he merely shortened a 5f work to 4f for rule purposes. (stupid rule imho) to make a horse eligible to enter.

i could tell you stories about real falsification of works but thats for another day, kiddies.

Allan

issue getting some buzz, but another that falls into the "IDK" category for me.


this is much the same as my take

If he simply ran a 13.27 fifth furlong, and four furlongs are acceptable, it should be fine.

The more important issue is that presumably in NY, the stewards ultimately control the entries and the "poor performance" list.

If the racing office identified a horse that was ineligible on a technicality that could easily be rectified, it would have behooved them to notify the stewards of the issue first so they could sign off on it before having the clocker make a revision.

It sounds like the rules should be reworded to say "at least 4F" and include a list of satisfactory times for each distance.

If 53 is satisfactory for 4F, then the official 5f time of 104 3/5 is CLEARY good enough because the difference between 53 and 104 3/5 is 11 3/5. He almost certainly beat 4F in 53 because I doubt this horse came home in 11 3/5. And if he did, he should be off the list anyway.

This horse was good to go and everyone knew it. Using the 51.33 that the clocker reported was no big deal and makes perfect sense given the official 5F time. Just tweak the rules so something like this won't happen again.

More important is the risk I brought up where the clockers miss a work and/or a trainer calls one in that may not have occurred.

Having both worked as an official clocker and been involved on a higher level than that in dealing with situations similar to the one at issue, I do sympathize with the sanctioned official.

In my opinion, things should just never have progressed to the point at which a fictionalized increment came into play. And I suspect the devil is in the details.

I'd love to know who caught the initial problem, who, if anyone, higher up was consulted before refusing the entry, and who exposed and balked at the alteration.

Look, rules are rules in officialdom-except when they aren't. The book far from covers every contingency and situation, which means that at some point somebody in authority must step up, stick their neck out a bit, and make the right call for all involved.

And the right thing, again, just in my opinion, would have been for the clocker, entry clerk, and perhaps even the racing sec to cover themselves by seeking an ok from the stewards or state vet (nowadays being put on the steward's list is tantamount to making the vet's list) for the 5/8 work to suffice. In virtually any similar predicament I have witnessed, that ok would quickly have been issued.

One unfortunate aspect of working as a racing official is that trouble is ALWAYS coming and usually first appears in an innocuous seeming manner. In fact, I routinely advise my crew of that: Trouble is ALWAYS COMING, and it will find you.

And please, just a note to the sticklers and theorists on this board: Don't kill the messenger here. I'm just expounding about how these things generally get handled behind the scenes.

NYRA thought it serious enough to issue a 30 day suspension, so there's that.

Doesn't mean they are right for doing it. There are many infractions under NYRA that warrant a suspension that get nothing.

Tom, you need to read the article. NYRA did NOT issue a suspension ( or fine ). It was the Gaming Commission.

Bogus works exist. But a trainer can't just call one in. There would have to be other people involved. Not saying who. Could be any of several others.

They would issue you a stay because of a pesky little thing called due process.

Are we sure the rule reads a horse must work "exactly" a 1/2 mile. I've never seen a jurisdiction who's rules read that way. I have seen said horse must work "at least" a 1/2 mile.

Perhaps NYRA is different. I don't know for sure. But I'd be surprised.

In many jurisdictions horses working off the poor performance list must work at a prescribed time and be witnessed by an association or State Vet. They also can be subject to post work testing. Just as if they had raced.

From the underlying article:

In order to get off the poor performance list, a horse must work a half-mile in 53 seconds or faster. The rule, oddly, does not allow for a workout farther than a half-mile whereas rules governing horses returning from extended layoffs indicate a horse must have three workouts within 90 days of their start date and one of those works must be “at least” a half-mile.

From later in the article re the workout:

Gazer said he was told by the clocker who timed Papi On Ice that the horse did work a half-mile in 51.33 as part of the five-furlong move in 1:04.60.

If this had been recorded initially as a 4f work in 51.33 and the horse "galloped out" an extra furlong and was caught in 1:04.60, would this ever have seen the light of day as an "altered" (per the headline) workout? Seems like more of a technical or administrative issue coupled with a trainer brain-freeze re the need for the recorded work to be exactly 4f.

Again don't know specifically about NYRA. However there are many places that will accept an entry knowing full well a horse needs a work. But since many places enter as far as a week in advance or sometimes more. The trainer will be allowed to fulfill the working requirement and be eligible to compete.

Thanks for that.

Wow! Regulators, rule writers deciding how trainers should train their horses is not something I'd be comfortable with.

What if the horse needs the air of a farther workout and will again perform poorly because of not being fit?

If trainers have to deal with absolute insurer rules. They IMO should have absolute say as to what they feel is best for their horse. Saying "at least" a 1/2 mile would give them that latitude.