STEWARDS CLEAR SANTOS

[PaceAdvantage]

Was there any doubt?

[PaceAdvantage]

BTW, heard this report on a local Fox station just now...not seeing it anywhere else....

[Pace Cap'n]

AP story at:

sports.yahoo.com/rah/news?slug=ap-jockeyphoto&prov=ap&type=lgns

[JustRalph]

If you want to send the Miami Herald an automated Email complaining about the way they handled the Derby Fiasco....
go to this link and click the email link for an automated email.


www.justralph.com (http://www.justralph.com)

[cj]

I emailed them my thoughts.

BTW, any lawyers here? What is the chance of a lawsuit by Jose Santos against the Kentucky stewards and/or the Miami Herald?

CJ

[karlskorner]

Tried it, got a message " Default mail client is not properly installed" (what the hell ever that means)

I am the last to defend the Miami Herald, or the Washington Post or the NY Times as I have complained to all about numerous stories they published.

However, if you look at the picture in today's DRF on the right side, there is definitely a space between his hand and the whip, as many on this Board saw originally. Through the wonders of digital photography the mystery was cleared up. But as first shown it required an answer. All those who saw the original picture including Walter Blum (former jockey) State Steward for Fla. said it didn't look right. The 3 Stewards in Kentucky questioned it

Maybe the manner and publiciltiy it received by actions of the Kentucky Stewards was drastic, but the question would always have been there.

Imagine if this picture appeared 20 years ago, before digiral photography, what would have been the reactions of the public ?.

To quote the 3 CD stewards, Santos followed the rules of racing, ending a controversy that had threatened to tarnish thoroughbred racing and disrupt the Preakness States.

IMO I am glad somebody is watching the hen house

[JustRalph]

It means your mail client is slightly off.....no big deal. It may also be your security settings. You may have it set to not automatically call email from an external source. Again, no big deal. The address is "sports@herald.com" to yell at them.

You raise a very interesting point about this photo 30 yrs ago.

What a firestorm. But It only shows how many damn photos were being taken during this event. As I understand it all of the photos we have seen so far are all within just a few seconds of time. Can you imagine how many shutters must have been firing in the preceding two minutes and then all of those after? I don't think anybody would ever try to get away with anything after this, do you? How could you hide anything? A gazillion people will have it on Videotape or a billion pictures.

[karlskorner]

Thanks, ever since I have installed Outlook Express 6 that my provider insisted I install, I have had similar problems. No problem, let the sleeping dog lie.

Had not PA (and others) gone through the labor of digging into the photo, it would have stood alone as a blemish on thoroughbred racing. Of course the question comes up, if PA (and others) had the ability to do this why not the Miami Herald and other Knight Ridder papers do the same, some Knight Ridder papers published it, others didn't , if it ain't football or basketball, it ain't sports news.

My understanding is that the Kentucky stewards had the original picture Friday and the head steward had made up his mind that it needed looking into, rather than be "scooped" the Herald went public Sat. morning. I for one am glad it's over.

If you get a chance read the story about the head huncho in the Pick 6 scandal, who stated from jail, as long as someone can get to somebody "inside" the pick 6 will never be safe.

[andicap]

There is NO action you can take against the Miami Herald.

In re-reading the story, I have to admit Carlson is not fully at fault here. When an official -- a steward at Churchill Downs -- said there will an investigation, you better believe that's a story to pursue. The problem is it didn't look like he really pursued it beyond the stewards. The stewards are the ones to blame here.

OK, the story was not very carefully researched. I'd give it a C- for not delving deeper into it. (Any idiot can see the truth. ) And Carlson did not think the story through -- see Andy Beyer's story on the affair, he did a good wrong detailiing the problems with it.

But Carlson quoted the officials by name so it's not like he relied on anonymous sources to blast Santos. So Carlson had a story, but either he was up against deadline so he couldn't do more research into the story or he was too lazy/incompetant. His editors are also at fault, but they don't know racing like Carlson does.

Just a disaster all the way around, but you have no legal case against Carlson or the newspaper.

if anything the stewards at Churchill Downs are the ones who are totally at shame here-- If I were Tom Meeker I would offer Santos and all the connections with Funny Cide a public apology by taking out a full page ad, not just in the DRF, but in the NYT, and USA Today.

It's the least Churchill Downs can do for slandering Santos, Tagg and Funny Cide's owners.

[JustRalph]

You find fault with them........if you can in a two minute post on this board.......I am sure a team of lawyers can come up with plenty. I think the Steward who made the comment could come under legal scrutiny also. As a co defendant.

Where there is fault......there can be recklessness....Negligence....incompetence......al l resulting in damage to Jose Santo's and his career and quite possibly his ability to earn a living. This all sounds like facts to be tried and decided by a jury...........you never know. :cool:

[Tom]

If you can sue MacDonalds for serving hot coffee....and WIN!,
you hve to give this one a shot. If noting else, take the FREE publicity to mock out a newspaper and so-called reporter with no journalistic integrity. Personally, I would not insult my dead fish by wrapping it up in a Miami paper.
BTW, tip o the hat to NBC - they reported this story a couple thousand times ocer the weekend, then I did not see one word about it tonight.

[kenwoodall]

Good news! CD stewards say racing is not fixed! No horses win by cheating! (not since 1999 anyway). Anybody want to go to Stockton with me and watch Richard put the best of all types of animals at 8-1 for the 2nd year in a row?:

[JustRalph]

Interesting Article about the Funny Cide-Santos deal.
From Espn.com

Far from over
By Bill Finley
Special to ESPN.com


The Churchill Downs stewards have confirmed what everyone with a brain knew all along: Jose Santos did not carry a battery aboard Funny Cide in the Preakness.

The announcement was made at a press conference Monday at Churchill, where the Commonwealth of Kentucky's chief steward Bernie Hettel patiently explained that a thorough review of the evidence, including an enlarged version of the original photo that helped fuel this mess in the first place, made it abundantly clear that Santos did nothing wrong. The press conference was attended by Santos, a class act, who expressed no bitterness or resentment over his ordeal and said it time to move on.

"It's been a little tough," he said. "I've been the talk of the town and this is a big town. A lot of people have been talking about me, but it's final. Finito."

Finito, it's not.

That's one of the many sorry aspects of one of the most troubling and mishandled stories to ever hit racing. This one was too big, too disturbing, for everyone to simply move on like it never happened. I'm afraid that for Santos and for the sport there has been some lasting damage that will not be so easy to repair.

The horse racing industry as a whole responded in the right way. Everyone quickly jumped to Santos' defense and dismissed the allegations as nonsense. If anything, his stature and his reputation will be enhanced within racing circles. He was grossly wronged, yet held his head high throughout the ordeal and waited it out until his integrity was verified. The racetrack likes people who show such character. Santos has always been well-liked. He'll be more popular than ever now.

It is outside the narrow world of horse racing that he may have a problem. The allegations of his use of a battery made international news. He was the lead story on the NBC national news telecast Saturday and the charges were splashed all over every newspaper in the country. Predictably, in New York, Santos has been the butt of jokes on talk radio. A lot of people don't get it and never will. To the masses who do not understand horse racing or the absurdity of the initial charges, Santos will forever be the guy who was supposed to have cheated in order to win the Kentucky Derby. It's something he knows he's going to have to face.

"There's always going to be a question," he said. "I'm pretty sure the people in racing will understand, but the public is always going to have questions about it. They will know that Jose Santos won the 129th Kentucky Derby, but he was questioned about carrying something in his hands. They didn't find anything. it's already passed, but that something we'll have to deal with."

When asked Monday how this scandal might affect racing, Hettel and Churchill Downs President Steve Sexton tried their very best to put a positive spin on the developments. They reasoned that the public would be more confident than ever in the integrity of thoroughbred racing after seeing the great lengths the industry went to get to the truth and the conclusions that the Kentucky Derby was not affected in any way by skulduggery. Sorry, that's not going to happen.

People are not going to focus on Santos' exoneration, and a lot of cynics probably won't be convinced that he was innocent. Instead, the public will remember the 129th Kentucky Derby as the one that they said was fixed. That's just the way our society is. It's the juicy stuff that everyone will remember.

This could not have come at a worse time. It's been just a bit more than six months since the Breeders' Cup Pick Six scandal rocked the game. People won't remember that the races themselves weren't fixed and that the crime was perpetrated not by racing insiders but by a bunch of computer geeks.

The sport wasn't guilty of anything then and it's certainly not guilty now. But perception is reality. Does the public put horse racing a mere peg ahead of professional wrestling? I'm afraid it might.

Though Santos has been cleared, this remains an awful story, and it never should have happened. Someone, somewhere, most notably at the Miami Herald, the paper that ran the original story suggesting Santos may have carried a battery, should have put a stop to it before it ever got so out of hand. But that didn't happen and the sport and Jose Santos' good name got roughed up because of it. A sorry chapter in American racing is not, unfortunately, finito.

[tanda]

What exactly did Churchill Downs do wrong?

They were presented with a photograph that superficially looked suspicious. They investigated it. The investigation was thorough and concluded within days (including an intervening weekend). They issued a strong statement of no wrongdoing with an exhaustive list of actions taken to reach that conclusion. They asked the Miami Herald not to go public so that the existence of the investigation would not be made public until the results were as well.

Sounds okay to me.

Are people suggesting it should never have been reviewed?

Or that any investigation that reveals no wrongdoing was wrong to have been done in the first place?

[PaceAdvantage]

Churchill, in my opinion, did more damage than the Herald, when their Steward added fuel to the inital fire.

Instead of "no comment, we are reviewing everything", they said "I've looked at the photo, and it looks very suspicious." They also said "Santos can say whatever he cares to say...The picture is really worth a million words at this point."

The first quote was from steward Rick Leigh. The second was from CHIEF STEWARD Bernie Hettel.

These quotes come directly from the Andy Beyer story (which is EXCELLENT in my opinion) in Wednesday's DRF. Check it out if you get the chance.

[tanda]

PA,

You are right.

Those stewards should have said "No comment".