dumb weighters ny post page3

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Definitely MO

Two different scales.

At time NYRA was using analog scales......they have gone digital now I understand.

Additionally, on the weigh out the protective equipment is not removed (helmut, flak jacket).

Add the track dust or dirt or mud and perhaps even sweat from the horse picked up from the leggings. Maybe high humidity too.

Spitzer better have a magic bullet or it could be trouble.

As far as all jockeys going overweight.thats probably true...did they? Just because they are not listed in the indictment who is to say there were others that were not consistently overweight, even if not over five pounds overweight.

MO Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you suggesting that one scale was working
> properly and the other was not? Hmmmmmmmmmm, I
> could see that as a possible scenario, especially
> if union labor was involved.

[MO]

Anyone notice that the DRF has chosen not to cover this story yet?

[MO]

http://www.drf.com/news/article/68771.html

I guess a kick in the ass was all it took to get that horse moving........

[Boscar Obarra]

   When I first heard about this I thought the worst.  

   From   Kasept\'s recap I think the only conclusion that can be made is this  is a big nothing.    

   No indictments of druggies, but nail some small fry in a public spectacle.    An analysis of the odds on these plugs,  is proof enough no betting coup was involved. Tossing 30-1 shots aint the ticket.

    Spitzer scraped the barrel here, but that doesn\'t take away from his good efforts.

[asfufh]

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/sep/Indictment%20Final.pdf

[richiebee]

Asfufh:

    Thank you for posting the full indictment and the other articles you\'ve posted recently.

    My feeling is that the activity Sclafani and Baeza were indicted for is going on every day at every racetrack in the country. The only thing that is missing in these other jurisdictions is a publicity hungry public servant.

    Had to laugh at the indictment itself, which is worded rather poorly. According to the indictment, Sclafani and Baeza \"...deprived bettors of hundreds of thousands of dollars by misrepresenting the jockey\'s weights\" [the only way to \"deprive\" bettors of money is to siphon money from the pari-mutuel pools, and only racetrack and the state can do this (takeout)] \"and thereby tricked said bettors into betting on said horses\". Nice to know that when I lose a bet, I am merely the victim of a clever ruse, and not a bad handicapper.

   Kasept... I appreciate your passion for the human side of this.

[HP]

I don\'t get it.  Someone at NYRA came forward with info.  According to the article in today\'s New York Times, they actually planted a camera by the scale to confirm the NYRA allegations.  It\'s not some frivolous thing, it\'s based on solid evidence.  Somehow this translates into \"publicity hungry public servant?\"  

I agree it\'s a tragedy about a guy like Baeza, but what would you propose doing about this?  

It\'s possible that the big initial tumult is just a way to put pressure on the participants to determine if anything else is going on.  Even if it\'s not connected to making bets, it\'s still not exactly \"good\" is it?  NYRA is a state agency.  Who else would you expect to investigate this besides the Attorney General?  

HP

[beyerguy]

All of these horses should have run faster than the figures will indicate.  In other words, a horse is given a figure carrying 115, but was actually carrying 125.  So, his performance was actually better than it appears in the DRF, on TG, etc.  I\'d be curious to know how these horses performed in the next few races, i.e were they underbet?

[asfufh]

Their are dozens of counts in this document accusing Scalfoni and Baeza of Petit Larceny and a couple of Grand Larceny. In scanning the indictment very quickly, I noticed Count # 288 (out of 291 total) charging Grand Larceny of $3000 +. Also, I\'m not a lawyer but all the larceny charges appear to cite a (unnamed) third party in cahoots with Scalfoni and Baeza.

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

Here\'s the deal with the betting coups.

They obviously weren\'t going to be made when the \"overweight\" jockeys were on the horses.  But when he was replaced by a jockey carrying the legitimate weight some people would know that the horse carrying 115 in this race and the last according to the PPs is actually losing four, or five, or seven pounds today.  In the right circumstances this could be a critical advantage.  And in fact, what the clerks of scale effectively did was destroy the integrity of the PPs for much time to come.  As such, it seems like a pretty serious offense to me, at least worthy of public condemnation.

But you know the NYRA has to bear more responsibility for this incident that just taking credit for turning in their employees.  I could make the argument that such a situation could have never occured except in such a lax and corrupt climate as was foisted by the NYRA culture, but the responsibility I want them to take is to bring greater transparancy to their \"information operations.\"  In the case, of the weights they\'ve gone to digital scales, but what they should be doing is televising the weigh ins to certain monitors in the granstands so that the public can be sure the digital readouts are recorded properly.

The same transparancy should apply to the detention barns.  As the\'re set up, only the NYRA veternarian can administer LSX.  The default amount is 5cc (or 5 whatever.)  This is the amount the veternarian will give the horse unless a different amount is officially requested by a trainer.  Which means that horses can we running with different amounts of LSX in different races.  Does the public find this out? No?  Which means the detention barns are officially structured to sanction cheating by allowing the manipulation of LSX amounts from effective to ineffictive back to effective levels without the public having an inkling of what is going on.

Of course, this has kind of manipulation has been going on for a long time.  In my day of heard of a few instances where horses listed as second time LSX horses were really running on LSX for the first time.  And if you think about it, what an easy scam that is.  Of course, with the new detention barn system that couldn\'t happen in NY (unless the vet had tradional NYRA ethics.)

Still, the argument here is, the public has a right to know how much LSX a horse is using.  Varying amount, or amounts being varied, might indeed explain improved or deteriorating performances.  But more importantly I would think the NYRA would instinctively want to make the information available.  If only as a PR move they would want to make operations of the detention barn as transparent as possilbe.  But no, they just want to go throught the motions, pretend they care about the public, while implementing a system that now legally allows trainers to cheat.

And quite honestly until I see real transparency in the \"information operaton\" I\'m going to presume nothing has really changed, digital scales, detention barns or not.  Its the same old, same old, don\'t fix a problem, pretend you\'re fixing a problem.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I dont have time to read the full indictment. At least not now, but I\'ll save it and read it later if more is revealed.

To me the most troubling counts involved the larceny charges. The allegation is the clerks of scales commandered specific riding fees for the respective jockeys.
If they can prove retention of the riding fees by the clerks then the rest of the story has legs if the weigh in camera shows significant weight overages.

Everything I know about Baeza says this plan would be anathema to his character. If money motivated him he could have progressed further up the NYRA ladder in my estimation. They are gonna need solid evidence to change my mind upon that.

I\"m also not convinced a couple of these jockeys had weight issues in the 7 to 15 pound range.


asfufh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Their are dozens of counts in this document
> accusing Scalfoni and Baeza of Petit Larceny and a
> couple of Grand Larceny. In scanning the
> indictment very quickly, I noticed Count # 288
> (out of 291 total) charging Grand Larceny of $3000
> +. Also, I\'m not a lawyer but all the larceny
> charges appear to cite a (unnamed) third party in
> cahoots with Scalfoni and Baeza.

[TGJB]

Hoarse--

1-- First of all, I agree with you, transparency should be paramount, whether we are talking about racing or government. The intended goal-- serving the public-- should really be the goal. And this extends all the way into properly dealing with the move-up trainers. If racing thinks they have a scandal now, just wait until somebody gets in trouble and starts singing.

2-- Having said that, the weight business is probably going on all the time, which is not to say it should. I\'ve told the story here before about how Brandon Simpson, as a leading bug rider in the late 70s or early 80s, would ride at Pha at 109 in the afternoon, then be overweight and only make 115 every night at Meadowlands. The clerk of scales at Pha eventually moved to another track, and a week later Simpson went to the same place.

3-- All that aside, I want to point out the AMAZING hatchet job the Daily News did on NYRA in their editorial about this today. They called for selling off NYRA, just as they did after the February scandal and the earlier stuff, and dredged up all that crap all over again. They of course did not point out that NYRA itself called the cops.

I\'m really interested in who is pulling the News\' strings. Wonder if it was the same outfit that sent the anonymous letter to Spitzer asking him not to let NYRA off.

[Caradoc]

Asfufh:

The only inference that a reader can draw is that the reference to \"others\" in various counts (such as count 288) means the jockeys in question, although as others have pointed out it is possible that Spitzer is hunting others who knew about the overweights and were involved in some way.

Peter

[MO]

As I said to someone today \"If you continuously treat your employees like crap, they will rebel\".

Have you any idea what kind of salary the NYRA clerk of scales makes? Its nothing to write home about.

NYRA has always treated their employees like crap, unless they want to make an example of someone. I was (and still am in many people\'s opinion) the top bugler in the country when I worked for NYRA from 87-92 but was the lowest paid in the country. $69.00 a day!!!! I had to quit and go to Albuquerque to get a decent pay check ($110.00 per day!!!). NYRA has never forgiven me for that or the fact that my prophesy proved true - that they would never get anyone to replace me for what they were paying. It took them 4 months to find someone. Nobody wanted the job.  

Regarding Braulio, you would think that Phipps would have made him his trainer for all the great work BB did for OP as a rider. But no, he treated BB like a hot walker. And so BB was relegated to training garbage cans for no name owners.

There\'s also a huge amount of peer pressure there and Braulio is not the type to make waves. He\'s probably only guilty of following orders, and now living his worst night mare. I really feel sorry for him.