COMMENTARY / HORSE RACING : A Roll Call for Horse Racing’s Dubious Achievements of 1992

Eclipse Awards will be distributed in February. Thanksgiving is for turkeys, and racing had plenty of those in 1992.

Prominent among those of dubious achievement during the year’s first 11 months:

--Francois Boutin, arrogant French architect of Arazi’s ludicrous 3-year-old campaign, who successfully transformed a silk purse into a sow’s ear and burned up more American horseplayers’ money on a single afternoon than any individual in history.

--The horseplayers of America, who, fooled once in the Kentucky Derby, sent Arazi to the post as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, only to be fooled again.

--Allen Paulson, Arazi’s owner, who failed to recognize that in order to win the American Triple Crown, a horse must be trained in the United States. Paulson unintentionally revealed his ignorance this year during several interviews concerning Arazi and other horses he owns. Not since the late Gene Klein has one man spent so much money on something he knows so little about.

--Trainer Dick Lundy, who was fired by Paulson and charged with improprieties in the sale and purchase of horses in the United States and Europe. Having lost one of the best jobs in racing, Lundy has not been heard from since July. His former assistant, Alex Hassinger, sent out Eliza to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

--B. Giles Brophy, who, claiming he believed the 1991 Kentucky Derby winner to be tired and overraced, forced the sale of Strike the Gold in May, then yielded at auction to his partners, William Condren and Joseph Cornacchia. Less than a week later the horse ended a 12-race losing streak in the Pimlico Special and went on to win a $750,000 bonus in the American Championship Racing Series.

--Hazel Dukes, president of New York City Off-Track Betting, who, no matter how she tries, has proven herself incapable of differentiating between collecting taxes and operating a successful gambling enterprise.

--Davis Etkin, president of Capital District OTB, who sponsors a tennis tournament in Schenectady during the Saratoga meeting and reportedly bragged privately last August that his wasteful indulgence of ego had knocked racing off the front page of the local sports section.

--Trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who has not won a Grade I race this year, had no important horse mn the stable and is the subject of persistent rumors of impending financial ruin, but insists nevertheless that he has, despite appearances, had a good year.

--The state of Florida, where the legislature allowed all racing rules to lapse last summer and has made no effort since then to replace them.

--Trainer (and the term is used in the loosest sense) Jack Wolferseder, who smuggled his horses out of Rockingham Park and into upstate New York last summer while a quarantine was in effect throughout New England because of an outbreak of equine viral arteritis.

--Richard Duchossois, president and owner of Arlington International Racecourse, who refused to simulcast any American Championship Racing Series stakes because of personal differences with ACRS founder Barry Weisbord.

--Charles Cella, owner of Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, who pulled the Oaklawn Handicap out of the ACRS largely for the same reasons Duchossois has ignored the series.

--The Philadelphia Park jockey colony, perhaps the most dangerous people you’ve never heard of: Carlos Cruz is suspected of carrying an electrical device to the post last Saturday, then passing it to the accompanying pony rider before being approached by investigators at the starting gate. He was riding a 3-5 favorite. Robert Colton has charged that some riders knowingly have failed to meet prescribed weight assignments. Jockey John D’Agusto claims to have been approached by another rider and offered a bribe in an attempt to fix a trifecta race.

--The Pennsylvania Racing Commission, which employs investigator John Michalski, who said of the Philadelphia Park situation: “We’re trying to find things, but it’s very time-consuming and we only have a few investigators.”

--The Meadowlands, which established the first 12-hour race day in the East with simulcasting from everywhere even while cutting purses for its live races and eliminating some stakes.

--The Jockeys’ Guild, officials of which found themselves snared in a federal investigation of corruption in Kentucky state government and pleaded guilty recently to bribing former Kentucky lawmaker William K. McBee in 1986.

--McBee, who settled for $1,400.