Flatter: Racing voices can be heard over smoke at Belmont

Elmont, N.Y.

On this clear day, you cannot quite see forever. But it sure looks a hell of a lot better than it did less than 48 hours ago.

The Belmont Stakes was outta sight but not outta mind. Outta sight, because the visibility from the sepia-toned air was so low this week. Not outta mind, because the bleating about whether to run the race at all was shrill enough to open automatic garage doors.

With our eyes all a-mist from the smoke of a distant fire, there was no shortage of experts this week on the air-quality index. The people who actually invented it told us 100 was unhealthy for some and that 150 was unhealthy for all.

Then everyone who had a stake in whether to run the Belmont Stakes on time Saturday dipped their hands into the acrid mix, not realizing the conditions at the time were not permanent. Sort of like panicking about weekend plans after a Tuesday blizzard.

On Wednesday the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority referred the curious to a multi-colored chart from AirNow. That is a thing that describes itself as a partnership of the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and tribal, state and local air-quality agencies. I guess AirNow was better than CDCEPANOAANPSNASA.

In this poker game of interpretation, HISA decided to see the government alphabet and raise it with its own air-quality interpretation. It set the bar at 150 to consider limits on training and 175 to cancel racing, breezes and gallops.

“I think it’s 180, 190 right here,” Todd Pletcher said outside his barn at Belmont Park on Thursday, when training was on hold and racing was about to be. “I think it’s 240 in the city. I think 150 is sort of the cutoff, isn’t it?”

By that time the air-quality index had peaked at 184 the day before on Long Island. It was an easy call for the New York Racing Association to cancel all track activity for the day. Want to know about tomorrow? Come back then, and we will let you know.

Pretty simple response, right? But wait. The state government had to throw its own pepper into this rancid gumbo. Using Gov. Kathy Hochul for cover, the New York State Gaming Commission puffed out its chest and “directed all tracks to stop all racing, training and workouts until further notice.”

Well done, commissioners. Order a halt to all activity after the horses are already back in the barn.

Finally, Hochul declared an air-quality reading of 150 would force horses to pass a pre-race exam by a vet before they could race on Belmont day. And if the AQI passes 200, then the state’s blue Excelsior flag would be replaced with a red one to stop racing.

Let’s see. We have a 150. No, a 175. No, a 200. President Biden, do I hear 225? Oh, wait. Are those the animal-rights activists in the back of the room? Well, yes, I guess you can lower the bids.

Not for nothing, but I have heard the muttering about how all this, ahem, abundance of caution is more about the recent attention paid the perfect storm that has roiled around this Triple Crown. The 12 deaths at Churchill Downs. The breakdown on Preakness day. The seven horses who have died since May 4 at Belmont Park.

“With PETA out there and all the TV coverage, I’m afraid we might cancel even if we don’t have to,” one trainer told me Thursday morning. “I’m really worried about this.”

That was not a lone voice. If HISA declared truth serum legal for connections, then supporters of animal activism would have to be credited with forcing some hands this spring. And not just in New York.

Think about how Churchill Downs Inc. reacted to its own crisis. The Kentucky Derby spotlight forced it to a new level of openness about horse deaths. The transparency so often discussed started to look real, and that was not easy in a state like Kentucky, where that sort of talk seldom matches the walk.

Then came more cooks into the Louisville kitchen. By the time HISA arrived late with its chef’s toque, Churchill imposed restrictions to try and filter out unfit horses. A day later, the rest of the current meet was packed up and shipped to the Central time zone.

Make no mistake. HISA grew some stones that day. Reading between the lines in news releases, when HISA’s breath could be felt on the corporate neck, Churchill genuflected.

Some have suggested this was mere spin. That Churchill was deflecting blame and putting the onus on a federal authority that will not even be a year old for another three weeks. Be that as it may, HISA’s was a voice that could not be ignored.

“It was a lot of optics more than anything,” trainer Dale Romans said in the middle of all this. Truer words were not spoken, and they proved prescient for what is going on this week in New York.

Everyone with a stake in the game wants to appear to be putting horse safety first. Whether it is true action or an illusion designed to fend off the pitchforks and torches will be tested by time.

Meanwhile, Friday dawned on Long Island with an air-quality reading of 72. Horsemen were told at about quarter to 6 that training was back on at Belmont and even up at Saratoga. The sky actually had a cerulean tinge to it.

But wait. Before going to the track, don’t we have to wait for some state bureaucrat to declare it blue?