 Photo by: NYRA Dr. M.A. Gilman |
Gilman’s legacy has been well documented in the mainstream racing press this week, including this: Horseplayers have the good doctor to thank for developing the Universal Horse Identification System used to prevent “ringers” from populating the races.
In short, Gilman's methodology assures that the horse you bet from the past performance lines is the one you get when it leaves the starting gate.
Such was his skill-set that as a student at the University of Pennsylvania veterinary school, he was awarded the Surgery Prize.
Like most people who work and are successful in this game; first you love it, then you live it.
“Doc” earned enough money mucking stalls and riding show horses in his youth that he was able to put himself through two universities, according to reports this week quoting his son, Charles.
The system he developed came from recognizing that the horny growths inside a horse’s legs called chestnuts, a.k.a. night eyes, were akin to the human fingerprint. Each set was different from the next.
The methodology essentially is foolproof and only once to my knowledge was it ever beaten. And it took another brilliant, albeit wayward, veterinarian to do it.
It was the celebrated Lebon-Cinzano case in which a South American champion named Cinzano, racing in the name of a notorious claiming also-ran named Lebon, won the finale at Belmont Park paying $116 to win.
The horses, bought by Gerard in South America and turned over to one of his former assistants to train--owner-trainer Jack Morgan was later exonerated--had virtually the same color and markings except that the white star on their faces were shaped differently.
The news of Lebon’s victory reached his native Uruguay accompanied by a winners’ circle picture that appearing in South American newspapers A turf writer recognized the markings and that Lebon was really champion Cinzano.
At the time, apparently, the “night eyes” comparison system developed by Gilman was not a requirement in South America where horses were differentiated by color and unique markings. Except for the “star,” Lebon and Cinzano were virtually identical.
The reporter who saw the photograph alerted the New York stewards and subsequently not even celebrated defense attorney F. Lee Bailey could prevent Gerard from serving a one-year jail term. Ironically, Gerard died earlier this year.
In addition to developing the UHIS, Gilman served as a racing official in a career spanning 46 years. He was the chief examining veterinarian for the New York Racing Association, served as general manager to Harbor View Farm which campaigned Triple Crown champion Affirmed, was Director of the Jockey Club and finally Jockey Club steward at the NYRA tracks.
In his role as Jockey Club Director, Gilman was further instrumental in horse identification procedures in creating blood typing verification tests, organizing laboratories for putting the practice in place and rewriting Jockey Club rules. His work in this field earned him the Jockey Club Gold Medal.
But it was in his role as Jockey Club steward that I got to know and appreciate Doc Gilman as a true industry leader. We talked many times. He was always accessible, unflinchingly candid, teaching me many things about Thoroughbreds, one Queens kid to another.
But that didn’t mean that a young reporter wasn’t guilty of being naïve, that, ultimately, doing the right thing by the horse was more important than making pragmatic business decisions.
No more is this dichotomy more pronounced than on the issue of raceday medication, especially Lasix. Doc believed that permissive medication endangered the lives of horses and riders alike and was unfair to horseplayers as well. He published his thoughts and spoke against the practice at every racing conference he attended.
As I have written previously, I had a taste for Kool-Aid in my younger days on the beat. I bought into the argument that New York racing needed to embrace Lasix in order to compete with out of town tracks where raceday medication was legal.
It was true that tracks outside New York held a competitive advantage for top racing stock. But now many other reasonable people believe that Doc was correct in his warning that the proliferation of permissive medication would be the end of quality racing as we knew it.
Time has proven Doc Gilman to be on the correct side of this timely and highly controversial issue. Empirically, does anyone truly believe that the breed has improved since the prolific use of raceday medication became a reality?
It’s generally acknowledged that New York never had a better examining veterinarian than Doc Gilman, either before he took the job or after his retirement 32 years later. Not one of his decisions to scratch a horse on race day ever was overturned upon review.
“There never was another vet like him anywhere in the country,” said the man who trains a filly I own in-part, John Parisella. “He was the best official racing ever had. He protected the horses and the trainers who claim horses. Now you have to be especially careful.”
Parisella said that Dr. Mary Scollay is one vet who soldiers on in the Gilman tradition. Scollay developed a uniform equine injury reporting system in 2007, is a prominent contributor to the Eclipse-winning “On Call” media assistance program, and a recognized leader in the field of equine medicine.
The industry, the horses, and the betting public owe Doc Gilman their gratitude. Any and all can show their appreciation by making a small contribution to one of Doc’s favored equine charities; the Backstretch Employee Services Team, B.E.S.T.
Or, perhaps, the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation which provides private funding for equine medical research. Consequently, who knows? The betting money you save may be your own.
12 Dec 2011 at 04:08 am | #
R.I.P., Dr. Gilman.
*****
You’d think that being given free tickets (40 yard-line, 10 rows up from the field) at a Giants-Bills football game @ six weeks ago would have been a great day.
Not so. For reasons which had nothing to do with the game, it was excruciating.
Ghetto-blaster rap “music” @ 120 decibels was going full blast an hour before the game (the regulars - wise to this insanity - wait until the last minute to enter the stadium. This created a continuous Easter Parade of bodies marching up the steps, right by our seats. There went watching the first ten minutes of the game, which could only be seen by staring at the Jumbotrons).
I had a pair of Bose headphones on. They didn’t really work - & these things can block out jet engine noise!
But what the noise ruined wasn’t just the game. By odd coincidence, my wife found out that the man sitting just a row below us had been a long-time NYRA vet.
I racked my brain trying to remember the Mark Gerard story details. I wanted to get them right. He sure looked like he didn’t suffer fools or stories retold incompetently.
When I had enough of them in my mind, I asked him - I had to practically yell, & he’s only 8 inches away - if he had known Gerard. Boy, did I hit a nerve!
“KNOW him? We went to Cornell together! We were in the same fraternity, & I graduated a year ahead of him.” His disgust, still simmering 34 years later, was obvious.
I mentioned why Gerard got caught so quickly (the news from South America would roll in later; mine is a moot point). It wasn’t good enough for him to merely become rich.
He had to be a Big Shot - the Big Winner.
Instead of buying up his win & show tickets in relatively small increments, & then cashing them in equally discreet installments during the days & weeks that followed the race, he showed up at the cashier’s window right after the race with all of the winning tickets in a big conspicuous bag.
To give you an idea of what a colossal score this was & the attention it would instantly attract, a naked man carrying a flaming torch in Grand Central station during rush hour would have a better chance of remaining inconspicuous than Gerard on that day at Belmont.
Why? Sure, $80,000 in 2011 dollars would be a nice score.
But in 1977, adjusted for inflation, it comes to $284,443. That year, you could buy breakfast at a diner in Manhattan & leave a decent tip, with one dollar.
The retired vet added that Gerard has also been a fool in that he had initially tipped a girlfriend about his scheme - but on the day that “Cinzano” first ran, it really was the cheap claimer, Lebron (subsequently murdered. This completes the portion of the story as to how Gerard had also had defrauded the innocent owner).
Not surprisingly, the woman lost her shirt when Lebron (Cinzano’s in the barn) bombed.
(Which is where the above-mentioned Lasix angle comes in. Had the Lebron of 1977 run at Aqueduct last Saturday - against today’s by now 15th-generation-Lasix-weakened horses, he might well have wired the field in the feature.)
Naturally, when “Lebron” (dead now; this time, it’s Cinzano) next ran & paid $116 to win, she eventually ratted him out to the cops.
But the noise ruined any further chance of hearing each other. We both threw in the towel. A shame, there was so much more I wanted to ask him.
*****
Thanks, John. I always did want to know what “Nighteyes” means.
It was referred w/o explanation in “The Best of The Saratoga Special Saratoga’s Daily Newspaper on Thoroughbred Racing,” by Sean Clancy & Joe Clancy, Jr. (2006; go to Amazon Books for a review, “Captures A Saratoga Era - Perfectly, Brilliantly”):
“I’ll miss watching [barn groom] Janet Reed check nighteyes...”
What a jolt! That’s also the name of my now-deceased mother. Had she ever caught me at a racetrack - given her antagonism towards wagering - I would have gotten two Blackeyes.
12 Dec 2011 at 12:16 pm | #
Good stuff, Don. But I guess the Giants are playing to the wrong crowd, too, seats being handed down from generation to generation as they are.
It seems all sports feel they must cater to a younger demographic. These days, those young people are likely to be among the unemployed. And even if they had a job, who could afford to go to a ballgame these days?
Sports franchise owners not only get rich from TV revenue, they feel they can charge almost unlawfully, outrageous prices, figures those that can’t afford it will watch TV. They’ve forgotten that true fans are made attending live events.