On a Friday afternoon a few things lit up my day.
Cheers for Steve Davidowitz today talking about NYRA's Charlie Hayward. As a blogging dude I have had a supremely difficult time with the NYRA situation. I want to lambaste them, but I simply can't get my heart into it. I liked Hayward and I think he's getting a bad rap here, no matter what he did, or didn't do. I'm waiting to see what happens.
Cheers for the DRF's Dave Grening. I let the DRF have it last week because I think they've forgotten who their readership is. This is the kind of stuff I love about the publication. No one would've even been talking about the pick 6 at Belmont situation, if not for Dave Grening.
Cheers for NYRA for doing the scratches and changes for Equibase in a timely manner. I've lit them up a few times over the last several years for not having them up promptly. They fixed it.
Gemologist was "dead lame" after the Derby and it was reported by the owner. Excuse or not - and horseplayers take these very warily, because we all know in the heat of battle, a bruised foot might not even be felt by the horse - it was refreshing. Horse's get lame, just like a hockey player gets a twisted ankle. To see it reported is a good thing. Cheers.
Cheers to Dullahan's connections for not running him in the Preakness. He's not built for it, so why bother.
Cheers to Shanklin for talking about the Balmoral takeout success. Early on we'd hear things like "Laurel cut takeout for a week and handle didn't explode, so it makes no difference". Now we are seeing more heady takeout talk on the Interwebs.
Cheers to Blanchard at Western Fair for asking horseplayers what they want to see in the Pick 4 for Molson Pace night. You can vote on the races you want, here. Guess what, whatever you choose will be used. How's that, eh?
Cheers for Jim Mulinax for qualifying his colt in 153. Rock n Roll Hanover qualified in 1:54 and in a week or two had a nice trip to go 150. A few weeks after that he won in 148, dropping six seconds off his Q; and he lasted the whole year at a high level. Ditto with horse's like Beach who qualified in 52. Are today's big Q's going to drop six seconds and race in 1:43 or 1:44? No. It's too damn fast.
Have a great day everyone, and enjoy your weekend!
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1 comment:
Sorry, but I have to disagree with your endorsement of Davidowitz's column. His argument is weak at best, essentially boiling down to: "Charlie did some good things, and it is understandable that he didn't take proper action."
Please. It is true – though utterly irrelevant – that Charlie was in charge during a period in which some positive changes were made.
Davidowitz gets to the heart of the matter when he asks: "Upon realizing what was going on, did Charlie Hayward act responsibly to address the matter?"
The answer to that question, based on publicly available e-mails, is an unequivocal "no".
Davodowitz appears to be aware of the damning evidence, as he then immediately poses this question:
"If not, were there specific, conflicting reasons that prevented what we in hindsight could call 'proper action'?"
Good luck with that defense (e.g. "Your honor, because of the desire of various NY politicians to harm the NYRA, my client made the prudent decision to keep quiet his new-found knowledge of the illegal overcharging, and allow the problem to be revealed to the public at a later, more politically expedient date. He regrets that some patrons were overcharged approximately $8m as a result of the mistake, but it should be noted that only a portion of that figure relates to the 'quiet period' in question."
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