Our Voices

Stewards Continue to Work Toward Elusive Consistency

2019-01-25T19:33:00Z

(Originally published in the January 19, 2019 issue of BloodHorse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Dr. Ted Hill

With the NFL playoffs upon us and the recent announcement that the chief state steward at Turfway Park will explain disqualifications while a replay is televised, I would like to share some thoughts on consistency in the stewards’ stand—or lack thereof.

Fans, and those who cover Thoroughbred racing, have complained about inconsistency relating to interference and disqualifications for decades. In fact, I vividly recall the headline on one such article more than 10 years ago: “Consistently Inconsistent.”

While I agree that consistency from jurisdiction to jurisdiction remains a challenge, I do believe there is reasonable consistency at any one racecourse among the three regular stewards who have worked together for some period.

Unfortunately, the decisions at one race meet are not likely to be agreed on by stewards around the country, as we have learned from recent surveys. The best hope for improvement in this area is the Racing Officials Accreditation Program (ROAP), where consistency is a point of emphasis for 2019. This topic will be discussed at every continuing education program throughout the year in all regions and will be reinforced with race surveys for stewards to participate in and share their findings.

As hard as our accreditation board and all dedicated stewards strive to achieve consistency, there is no simple solution and there might never be. It’s elusive and will require continuing work.

Of all the duties racing stewards perform daily, nothing generates more debate or causes more dissent than interference decisions. But keep in mind that racing is not alone in that regard.

Anyone watching NFL football this season can appreciate this problem. Pass interference, roughing the passer, and plays involving possession have been confusing for everyone. One would think that the NFL, with its central league office and endless financial and technological resources, would have figured this out years ago.

Racing also continues to wrestle with officials’ decisions. Our process seems straightforward. There are rules defining interference and how the stewards may enforce them. There are three stewards adjudicating each race, and each has an equal vote.

They review the race films, speak with the jockeys involved, and decide whether the foul warrants a demotion—a change in the final placing. So, their decisions should be reasonably
predictable.

But here’s the rub. Anyone can rule on an egregious foul that causes a horse to stumble or fall, unseating the jockey or causing him to lose his irons and all chance to finish competitively. You don’t need official training to recognize that.

Most patrons can understand when an action is deemed minor interference with no impact on the race and is dismissed as incidental.

The reality is that all the other incidents that draw an inquiry/objection fall between those extremes and require a judgment decision by the three stewards. Their training and experience must direct them to a reasonable and justifiable determination. No two races are the same, and close examination of all the specifics in the running of the race and factors involved in their decision will affirm this.

Of course, there are some interesting similarities and differences between stewards’ decisions and NFL officials that are worth mentioning.

We both have the benefit of “replay.” However, the number of cameras and angles available on the football field are far superior to those in racing. We lack true “head-on” views of the stretch on many of our turf courses. It’s difficult to be consistent when replay views vary. Not an excuse, but it might be a factor.

Racing commissions could help in this regard by requiring consistency in the tools stewards are provided. Regulators could require tracks to provide true head-on views, which would involve some planning at turf courses where inside rails are adjusted. But this would provide stewards with better information on which to base their decisions.

The NFL relies on league office personnel to confirm or reverse decisions made by the referees on the field.

Racing has talked about this possibility in recent years, but the logistics of such a program would likely prevent its use in horse racing, except for a few major races.

With state-to-state regulatory oversight, racing commissions would be hesitant to accept an opinion or ruling from a third party over their own stewards. On-track stewards are able to speak with jockeys involved in an incident as part of the review. Occasionally this has value, when a jockey is totally candid about an incident. NFL officials, as we know, clearly do not concern themselves with the opinions of the players involved.

Football fans generally accept that a few bad calls by the refs balance out over time. The best teams win the most games. While the NFL has always been attractive to bettors (even before it became legal this past summer), virtually all racing fans are wagering on races.

Thus, with this tremendous potential to affect the result of a race and the wagers placed not only on that race but numerous exotic bets, the stewards are prime targets for criticism.

Of course, stewards’ decisions can be costly for some and rewarding for others. It is inevitable that some will be frustrated and angry at times. Pari-mutuel wagering is designed that way. Gamblers are betting against each other, not against the house.

In my experience as a steward or as an observer of other stewards, it is important to note that inconsistency in stewards’ decisions is not a matter of preferential treatment. Top jockeys and trainers do not get preference, though some jocks might be better at selling their argument—like some wide receivers are better at selling pass interference.

Except for occasional fill-in duty at the New York Racing Association tracks, my days in the stewards’ stand are behind me. But I know that active stewards are continuing to work toward harmonization on interference and making their decisions as objectively as possible.

Dr. Ted Hill, a former chief examining veterinarian for the New York Racing Association, served as The Jockey Club steward at the NYRA tracks for 19 years. He retired in December 2015.

No Whip, No Wince

2019-01-24T21:10:00Z

(Originally published in the January 5, 2019 issue of BloodHorse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Edward L. Bowen

For a 19-year-old groom during a summer between college semesters the sense of being on the inside of the game brought a knowing smile the morning one of the exercise riders said the boss was tired of this horse “cheatin’ on him,” and was prepared to take action. They came back from the workout having “tatooed that s.o.b.” and predicting our first trip to the winner’s circle as a groom was around the corner.

This seemed like the real thing; it was “horse talk,” as the backstretch would have it. If the horse was not responding enough from being hit a few times, how about smacking him every stride down the stretch? And, if the harsher tactic needed justification, getting your picture taken after the race was pretty cool.

Well, the summer was not quite half over when one of the two stakes winners in the barn came back from a race with angry-looking welts, about to ooze blood—along the right side, on the flank, even underneath and almost to her belly. This was another side of use of the whip, but it did not change the fundamental acceptance that whipping was part of being a jockey. It just needed to be done right, and this filly’s jock had done it wrong.

Over the years, after moving into journalism for a trade publication, we winced from time to time from references to use of the whip. For example, a chart note that was cringeworthy was the description “prevailed under heavy punishment.” Punishment? For what? This was not an outside source casting an accusative eye toward the Turf; it was how we described it to ourselves.

Still, we make no claim to experiencing any personal epiphany about the whip. Many years passed—decades, in fact—and we had to have it shoved in our face that public attitudes can change. The use of elephants in circuses was offending the public. The elephant in the room was that the elephant shouldn’t be in the room. Meanwhile, even the creature called a Killer Whale came to be seen as the sympathetic figure vis a vis the human being.

Maybe that time-honored horse racing phrase “whipping and driving” also needs rethinking, to eliminate the harsher (whipping) of those two colorful descriptions.

Under auspices of the National Museum of Racing, the Foal Patrol program takes the public into the birth scene of the Thoroughbred, introducing adult and child alike to the charms of the new foal and the magical combination of elegance and awkwardness in its early exploratory steps. Yes, darling, he is cute, and the people who care for him love him. So will those who take care of him later when he grows up to be a racehorse. How will he learn to be a racehorse? Well, he will get used to being ridden and guided by a bit and reins, and then they will take a hard stick and beat him like the dickens across his rear end to encourage him to run fast. You’ll be OK with that, won’t you?

The foregoing is purposely flip and simplistic. It is perhaps offensive to the professional horseman and horsewoman who know the proper use of reins, saddles, blinkers, whips, whatever. What comes to mind is a presentation made by retired Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron at the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit presented by The Jockey Club and Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.

McCarron knows the proper use of the whip and took pride in learning and practicing it. He can demonstrate how a jockey can be at pains to bring the whip down at the proper angle and on the proper part of the equine anatomy.

Among McCarron’s favorite memories are his Kentucky Derby (G1) wins. He recalls that the owner of the first one paid a half-million dollars for the horse and clearly deserved the best effort from his jockey, including the use of the whip as it has been understood and embraced for…well, forever, in a manner of speaking.

McCarron knows—knows—a jockey is doing nothing wrong or inhumane in properly using a whip. We can readily understand, then, how offensive it must be to be told, “Well, it might not be wrong, but it looks bad to certain people, so we need to stop hitting the horse as if that is a part of the sport which must be continued.”

How, he or a compatriot might ask, can I possibly be a complete jockey if I can’t use a whip? The thought here is that they could get used to it as their more subtle communications with the horse took on added importance.

The jockeys of McCarron’s training and ability are certainly horse savvy enough to succeed even if rules change.

Basic practicalities about treating and training animals would continue to be understood. They would not have to be sacrificed in order for Thoroughbred racing to eliminate whipping as a ubiquitous aspect. The human must convince the animal who is in charge. Heck, we spank puppies in order to train them. We well remember the lesson that a pony, presumably, will not drift off in the wrong direction if the rider neck reins its head around to the opposite side. Well, by the time that rubber-necked child’s pet was looking us in the eyes with her head cranked around to the left, and she still was veering to her right, the presumption had to be abandoned. A smart slap of the reins, or, better yet, a crop, was called for and with a certain haste.

Similarly, racehorses can be trained to respect the whip as one element of controlling which direction they run. We have blanched to see a horse drifting, drifting, drifting toward the outside until he seemed likely to tumble over the rail, causing no-telling-what injuries to himself, the jockey, and the railbirds unable to scramble away in time. In some cases the rider has not given up on winning the race and so tries until the last moment to straighten the horse without prompting an abrupt impediment to its progress. Finally, a crack of the whip on the side of the head seems to the rider to be a needed last resort. The image of that last resort refutes the basic premise of this commentary, but life’s emergencies often summon unattractive options.

So, we believe riders should carry whips routinely, but only to use for emergencies such as keeping the horse from (1) veering into another horse or into the paths of other horses, (2) turning the head to savage another horse, (3) bolting to the outside or inside if other horses are close enough to be endangered.

In each circumstance, of course, the reins can be the first resort, followed perhaps by a smack on the neck or shoulder. The jockey should have the weapon at hand to forestall what in his/her judgment seems likely peril to him/herself and to at least one horse. Stewards will be charged with rendering the decision on whether such action was taken for a compelling reason and thus decide whether disciplinary action must be taken.

The history of racing is replete with successful jockeys with reputations for being strong whip riders. Conversely, it has been more than a half-century since Sports Illustrated published a portfolio of original drawings detailing jockey Eddie Arcaro’s renowned “hand ride” as a winning technique.

While Arcaro could achieve the “whipping and driving” technique with the best of them, he was a master at being in concert with the horse, inducing the utmost from the animal with his own physical exertion rather than resorting to the whip. The term “driving,” used alone, connotes that skill.

As Foal Patrol introduces the Thoroughbred neonate and America’s Best Racing explains how lifestyles and horse racing go hand-in-hand, the sport of Thoroughbred racing would do well to heed changing public attitudes. Certainly, eliminating use of the whip as a competitive weapon would take adjustment. Any trainer, owner, or bettor disappointed by the result of a photo finish is bound to grouse, at least inwardly, “If both riders could have gone to the whip, I bet my jock would have carried the day.”

It is difficult to imagine today anyone thinking that, “If they could just use spurs, my jock wins by daylight.”

Eliminating non-emergency use of the whip (overhand, underhand, any hand) would take time to get used to, but not a great deal of time. The trade-off would be ability to show off with pride a beautiful and compelling sport, and without coming to that element which you mutter to the new fan and hope they do not think about very deeply.

The Arcaro handride of old speaks to integral points in favor of doing away with whipping as anything but an emergency measure. If the races are won by the horses with the most competitive natures and by jockeys with the greatest finesse and rhythmic compatibility with the animal, that prevalence would be a positive, not a negative. Such results would not lessen the excitement of the sport, nor the legitimacy of the wagering enterprise, nor the stewardship of the breed.

Rather than resulting from “punishment,” victories would be achieved by inner determinations expressed through visuals which need no apology and which induce only admiration.

Edward L. Bowen joined BloodHorse in 1963 and was with the publication for most of the next 30 years, including 16 years as managing editor and five years as editor-in-chief. He is also the author of 20 books on Thoroughbred racing. Bowen recently retired after 24 years as president of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation.