Horses refusing to leave gate rule?
 

Is it the same at every track ? I’ve witnessed a horse not leaving the gate at the start of a race twice this year at two different tracks. There were no refunds. . Why?

If the gate opened without a malfunction, why should you get your money back? You can watch videos of horses coming out after the field is 50 yards or more up the track and then circling the field to win. And that happens even at 5.5 furlongs.

I understand that scenario but in those situations the horse actually left the gate late. I’m talking horses who never left the gate at all. No fair shake to even finish dead last. In the trouble lines it usually says “ refused to run”.

The gate opens fairly. Your horse refuses to break. Tough luck.

Refuse to break too many times, horse will be barred from racing.

Allan

But in comparison to Harness racing if a horse is so far back from the gate break the horse is declared a non starter with refunds. I know that rule can be different at certain tracks though.

Yesterday's 7th at Saratoga, Palladium Bridge #8, would not go forward Period!
They had to walk the Mare backwards out of the paddock. If anyone was watching the NYRA feed yesterday, they showed it for a good 2-3 minutes. The horse would not make a forward move. They actually walked her backwards onto the track.

Once on the track, she still would not make a forward move. They had her isolated on camera, and she would only rotate in a tight circle, or move backwards.

5 year old mare, with 24 races, and $332,000 earned, 8 wins. Nice Horse.
Trained by Ray Handal, who is quality, and having a nice saratoga.

Irad Ortiz was up, and he eventually got her to go Forward, where then the horse seemed to go off on a out of control sprint, throwing her head.

I think the comment in PP's for this is "Stalled" when a horse will not make a forward move when the gate opens.

yea i seen that friday on fox 2- why wasnt she scrached ?

Had a weird occurrence in the first at Ferndale yesterday. A mule in the first race reared up before the start, apparently the jock dismounted in the gate, then they sent the field on the way with the one mule still riderless. Took at the whole field in a demolition derby move, the other four miraculously finished, and after a while they made the race official with the riderless mule as a non starter.

I believe the whole race should have been refunded...due to an administrative mistake (sending the field while one horse was not with rider), the entire outcome of the race was changed, especially considering the mayhem that followed. If the mule had refused, that would be one thing, but this error was on the starter and not the mule.

Any thoughts on this?