Any horse who breaks through gate prior to start should be scratched
 

We have all seen and heard it before. Horse breaks through gate prior to start almost always loses the race. It’s true and factual.....well statistically it happens about 92% of the time. Why if you are the owner or trainer would you want that horse to run after a gate break? Are the starter or vet only allowed to make that call?

The only people who can scratch horses are the Stewards.

Wait what?????? Is there a steward strategically placed at the starting gate or do they rely on video feed to make those decisions?

"Ladies and Gentlemen, can I have your attention please. On advice from the track vet, the Stewards have scratched # :3: V.J. Zippy Jay from the third race."

Well what about advice from the horse owner or trainer ? Also to further elaborate on this topic.....What if the stewards disagree with the vets advice ? They just let the horse run?

I doubt a responsible steward would over-ride a vet's advice to scratch a horse.

Finger Lakes super horse Fio Rito broke through the gate at Saratoga in the 80s.

They put him back in and he won the Whitney wire to wire.
:jump:

We have to be careful how we use the statistics here. If that 92% lose rate is correct we have to compare it to the lose rate for all horses which depending on the size of the field, is somewhere in the 90%s so the impact value of these horses is probably not statistically significant. Of course if the horse has injured itself the vet will scratch it. Otherwise, there is no reason why the horse must be scratched.

So how many minutes should be added to the post so everyone can adjust their tickets to reflect the change in race composition?

The veterinarian can recommend a horse be scratched. I've never seen the stewards not follow.

well anecdotally speaking, if a chalkie breaks though in an exchange race.
I am laying my max against (prolly 300 bucks or so). I just start laying until the race is off. Happens every so often. (usually its a longshot, who cares if they break though or not). Have yet to be disappointed in two years on the X (aka 100% losses by said break thoughs)

Allan

Since breakthroughs are not that common and favorites breaking through are even less common I doubt that you have a sufficiently large sample to draw any conclusion that this strike rate will continue. You have been very lucky so far.

Zippy, you may be on to something ... we should also scratch all horses with less than an 8% chance of winning because they could cause traffic problems and rarely win.

Track vet makes 99% of all post parade/immediately prior to start decisions on scratching. They just make a radio call to stewards and say this ones out. Stewards don't argue with the track vet. And as stated above it's extremely rare, so much so that I would think you'd have a hard time establishing any real usable statistics from it. It's only happened to me twice. Once with a lightly raced horse that was probably 15 to 1 and she finished mid pack. One was with a solid horse that was 6-1 and he won after breaking through the gate. Out rider snatched him up immediately. It was more a fluke deal than him being a jackass or anything like that. Didn't really affect him at all.

Most of them ran up the track.

One day I will pay dearly when one of those chalkies win.

But so far my luck has held out.

maybe 4 or 5 times total.

So when I do lose and the chalkie wins, I will have other players money to pay off.

Allan

Hey, there goes all my action!