"What a wild end to this year's Derby season."

[Blenheim]

Macatangay: Why stewards got it right in the Kentucky Derby

[MargieRose]

Originally Posted by Blenheim

Macatangay: Why stewards got it right in the Kentucky Derby

A voice of reason...comment to this article:

You all just don't get the point, do you? Well, then, let this old-timer spell it out for you: racing is changing. It HAS to change.

Where have all of you been the past 6 months? Have all of you seen what happened at Santa Anita? Did you even look at what was going around on social media, and in national news all over this country after the Santa Anita incidents? The Guardian. Vogue. Places that NEVER ONCE talked about horse racing are jabbering about shutting it down.

What about what has been going on these forums about racing changes? Safer racing? Safer tracks? Suddenly, jockeys are being pulled off their mounts and given 30 days for infractions that have been allowed to go on for 50 plus years. Trainers are being held responsible for things that commissioners used to look the other way about. Little tracks that no one even cared about are now on national news.

Have you even been paying attention?

This country's racing business is under a fine microscope. And I'm talking a VERY fine microscope. Either racing changes and makes it safer for the horses and the riders, or racing is sunk for good.

Did you even watch the entire Kentucky Derby air time? Because if you did, you'd notice that Santa Anita must have been brought up about 20 times. Announcers all over the place we're talking about how racing needs to change, especially in this current heated environment. And, if you don't think that includes the stewards, then you've got another think coming.

Churchill made changes across-the-board before the Kentucky Derby to ensure that horses and riders had a safer time on the track. They talked about how they were going to have a chaser. They set up a clean med-tent, the first med tent of its kind in racing, for a seriously afflicted horse. They had EMT's all over the place waiting for falls so that they could rush in and help the jockeys. And the Barb, the steward herself, came out of her box, went into the jockey room, and announced to the entire NATION that she had better see a clean race, or there would be consequences. Right on air-time for the nation to hear.

She knew the consequences of what she had just said, more than any of us here. And she knew that if she did not follow through with that threat, not only was her job probably done, but racing itself would get a knock-out punch.

Then something happens. And yeah, it's happened in the past and nothing was done. That's true. But this is a new era in racing. This is 2019 where horses died on a Santa Anita racetrack and news rooms across the world talked about it for nearly 3 months. This is an era in US racing where things have to change or we let things slowly die. And all of us that are in the racing business know it. I may be old, but I understand things have to change. I'm not too stupid to NOT understand that, and I don't have my tunnel-vision or blind-spot glasses on, even on Derby Day.

I would like to think she made that call for Battle of Midway. For Shared Belief. For Barbaro. For all those other horses at Santa Anita (alas, I don't know their names) that died for change. What was that horse's name? I may get it wrong here and I apologize. Light the Way? Well people, let that little filly light the way here.

So, that steward made a hard call, a controversial call, a call that might cost her her job (NOT just her, I realize that, but SHE was the one on t.v.), but at the time I think she was caring more about racing as a whole, than she was about that. And here all of us are, complaining about it, when not more than 2 weeks go all of us on this forum were complaining that racing wasn't gonna change. Well folks, here's the change for all of you to see, and now you want to complain?

P.S. And, JUST IN CASE some imbecile here wants to tell me Shared Belief and Barbaro didn't die at SA....I KNOW ALREADY. It's the PUBLIC EYE that's the mouth you gotta worry about!!!