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[Jeff P]

by Ray Paulick | 11.06.2014 | 4:24pm

STEWARDS' RULINGS: TIME FOR A CHANGE IN RACING'S OFFICIATING SYSTEM?:
http://www.paulickreport.com/news/ra...iating-system/

I brought up the idea of Breeders’ Cup naming its own stewards with Craig Fravel, Breeders’ Cup president. Fravel had an even bigger outside-of-the-box suggestion (stressing that it was his idea and did not represent the board of the Breeders’ Cup): namely, that horse racing consider reinventing the whole process of officiating the races. Take a page from the National Hockey League or Major League Baseball and have a central office where all inquiries and objections can be judged by a rotating crew of officials who would apply the same standard to the third race at Penn National that they do to the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.

The technology is there.

Each track needs stewards to deal with other day-to-day issues: financial responsibility of owners, problems related to backstretch workers and other licensees, and adjudication of medication violations.

But do we really need the officials who are judging each race to physically be at the racetrack?

Of course, for something as radical as this to happen, regulations would need to be changed virtually everywhere – a highly unlikely scenario. And this is not an industry that embraces radical change.

Moving forward, then, horsemen and horseplayers will just have to accept that inconsistency in our officiating is one of the givens of the game.

-jp

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