once in a lifetime situation

[NY BRED]

anyone who has ever seen a gate incident such as the first race
last night at club med??

absolutely insane situation on opening night:eek:

[Zaf]

Missed the 1st last night, what happened ???

Z

[pic6vic]

I have been going to the races since 1961. I have never seen a recall at the TBREDS.

The announcer said and I quote. " that is not a good start"

[garyoz]

The first race of the meet. The starting gate opened early for some of horses. The jocks pulled up their mounts, except for one who started racing alone--I guess thinking that they would be running for purse money. Management brought in the spare starting gate and wanted to run the race giving the trainers the option of racing their horse or not. Two of the horses scratched out, 5 would have run in the "recall" race, but someone looked up state law and the stewards had to declare it a non-race. That was the right thing to do.

[furlong21]

Oddly enough I have seen a similar event. A friend of mine who worked on the gate crew was injured. 3/4 of the field was loaded in a 1 mile event when the 1 horse flipped. Upon thrashing in the gate the horse's front left came out of the stall and slammed on the electrical box. The power was distrupted and the gates opened causing all kinds of chaos. As with the above, the race was non-event.