Rich Strike owner is ‘not going away,’ wants Shoegate reversal

Saying “we are not going away,” Rich Strike’s owner Rick Dawson has made a direct call for Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority directors to reject an investigative team’s conclusion that Hot Rod Charlie did not wear illegal horseshoes in winning the Grade 2 Lukas Classic.

“Our horse and our team deserves for this wrong to be reversed (and) corrected and Rich Strike named the winner of the Lukas (Classic),” Dawson said in an email to Horse Racing Nation. His colt lost by a head to Hot Rot Charlie in the Oct. 1 race at Churchill Downs.

Last week: Hot Rod Charlie gets favorable ruling.

Dawson and his Kentucky-based attorney Barry Hunter criticized the HISA enforcement team that concluded Hot Rod Charlie’s front shoes did not have illegal toe grabs.

“Stating, as HISA and its enforcement team have to date stated, that the shoes were ... compliant, in the face of evidence to the contrary, simply demonstrates to the racing public that HISA is not serious about enforcing its rules or about furthering its mandate of preserving horse safety,” Hunter said in a memo written Thursday to the HISA board.

As further evidence, Hunter added a letter that was provided to him Thursday from Dr. Scott Morrison, a veterinarian who is head of the podiatry center at Rood & Riddle equine hospital in Kentucky. Morrison said he looked at dozens of photos taken during and since the Lukas Classic and declared they proved toe grabs were on Hot Rod Charlie’s front shoes.

“I reviewed the photographs of the race-plate horseshoes,” Morrison wrote. “The shoes have an obvious protrusion in the toe, which is partly aluminum and partly the toe grab of the XT race plate. ... It is my understanding that horses should not be shod in this manner and be compliant with the HISA rule.”

A spokesperson said the memo from the Rich Strike team was delivered to HISA.

“I can confirm it was received this afternoon,” Mandy Minger wrote in a text message Thursday to HRN. “The board will discuss at their meeting Feb. 22.”

As part of the memo, Dawson and Hunter forwarded close-up images of Hot Rod Charlie’s shoes taken since they were collected by investigators the week after the Lukas Classic. They also brought back a Dec. 16 report on the race-day images that was written by Kentucky attorney Frank Becker, who has a background in photography.

“The examination and photographs of the front horseshoes purportedly on (Hot Rod Charlie) at the time of the race confirms both the existence of toe grabs and the measurements made from racing photographs,” Becker wrote in his conclusion.

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission stewards decided in October there was no violation of the toe-grab rule, and their finding was endorsed within days by HISA. That led to Dawson’s formal appeal, which was answered last Wednesday with the HISA enforcement team’s declaration that echoed the original conclusion last fall.

“We find no grounds to believe the stewards’ conclusion was clearly erroneous or unsupported by the evidence,” HISA attorney Bryan Beauman of Lexington, Ky., said in his conclusion. “We recommend that the (HISA) board take no further action in this matter.”

The enforcement team’s decision still has to be ratified or rejected by HISA directors, who are scheduled to meet Wednesday.

Doug O’Neill, who trained Hot Rod Charlie before the horse was retired to a stallion farm in Japan, steadfastly denied using illegal shoes. Reacting last week to the end of the HISA investigation, he said, “The report says it all.”

Hot Rod Charlie earned $305,520 for the Lukas Classic victory. Rich Strike, most famously the 80-1 winner of last year’s Kentucky Derby, got $99,200 for finishing second. His jockey Sonny León was suspended by the KHRC for 15 racing days after leaning hard into Hot Rod Charlie’s rider Tyler Gaffalione in the homestretch of the Lukas Classic. Because Hot Rod Charlie was first across the finish line, stewards did not conduct a race-day inquiry.