FEAR FACTOR! PR

Natalie’s piece on the fundamental hazards of fielding a reader’s sleuthful purport of a racing crime is a timely and courageous attempt from what is left of a shrinking jury of horse racing’s fifth estate. In an age where payoff’s in the headlines trump infractions in modern racing, the racing public has fallen victim to the myopic version of their assumptions without the aid and commonality of what racing and public shared and benefitted from 50+ years ago…”A FEAR FACTOR”!

The “Stewards Stand” was a highly dependable beacon of sleuthing, highly skilled and comprised of three members donned with the hard-earned practical experience of a calloused and educated background of horsemanship, participation or officiating in some 20 detailed levels of the sport. For those unborn of that era, the coronation of the likes of Marshall Cassidy, Keane Dangerfield, Myron Davies, Dr. Catlett and most recently Manny Gilman, only to mention a few throughout the land, the stewards’ stands represented an expertise well steeped in the knowledge and destructive patterns of corruption. They knew first and collaborated with Thoroughbred Racing & Protective Bureau and a competent team of racing officials that exposed and communicated infractions small and large to the Press and public supported by, in many cases, three daily newspapers, periodicals and the Daily Racing Form.

Today, unfortunately, that chain of delivery works in total reverse as eluded to in Natalie’s article in the Paulick Report. The Stewards Stands of today, for the most part, have been neutered by the advent of a total and in some cases, partial takeover by state appointed persons with little or no horse racing expertise, yet placed in the position of total oversite by fiat! In many cases, investigations, expulsions and results of same have been taken over by State racing boards, racetrack managements and mitigated by horsemen’s groups, humane societies, legal Sopps or even the FBI, the latter which could take years to adjudicate. Horse Racing is and 

always has been a sport and like any other should be refereed and adjudicated as close to the infraction or impropriety as possible and by those most acquainted with the intricacies’ and elements of the game. Today, stewards are for the most part, unheard of; demeaned and left with trivial infractions of purpose and even stripped of those as we have seen lately with the “riding crop and “whipping-issues” something that has been in rule books for a century. Unfortunately, the main body of laborers and those in the main body of horsemanship knowledge and necessities have ever seen a “rule book” in one language let alone two, falling victim to multi-million dollar budget constraints and “its on the internet”, we are told. We literally have thousands of backstretch workers with little or no knowledge of computers and the internet!

In North American horse racing there is such a vast disconnect between those who know the basics of horsemanship and those who lead us, and those who largely know very little of the “real game” and where most infractions germinate and materialize.

Consequently we have eliminated the “FEAR FACTOR” of our authority and those who are charged with our perpetuation and existence as a sport and business