QuarterCrack
06-04-2005, 09:12 PM
Anyone see this? a 1-mile race; the 8 horse stumbles out of the gate and dumps the rider. The loose horse takes off after the field and the outriders go out to catch him. Meanwhile, the rest of the field continues as normal. I didn't think much of it and turned my attention to the backstretch to watch the race continue to unfold. Well, a few seconds later I notice the outriders hadn't caught the loose horse yet and he actually TURNED BACK and was going the wrong way. He came running back by us in the opposite direction as the rest of the field was coming into the far turn. The outriders never caught him and the oncoming field looked to be facing certain disaster as the loose horse was coming at them head on. Coming out of the turn is when they met. Everyone checked, steadied, altered course, etc. etc. to get around the loose one who had good position on the rail at this point (lol).
Anyway, I thought it was really wild and pretty scary actually. We who were watching seemed to have a sense of impending doom because we could see what was happening and knew the riders on the turn had no idea yet. It could have been really really bad.
BUT, the absolutely BIZARRE part of it (and the thing that compelled me to write about it here) is that the stewards allowed the final race results to stand. I would have thought for sure it would have been declared a no contest because the whole field was so significantly impeded with.
I'm sure a horse has passed the field going the wrong way before, but I wonder if a race result like that was ever allowed to stand like this one was. I was dumbfounded.
Anyone see anything like that before?
:confused:
Anyway, I thought it was really wild and pretty scary actually. We who were watching seemed to have a sense of impending doom because we could see what was happening and knew the riders on the turn had no idea yet. It could have been really really bad.
BUT, the absolutely BIZARRE part of it (and the thing that compelled me to write about it here) is that the stewards allowed the final race results to stand. I would have thought for sure it would have been declared a no contest because the whole field was so significantly impeded with.
I'm sure a horse has passed the field going the wrong way before, but I wonder if a race result like that was ever allowed to stand like this one was. I was dumbfounded.
Anyone see anything like that before?
:confused: