A thought or two about disqualifications

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

I\'m not sure there is a perfect, or even a good answer to the disqualification dilemma, but my favorite imperfect solution is this:

In the vertical bets, win, place, show, exacta, tri, etc. declare the disqualified horse a non-starter from the pools he was disqualified from.
So, if you have the three win, place and he gets disqualifed to second you cash the place bet, but get your money back for the win bet.  Or if you have the three/ five exacta boxed and the five is moved up to first via  the 3\'s disqualification you would cash a 5/3 exacta, but your 3/5 would be null and void.

Now obviously the major negative here is that prices to the eventual winners will be severely impacted.  The 10-1 the horse moved up went off at is not going to be the price its backers receive; the exacta severely deflated.  But they\'ll get something and a disqualification will never cost a bettor his last two dollars.  More importantly, the steward\'s are going to be very reluctant to take horses down; doing so only when absolutely warrented.

Now as far as the horizontal bets go, the pick three, fours, fives, etc.  I would declare both horses winners for these pools.  Again not perfect, but somewhat sporting. Really, no bettor should lost a pick six through disqualification.