COMMENTARY : When the Public Becomes a Fool, Everyone Loses

Even before he won his racing debut by a dozen lengths, Goldminer’s Dream was one of the most talked-about 2-year-olds in Maryland.

The youngster didn’t even have an official name when he worked a half mile in about 45 seconds one morning at Laurel. Numerous horsemen were watching when he did it, and the word was out that trainer Carlos Garcia had a talented son of Crafty Prospector.

Owner David Hayden received a six-figure offer for the unraced colt--and turned it down without hesitation. The man who bred champion sprinter Safely Kept dared to hope he had caught lightning in a bottle for a second time.

Goldminer’s Dream continued to train swiftly, and by the time he was entered in a maiden race at Pimlico last Saturday, Hayden said: “Everybody at the racetrack knew about the horse. Everybody’s butcher knew about the horse.”

Everybody did, that is, except the public at large--the naive souls who depend on published workout information to make judgments on the ability of first-time starters. Goldminer’s Dream showed a single slow workout: a half-mile in 49 3/5. Five other horses in the field had worked at that distance, and all had gone in faster times. One first-time starter, Voyage Sixty, showed a string of fast workouts, including four furlongs in 47 3/5.

Of course, none of the insiders were fooled, and Goldminer’s Dream opened as the 1-5 favorite. His odds finally crept to 3-5 as Voyage Sixty took a little sucker money. The favorite demonstrated that his lofty reputation was well-founded when he blew away the field.

In the process, he demonstrated that the system for reporting workouts in Maryland is a travesty. Even the owner of the Goldminer’s Dream was slightly embarrassed by the circumstances of his horse’s victory. “It’s terrible to delude the public about this information,” Hayden said.

This, of course, is an old, old story. Clockers are notoriously underpaid by the Daily Racing Form, and their work is unsupervised, so they have reason and opportunity to misreport workouts. Even trainers who are otherwise scrupulous believe it is their God-given right to conceal the ability of a good first-time starter so they can cash a bet.

So bettors always suspect skulduggery when a youngster wins despite slow published workouts, and they may have been doubly suspicious about the circumstances of Goldminer’s Dream’s victory. Less than two weeks earlier, another Garcia-trained first-time starter, The Falls, had shown no published workouts, took heavy betting and won brilliantly.

But the real culprits in such situations are not conniving trainers or conniving clockers. Horseplayers ought to vent their ire at the management of the state’s tracks and the Maryland Racing Commission, which has not imposed rules to ensure proper identification of horses and reporting of workouts.

Maryland does have a rule requiring a first-time starter to show at least one workout, but even this rule is a sham. If there is no record of such a workout, the racing secretary’s office will call the trainer and say, “Give us a work,” and the trainer may fabricate whatever he wants.

Earlier this year, Laurel President Joe De Francis said Maryland would have a proper system to govern the reporting of workouts in place by this summer. This hasn’t happened, but track vice president Tim Capps, who is in charge of the project, said the process is in motion.

“Things are happening and we are trying to get everything resolved,” Capps said. “The Racing Form now has five people working for them and that’s only scratching the surface. We’re going to add the people we need. It’s going to cost $250,000 a year, but we are committed to going ahead. I’m disappointed we haven’t progressed faster, but we hope to have the system in place by September.”

The changes can’t come a moment too soon. Business has been falling at the Maryland tracks, and they can’t afford to lose any more customers. And nothing angers and alienates bettors more than a race like the one that Goldminer’s Dream won.

It is one thing when racetrack sharpies orchestrate a coup, score with a 20-1 shot and make a killing. More power to them. But when a “smart horse” like Goldminer’s Dream wins and pays $3.20, what’s the point? Nobody is making serious money. The whole object of the exercise seems to be the satisfaction that insiders get from making the public feel like suckers.