When you see a potential riding or driving infraction that affects the outcome of a race, how many of you are confident in the ruling? Show of hands. None, okay, me neither.
Brett Sturman wrote an article on HRU this weekend that focused on a few rulings of late (this case in harness racing) where he was completely confused. One of them (about going inside pylons) was bonkers and the other (I was involved in this one, and it cost me a lot of scratch) regarding the breaking rule that defied everything we've been taught to believe.
Both of the sports we bet seem to be discombobulated with the rules.
In runner-land things like herding are let go (at times, sometimes not) where the outside horse loses momentum and loses the race by a foot. It kind of depends on which track the infraction (or non-infraction) occurs. All I know is when I see the inside jock yank the horses head right to make contact or stall the outside runner (and I bet the outside runner) I start having some very bad feelings. Again, at some tracks the feelings are more frightening than a Wes Craven movie, at others I am only mildly terrified.
In harness-land, things can be, like Brett wrote, like living in Blair Witch, where your next door neighbor is Regan from the Exorcist. Depending on the track, things can be called almost the polar opposite.
At the Meadowlands it's not uncommon to see a horse pitched who alters a horse who is nowhere near the action involved, simply because a driver gets antsy and changes his path. At Mohawk, things are called much more in-tune with the Thoroughbreds (mostly) where it needs to affect the finish.
I think we bettors do not expect to agree with every decision. Much of it is subjective. But is it too much to ask for the sport to take it seriously?
As Brett alludes, on the ruling at Batavia Downs, the real judges were out of town, and were replaced by out of state judges who judge at a country fair circuit. No, I'm actually not kidding. How is this possible in a sport with billions shoved into the windows?
Flip on twitter and you'll hear a lot of gripes about the sport. Some can surely be invalid or sour grapes. But can we blame anyone for being negative when a billion dollar sport treats these decisions involving a ton of money with such carelessness?
I was asked to help with this issue years ago in Canada, and we did bang out some uniform rules. It didn't work as planned but I can say, at least in this country, we see better than most. In the U.S. with all the jurisdictions it was a different story and I think it's a complete mess.
Whatever the case, the problems seem so systemic that confidence can't help but wane when we talk about a sport professionally running its judges booth. It's a pipe dream, and as long as it is, we'll continue to gripe about it, almost on a daily basis. In my view, it's not a bug anymore, it's a feature. When we open a form or program, it's simply a part of our world.
Have a great Monday everyone.