Flatter: Machado error exposes bigger problem in gambling

Luan Machado misjudged the finish line in the finale Wednesday at Keeneland, turning a win into a loss. The reactions were unfortunately predictable.

Reasonable racegoers who hopefully still make up a mostly silent majority winced but accepted the fact that their fellow humans are fallible. Social-media jackasses, however, called for Machado to face draconian penalties that would have violated his constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment.

Machado is suspended 3 days, fined $2,500.

There is a more troublesome effect from all this sturm und drang. It underscores a growing anger among sore losers who probably have no business making a wager on anything sporting let alone having the freedom to post vitriolic broadsides while hiding behind a burner’s avatar.

Horse racing is not the only sport or facet of life where forgiveness is not an option. How dare a U.S. president from either party deign to answer what someone perceives as a crisis by playing a round of golf? A computer glitch grounds flights, so let’s fire the airline CEO. That cuppa joe was too hot when it was spilled onto a thinly garbed lap, so find an ambulance chaser and take legal action against the coffee house. That last one keeps happening.

Pity the employee who works for someone who lurks in the shadowy bulwark of social-media anonymity typing the phrase “you had only one job.” This is the sort of Peter-principle poster child who grinds someone for taking one too many minutes for a bathroom break. And where are those TPS reports?

As Charles Barkley said, “Social media is where losers go to feel important.” There was no shortage of them after Machado made his mistake Wednesday. It was amazing how many Pick 3s and 4s and 5s and 6s supposedly were ruined when the 13-1 long shot accidentally conceded to the 19-1 long shot.

One would think this should happen far more often at places like Keeneland and Gulfstream Park and Laurel Park and Oaklawn and overseas at ParisLongchamp. They all have two or more finish lines. That this is such a rare occurrence really is a credit to the professionalism of jockeys.

The blurry memory of the 1957 Kentucky Derby has been regurgitated this week. That was the one where Bill Shoemaker famously misplaced the wire. He thought it was at the sixteenth pole at Churchill Downs, where there was and is only one finish line. At first he lied about it to stewards, who did not buy his story that Gallant Man stumbled. After he finally ’fessed up, Shoe got a 15-day suspension.

That was not even the first time Shoemaker had made that sort of gaffe. In 1990, Bill Christine wrote in the Los Angeles Times that it had happened at least twice before. So three times out of 40,350 rides. With only that 99.9925 percent rate of knowing where he was going, Shoe somehow still got to the Hall of Fame. Good thing X did not exist back then.

It was called Twitter in 2012 when Luke Nolen stood up in the last 100 yards as champion Australia mare Black Caviar was closing in on her triumph at Royal Ascot. She still got to the line first, but a winning margin that should have been a length ended up being just a head.

“I didn’t misjudge the winning post,” Nolen said. “I just thought I could coast.”

Oops. A three-time champion jockey in Australia did that. He, like Shoemaker, seemingly is remembered more for the mistake than the myriad successes.

Fortunately, Twitter was so new 12 years ago that Nolen did not face the same wrath Machado has. That and the fact there is a difference between a near miss and a bad beat.

That razor’s edge is a chasm when it comes to common decency, certainly now in a day and age when betting on sports has burst out of the shell of condemnation. If we can be out in the open about point spreads and prop bets, then that must give us license to take pot shots at jockeys. Or to lung out a golfer who was in danger of making that putt that would be a money-loser for some degenerate gambler.

Just last year at a golf tournament near Chicago, one such patron whose craving for action was exceeded only by his thirst for cocktails yelled at Chris Kirk during the backswing to “pull it,” as in a five-foot putt that would decide the outcome of a bet that was worth, wait for it, $3.

A shouting match followed between the losing lout and Kirk’s playing partner Max Homa.

“I love that people can gamble on golf, but that is the one thing I’m worried about,” Homa told Golf Digest.

Lest we think these are rare cases, consider what the NCAA learned just last week in the results of a study that it commissioned from Signify Group. Reviewing more than 1.3 million social-media posts, it was discovered that 18 percent of 5,000 confirmed abusive attacks were sexual. The second most, 12 percent, were related to sports betting.

“The increased exposure to online gambling only exacerbates the online abuse,” Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter said, “with many student-athletes receiving death threats via social media.”

So this goes way beyond Luan Machado or Luke Nolen or Bill Shoemaker making like Leon Lett before the goal line or a bunch of racetracks asking for trouble with multiple-choice finish lines.

Because hardened bettors never make mistakes, they look for someone to blame. Yes, I have cursed players and coaches for what I perceive to be stupid decisions when I have made stupid bets. And yes, I have used my platforms over the years for hopefully more measured critical commentary regardless of how I wager. I am pretty sure, however, I have not called for anyone’s death or some life-altering damnation for a difference of strategic opinion or a display of human error. I save such flagellation for myself.

To that end, we are our own worst critics, and this is where my concern for Machado and other jockeys comes to roost. Less than two years ago we lost Avery Whisman and Alex Canchari, two riders who committed suicide.

“This needs to be addressed,” jockey Trevor McCarthy told PBS last year. “We take a lot of beatings mentally and physically. With the mental and physical state, when you mix both of them together, it can be a recipe for disaster. Look, there’s proof of it, right? We lost two guys.”

Jockeys are taken for granted way too often. There is a reason I habitually sign off my interviews with them by saying “safe rides.” It is a reminder for me to appreciate the risky business they perform every half-hour every afternoon, not to mention all those gallops and breezes every morning. Most are underpaid, but even the richest and most successful are not immune to the risk of life.

What Machado did Wednesday merited a fine and a suspension. I do not believe for one second there was something more nefarious going on. At the same time, it was not an inconsequential mistake. But it was forgivable. Some of what was written about him by anonymous reprobates was not.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.