HORSE RACING : Fast System With Many Drawbacks

Race tracks in Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey have adopted an aberration called “fast official,” and even Hollywood Park has shown an interest in a time-saving system whose time should never have come.

With this method, there is less time between the finish and when the stewards hang up the race’s payoffs on the tote board. That means more time to bet the next race and, theoretically, more money for the track. The tracks that use the system say it takes less time to run a full program, but even if that were true, this advantage is not enough to justify the drawbacks.

Under “fast official,” a jockey who wants to claim foul against another rider must notify an outrider before he dismounts. The outriders, those horsemen who escort the horses to the post, are equipped with radios and can relay foul claims to the stewards. If there are no claims, which is the case in most races, the jockeys are looking at the prices on the first three finishers before they ever talk to their trainers.

Here is just one of the inequities of the system: It is virtually impossible for a trainer or an owner to put in an objection or to discuss the race with a rider who is thinking about lodging a claim.

A number of years ago at a New York track, Cash Asmussen was riding a horse for trainer Red Terrell. They ran third in a race in which the jockey of the second-place horse claimed foul against the winner.

Terrell and Asmussen had left the track and were discussing the race as they walked toward the jockeys’ room.

“The second horse claimed foul against the winner,” Terrell said.

“He did?” Asmussen said. “Gee, that second horse bothered me a little.”

With that, Terrell grabbed Asmussen by the arm, spun him around and all but dragged the jockey back to the winner’s circle, where the phone to the stewards was nearby.

They got there in time to register a foul claim, and after reviewing the video of the race, the stewards disqualified the first two horses and made the Terrell-Asmussen horse the winner. With “fast official,” Terrell and Asmussen, and the betting public, would not have had this benefit.

Exhibit B: In New Jersey, a horse trained by Ben Perkins Sr. finished third. “Fast official” was in effect, and Perkins’ rider, pulling up his horse, said he was unable to find the outrider in time to lodge an objection. By the time the jockey reached Perkins, the “official” sign had been posted.

Perkins complained to the state’s racing commission, and after a hearing, the board said the stewards had reviewed the tape of the race, anyway, and had concluded that Perkins’ horse was not bothered even if there had been a foul claim. Perkins was out of luck.

If these examples aren’t enough reason to outlaw “fast official” and rescind the system wherever it has already crept in, consider the first running of the $250,000 Final Fourteen Stakes at Bay Meadows last Sunday.

The horse finishing first in the race was disqualified by the stewards when the clerk of scales reported that his jockey weighed 2 1/2 pounds less coming back than he had going out.

Under “fast official,” there’s no time to weigh the jockeys before the race becomes official. By not waiting for the postrace weigh-in, exponents of the system are in effect breaking a fundamental rule of racing every time out. The “fast official” fanatics used to rationalize the weigh-in quibble by asking, “When was the last time a jockey didn’t have the right weight after a race?” That question can now be answered: “Quite recently.” And in a $250,000 stake, to boot.

“If tracks want the day to go faster, ‘fast official’ is not the answer,” said Kentucky’s Keene Daingerfield, the elder statesman of retired racing stewards. “All they have to do is get serious about honoring their nine post times.”

Horse Racing Notes

Jane du Pont Lunger, whose family is on the Forbes 400 list, has wealth estimated at more than $260 million, according to the current issue of the magazine. “Jane was the favored daughter,” Forbes says. “She got $50 million to her sister’s $2 million.” Lunger’s Go for Wand, who will run in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff Oct. 27 at Belmont Park, is trying to become that rare filly to be voted horse of the year. Go for Wand would have a better chance at the title if she raced against males, in the Classic, but Lunger said: “I haven’t run a filly against the boys in 52 years, and I never had any intention of running her in the Classic.”

Julie Krone, who became the first woman to ride in a Breeders’ Cup race when she finished second aboard Darby Shuffle in the Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs in 1988, won a couple of stakes with Safely Kept in September, but Craig Perret, who has ridden the filly more often, has the mount for the Sprint. Perret became available when Housebuster was injured and retired for the year.