Gulfstream DQ's...... It's a Riot!

Ray Paulick sizzled an article on the Bacon Report this afternoon about the Gulfstream DQ, titled "Character Attacks on Gulfstream Stewards, GM Deplorable". 

•  It’s one thing to allow mind games to be played inside your head, but it’s entirely another to start posting vicious allegations of wrongdoing by horse racing officials entrusted to oversee the game. That, sadly, is what happened in the wake of Saturday’s disqualification.

This is in reference to horseplayers, who in the wake of the DQ, began to form some X Files, Twelve Monkey's conspiracy theories about why the horse was DQ'd. In the comments section, its started a alphabetical riot.

I read Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath over Christmas. In it, he looked at conflict's and their resolution. He leaned on studies that showed when a Goliath looked at where a David was coming from, escalation of the conflict could be avoided.

The "character attack" on the GM or the stewards is not coming from people who dislike them personally (hell, most conspiracy folks probably don't even know their names), but the situation. I disagree with these people, but I can see where they are coming from.

A DQ happens that me, you, Tim Ritvo, or anyone else can see at another track tomorrow, where the winner will be left up.

That DQ, that at say Beulah is not a DQ, results in a massive carryover pool.

That carryover pool results in better business for the racetrack.

Since this business has seen pick 6 scandals, drug positives, jocks pulling horses, betting coups, and just about everything else in folklore and in newspapers, even since Ringers and Rascals was written.................. this must be true. 

When you look at it like that, can you blame some people?

Horse racing, and Gulfstream Park, should probably not be too upset with these folks. They certainly shouldn't sue any of them and be a chapter in Gladwell's next book. Just open your mind and see where they're coming from. It's not hard to comprehend.