Stewards did right job; don’t be angry at them
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The rules apply on Derby Day as they do everywhere else on every other day. Interference is interference is interference.
When Maximum Security made an unscheduled detour out of his lane along the rail Saturday afternoon and veered into traffic, he did so at the risk of disqualification. He would cross the finish line first. He gave every indication of being the best horse in another sloppy Kentucky Derby.
But in their unanimous decision to declare Country House the winner of Derby 145, the stewards did their duty and did horse racing an inestimable service. In changing the outcome based on an objection, chief state steward Barbara Borden and her associates, Brooks Becraft and Tyler Picklesimer, succeeded in changing the subject for a sport that had been under siege after a rash of racetrack fatalities.
Opinions will be sharply divided on the wisdom of the decision, and the precedent set by choosing a Derby winner by committee, but since that debate does not entail the beating of dead horses, it serves a purpose beyond justice.
“It will give somebody a lot to talk about for a long time,” Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott said of his first Derby win. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this race shows up on TV over and over and over a year from now.”
On balance, this is a good thing. It stimulates discussion of the sport that is not driven by Lasix, illegal medications, dangerous surfaces, use of the whip, financial pressures to race unsound horses or equine mortality rates.
Complicating the discussion is Maximum Security’s movements had no discernible impact on Country House’s trip. Though Mott said the interference compromised the chances of two other horses “dramatically,” he acknowledged Country House might have been affected only “slightly.”
But in conceding that point, Mott insisted that the horses hampered by Maximum Security — and all of the people who bet on them — were victims deserving of justice.
War of Will was plainly impeded, was closing on Maximum Security and might have lost as many as 4 or 5 lengths in the process. Long Range Toddy might also have lost ground in the scrum. Borden also cited Bodexpress as a victim of Maximum Security’s move.
The rule, as written, is unambiguous: “If a leading horse or any other horse in a race swerves or is ridden to either side so as to interfere with, intimidate, or impede any other horse or jockey, or to cause the same result, this action shall be deemed a foul.’’
Mott said if it were the third race on a Wednesday, as opposed to the biggest race run in the United States, “they definitely would have taken the winner down. I think that’s the only way we can look at it.
“It’s actually bittersweet. I’d be lying if I said it was any different. You always want to win with a clean trip and have everybody recognize the horse as the very good horse and for the great athlete that he is. Due to the disqualification, probably some of that is diminished.”
Just as fouls should be called the same way in the last minute of a basketball game as in the first, racing rules should be enforced regardless of the track or its traditions.