Is there something wrong with this picture?
I put the question to Pete Pedersen, who has retired from the stewards' stand but is still active as a racing sage.
"From a public relations standpoint, I think I'd need to examine it," Pedersen said. "Sure, I think if I were still a steward, I'd ask Dutrow about it."
"I bet both of Rick's horses in the Suburban," Siegel said. "I bet just as much on one as I did on the other, so I made a nice score. The reason I did that is because of something I've learned after 10 years of running horses with Rick: Anything he sends out is dangerous. Rising Moon had an excuse. He was sick after the race."
Siegel said he asked Dutrow how he bet the race.
"He told me the same thing that he said publicly, that he bet Rising Moon but not Frost Giant," Siegel said. "But that was between me and him, and he didn't have to say it to everybody. That was needless information that he was giving out. But this is Rick. He had no business saying what he said about all those trainers, either. I thought Gasper Moschera's answer was perfect." ("I take Dutrow's charges as an insult," the retired trainer told the New York Post. ". . . I have no problem with Dutrow, I wish him all the luck, but he should thank God and shut his mouth. He talks like a jerk, but he can talk intelligent, too.")
The coupled-entry rule has been watered down so much in many jurisdictions that it's quasi-irrelevant. Racetrack managements like uncoupling because it boosts the number of betting interests in an era when short fields are rampant. Uncoupling also saves tracks from facing irate bettors who have bet a two-horse entry and been unable to backtrack at the windows after the stronger half has been scratched. "But uncoupling," Pedersen said, "can lead to a lot of things that might not be proper."
Dutrow is known to bet by the wheelbarrow (see Saint Liam, Breeders' Cup Classic, 2005). After the hoi polloi at Belmont learned of his betting pattern in the Suburban, they had a right to ask: "What instructions did he give the riders? Did the jock on Frost Giant hear what he said?"
In Mace Siegel's opinion, such conjecture is moot.
"Rick is as straight as can be, and he's an incredible horse trainer," he said.
Unrequited, the 5-year-old gelding who suffered a broken pelvis at Monmouth, was running only two days after a fourth-place finish at Belmont. He ran for a $35,000 claiming price at Belmont and a $30,000 tag at Monmouth. A winner of three of 16 starts for his career, Unrequited had dropped down from the $62,500 ranks he once ran in for trainer Ron Ellis in California. Unrequited's Monmouth jockey, Eddie Castro, pulled him up going down the backstretch of a six-furlong race.
"It was my decision to run the horse, and my decision to eventually put him down," said the California-based Samantha Siegel, who manages the family stable for her father. "Rick has a history of running back horses quickly and winning with them, so I could see nothing wrong with that. The horse was sound going into the Monmouth race. There were no physical issues. We wouldn't run an unsound horse. If the horse broke his pelvis in the race, the rider would have felt that. The day after the race, Rick called and said the horse had no problems. The next day, he called back to say that the horse couldn't get up in his stall. At that point, there was nothing we could do to save him. We care about our horses, but this is a business, and the reality of the business is that they have to pay for themselves. So you have to run them when you think it's best."
"The Rainman" is Samantha Siegel's nickname for Dutrow.
"He's a large child," she said. "There are days when he can't tie his shoes. But he has an innate ability to work with horses, and he thinks out of the box. We trust him completely."
04 Jul 2008 at 11:49 am | #
Bill,
Coupling rule regulations should be relaxed even more, not returned to the days when it was automatic to link horses from the same trainer or owner.
Uncoupled entries provide bettors the opportunity to wager on the horse they prefer. It is our job as handicappers, bettors, and racing fans, to figure out which horse is ‘live’ and which is less so.
The primary time couplings should be required is in claiming races. New York tried something similar several years ago and it worked well. The only problem was some disgruntled public handicappers whimpered about the results when their newspaper selections proved incorrect.
Mr. Pedersen’s concerns are a symptom of the real problem. Stewards appear to have abdicated their role as the Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s of the racetrack. When there is potential chicanery involved in an uncoupled entry, the stewards should exercise their authority to grill the participants and punish them if need be. Racetracks have the right to eject anyone from the grounds, which the New York Racing Association chose to do recently to a small outfit. That is how you govern uncoupled entries.
Sensationalist racing media, always on the lookout for some way to catch the attention of its readership, has failed to educated the betting public on the benefit of having uncoupled entries. Instead, it has inflamed the situation.
I had no money on either Rising Moon or Frost Giant, but experience has taught me exactly what Mace Siegel told you. Whenever Rick Dutrow starts a horse, whatever the price, it can win. The reverse is also true, which is why I determined several years ago never to use a Rick-trained horse as my ‘most likely to win’ in the newspaper. He could start Secretariat in a maiden claimer and it would not be my most likely to win selection. Big Brown is the latest example.
Uncoupled entries are the rule in most of the world. It has worked just fine, one recent example to the contrary in Europe notwithstanding. Why shouldn’t it here?
05 Jul 2008 at 06:58 pm | #
Stewards who are hired or paid by the state cannot bar licensees or participants from the grounds. They can suspend or revoke licenses under existing rules, but only after giving the licensee in question all of his due process rights (notice of violation, formal hearing, right to appeal etc)Racetrack managements (if not linked to the state) can bar anyone from their property without giving them a reason or any due process. This has been challenged in the courts of various jurisdictions, usually decided in favor of the race tracks as private property owners. If such a person can prove that a state official was involved in the decision, then it becomes state action, and the state will be required to prove its contentions.