LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Even in years when the Triple Crown goes unclaimed, horse racing usually finds a way to extract every bit of drama possible from its pursuit. Sometimes it ends two weeks later in the Preakness; often it builds to a spectacle at Belmont. Regardless, it’s always a welcome reprieve from the day-to-day realities of a troubled sport.
But this Triple Crown season is already a rarity because rather than two weeks of celebrating a horse by the name of Country House and Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and wondering whether they can traverse the same path as American Pharoah and Justify, we’re left with a different question: Can’t we just fast-forward to next year?
Country House’s controversial win[FONT="] via the disqualification of Maximum Security in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby — the first time it’s happened in the 145-year history of the race — has set the stage for a Preakness buildup with as much pizzazz as a hay bale.
[/FONT]n comments to reporters Sunday, Mott suggested that choosing to run Country House in the Preakness would be a decision born more from a sense of tradition and obligation rather than a next logical race given the quick turnaround and the heavy racing load he endured just to qualify for the Kentucky Derby.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear that Maximum Security will get a rematch after nearly going wire-to-wire in the Derby, only to be placed 17th after Kentucky’s three racing stewards unanimously determined that he interfered with other horses coming around the far turn. In fact, Maximum Security’s next battle may be in court if owners Gary and Mary West decide they want to legally challenge the stewards’ decision, something Gary West suggested he might consider in an interview Sunday with the Daily Racing Form.
Which means one of two things are likely to happen in Baltimore on May 18: Either Country House will win in the Preakness and head to Belmont carrying the asterisk of all asterisks or the sport will be consumed with talk about whether a federal court might overturn the result of a horse race that was already overturned by an already controversial decision that took 23 minutes of deliberation by three Kentucky racing officials.
[FONT="]Either way, it’s basically a nightmare for horse racing and a completely unsatisfying way for its showcase event to unfold over the next month.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It’s actually bittersweet,” Mott said Saturday night. “I’d be lying if I said it was any different. You always want to win with a clean trip and have everybody recognize the horse as the very good horse and great athlete that he is. I think due to the disqualification, some of that is probably diminished. But this is horse racing.”
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Perhaps in a race that is run every year with 20 horses stampeding around Churchill Downs and 150,000 screaming fans in the stands, this was bound to happen sooner or later. Rarely is a Kentucky Derby run without major traffic issues for the jockeys, whether it’s getting slammed coming out of the gate, fanned out wide around the turn, pinned to the rail or being forced to completely stop their horse’s momentum because they can’t find anywhere to go in front of them.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]But before Saturday, there had never been a clear case to overturn a winner, even though there had been various incidents of questionable contact in the race’s history.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]In one notable example in the 1997 Derby, Silver Charm bore out a bit in the stretch under a right-handed whip by Gary Stevens, forcing the rider of Captain Bodgit to steady briefly as he was eating into Silver Charm's lead. We’ll never know if that was the difference in a race Silver Charm won by a head — ABC’s broadcast immediately questioned whether there might be an inquiry — but the contact was nothing more than good, old-fashioned horse racing. And certainly not enough to take down a Kentucky Derby winner.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]What happened with Maximum Security, however, was determined to be something much different. Regardless of what caused it — perhaps it was crowd noise, perhaps it was the horse seeing a puddle of water — there’s no doubt that Maximum Security drifted right at the 5/16ths pole, causing a chain reaction that impacted War of Will and Long Range Toddy, who were racing in close quarters just behind him.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]For Mott and a handful other trainers in the race, the narrative quickly became that disqualification would have been easy call for the stewards if it were a race for cheap horses on a Wednesday rather than the Kentucky Derby.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]But the Kentucky Derby isn’t a weekday claimer. It’s America’s most important race with an unusually large field, and there’s a legitimate debate to be had that calls for a different threshold for disqualification — especially since Maximum Security did not interfere with Country House, who ran a good second but was no threat to win the race any other way.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]We’ll never know how badly War of Will’s chances to win were damaged in that incident with Maximum Security, and certainly Kentucky racing officials had leeway within the rules to favor disqualification. But it’s a legitimate question whether a greater good was served by rewarding an undeserving winner while penalizing a horse who led every step of the race and whose misstep didn’t appear to be any intent by jockey Luis Saez to impact his competition.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Faced with a somewhat similar circumstance in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, California stewards decided not to disqualify winner Bayern, who completely wiped out Shared Belief with a wayward break from the gate, an incident that also took out a third horse in Moreno who was expected to battle Bayern for the lead.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]“The incident occurred in a part of the race where the horses interfered with were not cost the opportunity to place where they were reasonably expected to finish,” steward Scott Chaney said at the time.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]None of that is to say one is completely right and another is completely wrong. It’s simply that these decisions often leave some room for gray area — and now controversy.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]That’s what horse racing will have to grapple with over the next two weeks in a Preakness that most are seemingly reluctant to contest now, even the trainer of the Derby winner.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part of what is supposed to make these two weeks so much fun is the hope that another racing hero is about to emerge. Instead, no matter how it turns out, this Triple Crown is already a drag.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Derby winner Country House could carry asterisk of all asterisks after Preakness[/FONT]
But this Triple Crown season is already a rarity because rather than two weeks of celebrating a horse by the name of Country House and Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and wondering whether they can traverse the same path as American Pharoah and Justify, we’re left with a different question: Can’t we just fast-forward to next year?
Country House’s controversial win[FONT="] via the disqualification of Maximum Security in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby — the first time it’s happened in the 145-year history of the race — has set the stage for a Preakness buildup with as much pizzazz as a hay bale.
[/FONT]n comments to reporters Sunday, Mott suggested that choosing to run Country House in the Preakness would be a decision born more from a sense of tradition and obligation rather than a next logical race given the quick turnaround and the heavy racing load he endured just to qualify for the Kentucky Derby.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear that Maximum Security will get a rematch after nearly going wire-to-wire in the Derby, only to be placed 17th after Kentucky’s three racing stewards unanimously determined that he interfered with other horses coming around the far turn. In fact, Maximum Security’s next battle may be in court if owners Gary and Mary West decide they want to legally challenge the stewards’ decision, something Gary West suggested he might consider in an interview Sunday with the Daily Racing Form.
Which means one of two things are likely to happen in Baltimore on May 18: Either Country House will win in the Preakness and head to Belmont carrying the asterisk of all asterisks or the sport will be consumed with talk about whether a federal court might overturn the result of a horse race that was already overturned by an already controversial decision that took 23 minutes of deliberation by three Kentucky racing officials.
[FONT="]Either way, it’s basically a nightmare for horse racing and a completely unsatisfying way for its showcase event to unfold over the next month.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]“It’s actually bittersweet,” Mott said Saturday night. “I’d be lying if I said it was any different. You always want to win with a clean trip and have everybody recognize the horse as the very good horse and great athlete that he is. I think due to the disqualification, some of that is probably diminished. But this is horse racing.”
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Perhaps in a race that is run every year with 20 horses stampeding around Churchill Downs and 150,000 screaming fans in the stands, this was bound to happen sooner or later. Rarely is a Kentucky Derby run without major traffic issues for the jockeys, whether it’s getting slammed coming out of the gate, fanned out wide around the turn, pinned to the rail or being forced to completely stop their horse’s momentum because they can’t find anywhere to go in front of them.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]But before Saturday, there had never been a clear case to overturn a winner, even though there had been various incidents of questionable contact in the race’s history.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]In one notable example in the 1997 Derby, Silver Charm bore out a bit in the stretch under a right-handed whip by Gary Stevens, forcing the rider of Captain Bodgit to steady briefly as he was eating into Silver Charm's lead. We’ll never know if that was the difference in a race Silver Charm won by a head — ABC’s broadcast immediately questioned whether there might be an inquiry — but the contact was nothing more than good, old-fashioned horse racing. And certainly not enough to take down a Kentucky Derby winner.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]What happened with Maximum Security, however, was determined to be something much different. Regardless of what caused it — perhaps it was crowd noise, perhaps it was the horse seeing a puddle of water — there’s no doubt that Maximum Security drifted right at the 5/16ths pole, causing a chain reaction that impacted War of Will and Long Range Toddy, who were racing in close quarters just behind him.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]For Mott and a handful other trainers in the race, the narrative quickly became that disqualification would have been easy call for the stewards if it were a race for cheap horses on a Wednesday rather than the Kentucky Derby.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]But the Kentucky Derby isn’t a weekday claimer. It’s America’s most important race with an unusually large field, and there’s a legitimate debate to be had that calls for a different threshold for disqualification — especially since Maximum Security did not interfere with Country House, who ran a good second but was no threat to win the race any other way.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]We’ll never know how badly War of Will’s chances to win were damaged in that incident with Maximum Security, and certainly Kentucky racing officials had leeway within the rules to favor disqualification. But it’s a legitimate question whether a greater good was served by rewarding an undeserving winner while penalizing a horse who led every step of the race and whose misstep didn’t appear to be any intent by jockey Luis Saez to impact his competition.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Faced with a somewhat similar circumstance in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, California stewards decided not to disqualify winner Bayern, who completely wiped out Shared Belief with a wayward break from the gate, an incident that also took out a third horse in Moreno who was expected to battle Bayern for the lead.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]“The incident occurred in a part of the race where the horses interfered with were not cost the opportunity to place where they were reasonably expected to finish,” steward Scott Chaney said at the time.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]None of that is to say one is completely right and another is completely wrong. It’s simply that these decisions often leave some room for gray area — and now controversy.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]That’s what horse racing will have to grapple with over the next two weeks in a Preakness that most are seemingly reluctant to contest now, even the trainer of the Derby winner.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Part of what is supposed to make these two weeks so much fun is the hope that another racing hero is about to emerge. Instead, no matter how it turns out, this Triple Crown is already a drag.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Derby winner Country House could carry asterisk of all asterisks after Preakness[/FONT]
