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[mountainman]

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.