Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Stewards Fouled Up the Flamingo, Arcaro Says

Long after last Saturday’s Flamingo Stakes had been run, former jockey Eddie Arcaro and trainer Woody Stephens were at a bar in the Hialeah clubhouse.

“The stewards blew that one,” Arcaro said, referring to the disqualification of Chief’s Crown for interference in the stretch.

Arcaro should be an expert on fouls. The Angel Cordero of his time, an Attila the Hun in racing silks, Arcaro was frequently suspended for his lack of etiquette, once sitting out an entire year because he attempted to put another jockey over the fence and then didn’t show remorse afterward.

Arcaro was wrong when he nearly made Vincent Nordase the first man in space, but he was right about the Flamingo. The stewards had two decisions to make after the $265,000 race and they blew both of them.

The horses crossed the wire in this order:

1. Chief’s Crown.

2. Proud Truth, a length back.

3. Stephan’s Odyssey, a neck behind Proud Truth.

Sorting out the drifts, the lugs and the bumps--coming soon to a theater near you--the amended finish should have been:

1. Chief’s Crown, who didn’t drift enough to bother Proud Truth.

2. Stephan’s Odyssey, who got severely bumped by the lugging-out Proud Truth.

3. Proud Truth.

The stewards saw it this way:

1. Proud Truth.

2. Chief’s Crown.

3. Stephan’s Odyssey.

Two out of three isn’t bad, but in this case, the stewards got none of the three positions right.

“It was laughable,” said Stephens, who trains Stephan’s Odyssey.

Except that nobody’s laughing.

Henryk de Kwiatkowski, the owner of Stephan’s Odyssey, has gone ahead with his plan to appeal the stewards’ decision to Florida’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, which supervises racing in the state.

And because De Kwiatkowski is appealing, the Rosen family, which owns Chief’s Crown, has reversed itself and is also protesting the outcome.

“We didn’t want to appeal, but when we found out De Kwiatkowski was going to appeal, we had to protect ourselves,” said Tim Ross, an attorney for the Rosens. “We don’t want to sit back and find ourselves third in the race.”

The hearing probably will be held next Tuesday in Miami. Bob Rosenberg, the director of pari-mutuel wagering in Florida, will hear the arguments and try to reach a decision the same day. De Kwiatkowski says he won’t take his argument beyond Rosenberg, into a court of law, and it’s likely that the Rosens won’t resort to that, either.

Rosenberg has a full docket on Tuesday. Also on the agenda is an appeal of the 10-day suspension Don MacBeth got after the Flamingo.

MacBeth, riding Chief’s Crown, was blamed by the stewards for his left-handed whipping, which, they said, caused the winner to move over into Proud Truth’s path. MacBeth was supposed to have started his suspension Wednesday but has received a stay until next Tuesday’s hearing.

Stephens also finds laughable the suspension of MacBeth. “They got him for left-handed whipping, did they?” he said. “Did they ever get around to watching the left-handed stick that (Jorge) Velasquez was using on Proud Truth? He was hitting his horse so hard that he was bound to come out into my horse.”

Added De Kwiatkowski: “Proud Truth and his rider gave my horse a hard shoulder. I play polo, and it’s legal in polo, but not in horse racing.”

Especially under fire through all of this is Dee Wade, an assistant chief of operations in Rosenberg’s office who was pressed into duty as a steward on Flamingo day because of the death of the mother of Walter Blum, the state steward. Blum rode 4,382 winners during a 22-year career, and his expertise would have been invaluable in analyzing the race.

“They ran the race with only two stewards instead of three,” is the way Ross put it, referring to Joseph Anderson and Peter Gacicia, the other judges in the stand.

Said Stephens: “Wade’s never even been a patrol judge. How can you put somebody in the stewards’ stand for a big race when she’s never been a patrol judge?”

When De Kwiatkowski stormed the stewards’ stand after the Flamingo, demanding an explanation, he said Wade was so confused in viewing a rerun of the race that she couldn’t get the horses straight.

“She was overwhelmed by the situation,” De Kwiatkowski said.

Rosenberg said Wade has been unfairly criticized. “She’s grown up in the game,” he said. “Her father and her grandfather were in racing. She’s been a substitute steward before, and after all, there were two stewards besides her. Dee’s been around horses all her life. It wasn’t as though we had gone out and gotten a proctologist to replace Blum.”

Jack Whittaker of ABC-TV was at Hialeah for a few days before the Flamingo. Jim McKay was at Hialeah on Flamingo day. ABC had everybody there but its cameras. The 1985 Flamingo will be remembered as the best, most controversial race never to be carried on television.

The next day, the Jim Beam Stakes at tiny Latonia was televised into 28 major markets--not all of them live--yet the Flamingo, which has had nine winners go on to win the Kentucky Derby, was a well-kept national secret.

Asked to explain, Bob Iger of ABC said: “We carried the race last year and had an option to take it this year, but the option had to be exercised by last October, and at that time we decided that the Florida Derby and the Wood Memorial (at Aqueduct April 20) would be enough to give our viewers a Kentucky Derby preview picture.

“When the Flamingo came up a strong race, we made a new deal with Hialeah to carry it on a slightly delayed basis, just a couple of minutes after it was over, providing we didn’t promote it. But the week before the race, the Daily Racing Form said it was going to be on, so the track, which wasn’t getting any rights money, got upset about that, and we didn’t do it.”

Asked why ABC wouldn’t have given Hialeah some rights money and carried the race live, Iger said: “It would have cost us $200,000 for telecast expenses, and we couldn’t justify spending that much, especially since we were bucking stiff competition from the NCAA basketball tournament (on CBS).”

Racing Notes Gordon Jones of the Herald Examiner pleaded not guilty to multiple misdemeanor counts of bookmaking Wednesday in Santa Anita Municipal Court in Monrovia. A pretrial hearing is scheduled in the same court May 16. . . . Trainer Charlie Whittingham and jockey Bill Shoemaker went to New Jersey Monday for a victory with Hail Bold King in the Genesis Handicap on opening night at Garden State Park. Hail Bold King had been no better than third in three Santa Anita stakes this year. . . . Shoemaker, with no mount in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby, will ride Image of Greatness Saturday night in the Cherry Hill Mile at Garden State. Image of Greatness was second to Banner Bob Sunday in the Jim Beam at Latonia. . . . Banner Bob’s sire, Herculean, is owned by Mary Jones Bradley of Santa Monica, who has 75%, and Arthur Hancock III, who has the other 25%. Herculean stands at stud at Hancock’s Stone Farm in Kentucky. . . . Bruce Battaglia’s Kentucky Derby odds for some of the probable starters in the Santa Anita Derby: Tank’s Prospect, 8-1; Skywalker, 20-1; Floating Reserve and Smarten Up, each 60-1; Nostalgia’s Star, 80-1; Fast Account, 100-1, and Pine Belt, 200-1. Don’t Say Halo and Cosmotron aren’t eligible for the Kentucky Derby. When Pancho Villa won the Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct, Battaglia slashed his odds from 3,000-1 to 30-1. . . . Imp Society, who has won four straight stakes in the East this year, will run Saturday in the Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park. . . . Violado, winner of the Louisiana Derby, is a son of Ack Ack, who won the Santa Anita Handicap in 1971 and was named Horse of the Year. . . . The Rogers Four, a stakes winner for trainer Darrell Vienna, has been sold to Ted Sabarese and will be sent to his New York trainer, John Parisella.