Kentucky derby. Now that was interesting!

I’m not sure if I agree with the final outcome but I know nothing of the rules. 

Well, I didn't have any financial stake in the outcome. But since I have a '96 Miata, my favorite horse had to be "Roadster." Nowhere near the finish. Annie and I watched at our local pub Bill's, and everybody had a favorite horse. Nobody was a winner.

I just watched DVR of it. Wow, what an upset. 

We went to the movies.  Figured we’d have the place to ourselves........nope, the place was packed.

I heard something about a race.

The $1 super payed $51k

I’ll wait on floating doc to make his judgement, but folks at OTB seemed to be evenly divided into “had a lot of money on 7” and “had any money on 20”. I’ll let you guys decide which side was which as to was it the right call or not

I probably should have paid attention since Im going to the Preakness soon

mtn said:

The $1 super payed $51k

 

I’ll wait on floating doc to make his judgement, but folks at OTB seemed to be evenly divided into “had a lot of money on 7” and “had any money on 20”. I’ll let you guys decide which side was which as to was it the right call or not

Who was it that said "if someone ever gives you 10,000:1 odds you play $20"?

I think it was on the office actually.

Robbie said:

mtn said:

The $1 super payed $51k

 

I’ll wait on floating doc to make his judgement, but folks at OTB seemed to be evenly divided into “had a lot of money on 7” and “had any money on 20”. I’ll let you guys decide which side was which as to was it the right call or not

Who was it that said "if someone ever gives you 10,000:1 odds you play $20"?

I think it was on the office actually.

mtn said:

The $1 super payed $51k

 

I’ll wait on floating doc to make his judgement, but folks at OTB seemed to be evenly divided into “had a lot of money on 7” and “had any money on 20”. I’ll let you guys decide which side was which as to was it the right call or not

It's Sunday morning, I still haven't watched it yet. Big SCCA weekend here in Daytona. Raced yesterday, about to head out for day two of autocross.

Word on the street is that Healthy Holly may be making an appearance at Preakness. 

I didn't pay any attention to it, was it the Grand Chawhee's birthday?

In reply to bigdaddylee82 :

The winner was disqualified 

Funny that I was listening to the James Bond , Diamonds are forever yesterday and they had a tread about a Longshot that was fixed to win..... And the jockey did the same thing !

Okay, I'm back (password stopped working for some reason).  

Here's my opinion. Sorry if it drifts into some of the history of the race (WTH, my career plan was to get rejected for vet school, then become a history professor). 

I watched the video replay (I missed the race, I'm more into autocross now). Maximum Security (mostly) ran a great race, and was far the best horse at that moment, and under those conditions. No one was going to beat him that day.

Unfortunately, Maximum Security ran wide at the head of the stretch, and impeded War of Will, who was right behind.  It could have been a disaster, taking down multiple horses and their riders. I've seen some bad wrecks. I've had friends die racing horses, and I would much rather be in a bad wreck in a properly equipped racecar than in a horse race.

It appears to me that the disqualification was in great part motivated by the distinct possibility of a chain reaction wreck. Thoroughbred racing is reeling under the weight of seriously bad publicity from several deaths of horses this year at Santa Anita. An event that took down multiple horses and riders in the KY Derby with the whole world watching live would be a disaster for an industry that's trying to justify it's very existence. 

The big however in all of this, is that while War of Will was impeded, and the chain reaction also affected two long shot colts, Long Range Toddy and Bodexpress, the outcome of the race was (again, my opinion) not affected. These horses finished eighth, fourteenth, and seventeenth.  Taking down the winner is meant to be done when some event occurs that changes the outcome. No other horse in that race was going to beat Maximum Security. 

I think it was a bad call, based on politics. The stewards could have fined and suspended the jockey, and that would have been an appropriate response to losing control of the horse for that brief moment. 

This race has a history of taking down the winner under dubious circumstances.

Dancer's Image rallied from 15 lengths back to cross the line first in the 1968 Kentucky Derby.  

The owner of Dancer's Image was Peter Fuller, a New Englander, and not part of the inner circle of racing. The year before the derby he had staged a rally in downtown Louisville against housing discrimination.  Two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dancer's Image won the Governor's Gold Cup, and Fuller sent the winnings to King's widow. He kept quiet about it, but word got out. Let's just say that he was unpopular in Kentucky, and elsewhere. One of the stables on his farm was burned, and he and his family had their lives threatened. 

The track refused to provide extra security for Dancer's Image. He was placed last a few days after the race for failing a urine test for phenylbutazone, or bute. Bute is an anti inflammatory drug, not a performance enhancing drug. Think of aspirin, or ibuprofen.  He had received a dose on the preceding Monday. The drug should have cleared within 72 hours, but reportedly traces were found in his post race sample. 

The Kentucky Racing Commission legalized the use of bute less than a year later. 

In reply to Floating Doc :

I don't know enough to say I agree with everything you said, but I think I do!

The punishment did not fit the crime.  I agree that a fine or similar punishment would have been far more appropriate.  I can't help but wonder if one or more persons of influence had a large wager on the second-place horse.

For a race like that, I don't think that the possibility of it affecting someone's wager is very likely. 

Having had a horse under my care stiffed by the driver (in a triple crown race for pacing fillies by the way), I know that there's a lot that can go on behind the scenes.

The horse didn't even have backlapped valves