Opening day at Ky Downs today, as usual a card of full fields with runners coming
from many different states.
Some of these venues such as Indiana and Louisiana allow two year olds to race on
Lasix, so 2YOs who last raced at these venues will be \"Lasix off\". Since I agree
with JB and others that not all runners who are administered Lasix are actually
\"bleeders\", Lasix off will probably NOT factor into my handicapping of these 2YO
races today.
Richie - I\'m guessing that you too have watched several thousand races in your day. Have you ever seen anything close to what just happened in the 5th at Ky Downs? It is very fortunate that no riders or horses appear to have been hurt. Beyond words...
Early in the \'80\'s at Saratoga. NYRA carded a stakes for NY-breds. At the time, I was working in the barn of Hall of Famer James Maloney, who trained a fast and talented filly named Move It Now. Maloney entered her to run against the boys in that stakes. We led her over, she was saddled, warmed up, and as she was circling behind the gate waiting to be loaded, the starter sprung the latch. Maloney turned on his heel and went straight at a high rate of speed, cursing, for the racing secretary\'s office. No telling what might have happened had we not intercepted him. So it has happened before.
I notice that at Del Mar, an assistant starter stands in front of the gate during the loading, signals the starter as the last runner is being loaded, then moves behind the gate. Regardless, no excuse for a starter making that mistake, if it was not a mechanical failure. It\'s not a judgment call.
Strange day yesterday! Never saw a horse literally trample a seagull during the running of a race but that happened in the Marshall Jenney at Parx.
Hey Grinder sorry for the late response.
At my advanced age I fear that \"several thousand races\" might be an
underestimate but no worries.
Jennie Rees, spokesperson for Kentucky Downs (and longtime racing writer for
the Louisville Courier Journal), issued a statement that the botched start was
the result of mechanical error. I do not know if the decision that the race be
declared no contest with all wagers refunded was a stewards decision or a
Kentucky rule, but it seems like the fairest decision given the circumstances.
There are of course a number of things that can go wrong in the gate. I guess
the most common is the scenario where some but not all gates open. You have
assistant starters who have too tight a hold on a runner\'s head when the gate
opens.
The optics on the Monday incident were interesting. There were two runners
behind the gate. When the gates opened the assistant starter of one of the
horses that was not loaded threw his arms up in a \"WTF?\" gesture. The other
unloaded runner was not even facing the starting gate and as I recall may still
have been with its lead pony.
But the strangest gate incident in the probably hundreds of thousands races I
have watched happened at Oaklawn in the late 1970s. At one point (I do not know
if it was just for their end of meet Racing Festival), the Budweiser ClydesdalesTM
were brought in to pull the starting gate. In one instance after the start of a
two turn race, the team of Clydesdales refused to budge and the gate sat
precariously in front of the grandstand while the runners raced down the
backside. Finally one of the assistant starters or Clydesdale handlers was able
to get the team of huge stone eyed beasts to pull the gate safely into the
infield and a sticky situation was avoided.
Maybe 5-10 years ago at Delaware they ran a 3yo filly stake. One of them (not a long shot) acted up, and the rider got off. As he started to get back on he had one foot on the gate on either side but hadn’t sat down yet, when the gates opened. He was left standing on it as his filly took off with the field.
But to me the best will always be the guy who took his horse through that gap between the outside rail and where they parked the gate in the stretch in Maryland, and almost won. Love the announcer on that one.
But to me the best will always be the guy who took his horse through that gap between the outside rail and where they parked the gate in the stretch in Maryland, and almost won.
Like to see a replay of that if possible?
I don’t know how to attach the link, but you can google Xavier Perez starting gate race to get it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FbH3N5VJzBE
If I did this right, the head-on follows the pan. Rodman is great.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-sz-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=sz&p=broad+brush+pennsylvania+derby#id=3&vid=36b5899937bb7fcc4e69d55ca29eb6a4&action=view
That ride is always mentioned with Broad Brush\'s eventful 86 Pennsylvania Derby
win, A. Cordero up.
Broad Brush was a quirky horse. Trainer Dick Small discovered the only way to
relax him after morning exercise was to drive him around the neighborhood in a
two horse trailer
Guess that puts to rest any questions about ground loss.
Caradoc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Early in the \'80\'s at Saratoga. NYRA carded a
> stakes for NY-breds. At the time, I was working
> in the barn of Hall of Famer James Maloney, who
> trained a fast and talented filly named Move It
> Now. Maloney entered her to run against the boys
> in that stakes. We led her over, she was saddled,
> warmed up, and as she was circling behind the gate
> waiting to be loaded, the starter sprung the
> latch. Maloney turned on his heel and went
> straight at a high rate of speed, cursing, for the
> racing secretary\'s office. No telling what might
> have happened had we not intercepted him. So it
> has happened before.
>
> I notice that at Del Mar, an assistant starter
> stands in front of the gate during the loading,
> signals the starter as the last runner is being
> loaded, then moves behind the gate. Regardless, no
> excuse for a starter making that mistake, if it
> was not a mechanical failure. It\'s not a judgment
> call.
>
> Strange day yesterday! Never saw a horse literally
> trample a seagull during the running of a race but
> that happened in the Marshall Jenney at Parx.
Over the years, I recall strange stuff happening at Saratoga in the 80s or maybe 90s. One opening day, they just totally botched the placing. They literally didn\'t read the saddle cloth right and made official the wrong finish. They paid out wrong and if you had hit the race right, you were just plain old out of luck. I believe this was soon after they implemented the \"quick official\" instead of waiting for all the jockeys to weigh out and there was outcry about the \"quick official\" being a mistake. (for those who do not know, even after an uncontroversial race, you still had to wait for the jockeys to weigh out and it took what seemed like forever before you could cash your paper tickets).
two other crazy ones I recall off the top of my head -- a jockey with the same name as Kendrick Carmouche\'s dad (it could have been Kendrick Carmouche\'s dad -- dont know how to confirm it) -- was caught hiding in the fog. The track -- Jefferson Downs -- on the shores of Lake Ponchatrain -- was a bull ring with an unusual dog leg chute on the second turn -- sort of like what Keeneland uses for 4.5 furlong races -- but it was angled to the left instead of the to the right as you look at the diagram. They would run routes out of this stretch so that a mile and a sixteenth was still a 2 turn race (really like 2.25 turn) rather than a three turn race (like at CT). Anyway, the fog was coming in bad off Lake Ponchatrain and Sylvester just decided to wait in the chute while the other horses did a lap around the track, he rejoined them as they were coming into the stretch and won easy. It was apparently obvious his horse had not run the whole distance.
The other one, Andy Beyer wrote about in one of his early books. An American journalist was in the Dominican Republic covering what looked like might be a revolution. He went to the racetrack and they had the equivalent of a jackpot pick 6. An unsual sequence prevailed and he had the single ticket to take home the whole pool. However, the crowd got so angry about the seemingly illogical race results that a riot started at the track which ended up turning into the expected revolution and the track never paid out the wager. That might be the roughest bad beat story i have ever heard -- hitting a life changing wager and then not getting paid out because your ticket triggered a revolution that took down the government in the country.
I believe you are improving the Dominican Republic story a little bit too much, Socalman. There was no revolution at that time. There was chaos surrounding an election, but the reporter in question was preoccupied with the results of his bet, which were going to be decided by a ruling. So he left the scene of the chaos in order to check on the results of his bet. Bosch was overthrown months later, and for the usual reasons--having nothing to do with horse racing.