been an immediate chain reaction of horses falling. Probably one or two of them would have broken their legs. The jockey would have been thrown to the mud with the rear guard of the horses running right towards them.
It didn’t happen, which is good. But it would have been a disaster if it had.
It doesn’t matter if Country House would or would not have won it. It does matter that Maximum Security caused a dangerous and possibly fatal situation.
When I was a teenage I was at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game where a Cardinals batter got a base hit and moved the player on first over to third.
But the batted ball grazed the second-base umpire on its way to the outfield. The ball was dead because of umpire interference, the batter was awarded first, the runner told to go back to second.
I can’t remember what happened next, or even who won the game, but I do know the batter was deprived of a base hit in his statistics, and a runner on third was told to go back to second. And it wasn’t anyone’s “fault.”
Historically, courts are loath to interfere in these matters. Although Tom Brady was treated unjustly by Goodell and initially was victorious in blocking his suspension, an Appeals Court reversed the decision.
There were a couple instances this year in high school wrestlers going to court to overturn suspensions successfully. Case in NY and WI where kid was ejected and had to sit out the local qualifying tournament to go to state. I couldn’t figure out the rationale that lead the NY judge to overrule the state mandated sitout of the next contest, but the WI judge basically said the official was wrong to eject the player in the first place, so the suspension need not be enforced.
Another poster observed that when they watched it, they thought the lead horse was veering quite widely. I had the same reaction. Not being a big fan of horse racing, I didn’t know to what extent that sort of maneuvering to make it harder for others to pass was permitted.
I do not recall the real time announcers saying anything about it. If anything, maybe they said something like, “they come off the rail.” But nothing really critical or suggesting in potential repercussions. Maybe they were counting on the apparent tradition that anything goes in the Derby…
The fact that it involved minors in an educational setting may be the determining factor. Professional sports often involve collective bargaining agreements and basic consent given as part of the signing of contracts.
