Owner’s Apology Puts the Spotlight on Integrity Issue

Even on Eclipse Awards night, supposedly the industry’s finest hour, horse racing was unable to avoid reminders that integrity is a 24/7 job. One of its own, the Eclipse Award-winning Ken Ramsey, made a public apology Monday from the stage at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, giving the game a sobering reminder that parties without party-poopers are hard to find.

After Ramsey’s tearful mea culpa, the black-tie, long-gown crowd was divided into three groups: those who didn’t know what Ramsey was talking about; those saddened that an affable big-bucks guy, who has plowed millions into the game, had been brought to his knees, and those who questioned why Ramsey was holding the owner-of-the-year trophy in the first place.

To answer the third group, voting for best owner had already closed when Ramsey ran afoul of racing authorities in his native Kentucky on New Year’s Eve, offering to pay another owner an undisclosed sum if she would scratch her horse so Ramsey’s horse could get into a race. A week before the Eclipse dinner, the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority fined Ramsey a record-tying $25,000 and suspended him for seven days.

Racing can only contemplate what speech might have come from the stage had Mike Gill, who finished second to Ramsey in the voting, won. The brash Gill, whose stable won a near-record 487 races last year, would have been even money to unload on the establishment.

Gill, welcome but largely unsuccessful in California, has battled several tracks for years over stall space and still is persona non grata in New York, where tracks have made him ship in his horses from other locales. This is the New York Racing Assn., which seems to get smeared almost weekly, if not by the political watchdogs in the state capital, then by federal indictments against a widespread betting ring, whose operatives are not against tubing an illegal milkshake cocktail into a horse’s system.

But back to Ramsey. Besides the owner’s trophy, he won the male-grass title with Kitten’s Joy, but his day in the sun was, to use a handy word, eclipsed when he dwelt on his sin against better judgment at Turfway Park. The race in question was chicken feed -- first up on the card, for maidens running for a claiming price of $7,500, for a purse of $7,500.

Ramsey, though, was determined to get his horse, Ken’s Cat, into the field off the also-eligible list, so that he might enhance the year-ending statistics of Catienus, the stallion who’d sired the colt.

The lesson from this story is not to step into the shade with a nun, even an ex-nun. Barbara Conner, the owner who left the sisterhood decades ago, quickly went to the stewards at the track in Florence, Ky., and reported Ramsey’s proposition. One of the Kentucky commissioners, citing all those indictments in New York, said it was the wrong time for leniency and suggested throwing the book at Ramsey.

By the way, Conner’s horse, Mamaroni, whom she also trains, finished fifth at 60-1. Ken’s Cat would have been one of the favorites.

” ... On a less joyous note,” Ramsey said in Beverly Hills on Monday night, drawing muffled groans from those who knew instantly what was coming.

“My parents taught me that a man’s good name is more precious than fame and riches, and I believe that with all my heart,” Ramsey continued. “My recent actions have tarnished my name, my family’s name and all of racing. Please forgive me.”

Later, Frank Stronach, another multiple award winner and the owner-breeder of horse-of-the-year Ghostzapper, concluded an acceptance speech with a defense of Ramsey.

“It’s an injustice, what’s happened to Ken Ramsey,” Stronach said. “Many trainers get together and talk this way. Many, many times, things like this have happened. The public was not damaged one bit by what he tried to do.”

Maybe, on an otherwise feel-good evening, Ramsey and Stronach should have kept their remarks simple and left the politics and the integrity of racing for another day and another venue. But Ramsey, who loves his horses and never tires of talking about them, would not leave this alone, even after the dinner. He issued a statement, which read in part:

“Essentially, I let my enthusiasm cloud my good judgment. I deeply regret the incident and the negative publicity it has caused my family and the industry. I have been in this great game for 45 years as a fan, bettor, owner and breeder. I would never do anything to harm horse racing, a game I love and enjoy so much. My whole life revolves around horses. I made a mistake. I have accepted the penalties.... I would like to put the matter behind me and look forward to another great year for my horses, my family and the greatest game on Earth.”

In his statement, Ramsey also pointed out that the Kentucky racing authority had said that his “actions were not undertaken with any desire or intention to damage the integrity of the sport.”

That might have been easy for the commissioners to say, but the reality is that the sport should be on an intense integrity watch unlike any since the race-fixing scandals in New York in the 1970s.

Too many negative headlines are piling up. A $7,500 race at a second-tier track in Kentucky does matter.