The Times They Are A Changin'

 

A few days have passed since the Breeders' Cup Classic was run and the debate still rages on about whether Bayern should have been disqualified. I was at Santa Anita and there was significant buzz in the crowd as the stewards considered their decision and all of the televisions showed the replay of the gate incident over and over again.

Think back to the 1970s in the golden decade of horse racing. In those days stewards' decisions were much simpler. If there was a foul, it did not matter how obvious it was or how rough it was, the result was that there would was a disqualification. All you have to do is go back to the 1972 Champagne Stakes. Secretariat was on his way to becoming one of the greatest heroes in thoroughbred racing history, yet he was disqualified.

The Daily Racing Form chart from that Champagne said: “… Secretariat bore in bumping Stop The Music … was straighten up under left-handed pressure and drew away.” The chart went on, “… Stop The Music continued on gamely but wasn’t good enough.”

There is no way that in today’s world of horse racing that Secretariat would be disqualified. Yes, there was some brushing between the horses as the Meadow Stables star did come in, but the chart said that Stop The Music “wasn’t good enough”. Today the fact that Stop The Music wasn’t going to win anyway would completely change the result of that inquiry. In 2014 the fact that there is a foul no longer means that there will be a disqualification.

It is very hard to accept that with the amount of contact that occurred between so many horses in the Classic, that the outcome of the race was not altered by the incident. However, at this point, we seem to have little other choice but to accept that the times have, in fact, very much changed.