How rare is this?

[classicliberty]

From the DRF:

All starters were scheduled to carry 126 pounds. But Uptowncharlybrown had lead weights fall out of his saddle pad during the race and he returned with less than the required weight, so Belmont Park stewards disqualified him and placed him last

[miff]

Another perfect trip slug without any run despite \"getting weight\"

[FrankD.]

Does anyone recall this ever happening before ?
If it has, it\'s something I never noticed.

[TreadHead]

At least the Belmont stewards actually disqualified someone for once.  They seem to find every excuse possible to not DQ.

[bobphilo]

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another perfect trip slug without any run despite
> \"getting weight\"

Slug? I beg to differ. Some friends of mine own shares of Uptowncharlybrown and they\'ve been living a dream this week with Charly going in the Belmont after their longtime trainer, Alan Seewald, died suddenly a few weeks ago. The 5th place purse was $30,000, which is a lot of money to these people, but the unkindest cut was to have the lifelong ambition of their late trainer who only wanted to have a horse run in one of the TC Classics once in his life, end like this.

A 8 lb lead pad fell out at the quarter pole. How much advantage is gained by carrying 8 lbs less the last measly 6th of the race? If anything, it was a disadvantage since it only fell from one side making the weight distribution unbalanced. But rules are rules and all horses must carry the full 126 lb load the whole distance so the Stewards had no choice.

Still, a terrible break for a bunch of little guys, who had overcome one tragedy to be living a dream and seeing their brave underdog running his heart out again and outrunning expectations only to have their dreams crushed again. Sad.

Bob

[miff]

Bob,

Know the story and was friendly with Alan Seewald(he liked to look at my TG sheets many years ago).Uptown ran a couple of winning sprint races on a favorable wide sweeping TAMPA race track.Uptown an average horse with no excuse in the Belmont.


Mike

[bobphilo]

Mike,

Charly is just a good honest hard-working horse with a good record of graded stakes placings who has always run his heart out for the many people, including Alan, for whom he was a dream come true. None of his connections ever claimed he was anything more than that. Some of his trips were good and some not so good, but that is not my main point here.

To demean him as a \"slug\" is not only incorrect but a cruel thing to say in the wake of his late trainer\'s untimely passing. The \"weight-off\" remark may have been an attempt to be cleaver, but given the circumstances in which the subsequent DQ was just another blow to his connections, it only comes off as tasteless, if not heartless.  

Bob

[miff]

Bob,

You way out of line. My remarks regarding the HORSE have nothing to do with Alan passing away.

Mike

[SoCalMan2]

FrankD. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone recall this ever happening before ?
> If it has, it\'s something I never noticed.


I cannot recall.  What I do recall was when they brought in the quick official.  You used to have to wait for all the jockeys to weigh out before they would make the prices official, then they created something called a quick official which is now what the norm is.  If he had hit the board and then gotten DQ\'ed after prices were made official, there probably would have been a storm about it.  Always wondered why they went with the quick official -- i would be hopping mad if I got cheated out of a payoff because of it, and i still wait to cash my tickets anyway.

[miff]

What would have been insane is if Downtown had won the Belmont and the clerk of scales noted the weight discrepancy. The stewards would of course have to DQ the horse and chaos would have ensued.

Can\'t you just hear the conspiracy idiots suggesting that Kiaran did it on purpose to cheat.


Mike

[SoCalMan2]

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What would have been insane is if Downtown had won
> the Belmont and the clerk of scales noted the
> weight discrepancy. The stewards would of course
> have to DQ the horse and chaos would have ensued.
>
> Can\'t you just hear the conspiracy idiots
> suggesting that Kiaran did it on purpose to
> cheat.
>
>
> Mike

The race is made official for betting purposes before the jockeys ever make it to the clerk of scales.  That was the big change that was made when all the tracks changed to the \"quick official\" -- ~20-30 years ago.  If the weight ends up being wrong, they change the order for purse payout purposes, but not for betting purposes.  In other words, even if the horse had won, they would not have changed any payoffs.  They would DQ him for purse purposes but the betting payoffs would remain unchanged.  Look, a huge amount of tickets were cashed before they even took the winners circle photo much less weighed out the winning jockey.

I always wondered about the justice of this \"quick official\" when they changed the rules, but it is what has been done.  Does anybody remember exactly when it was that they switched the rules on this?  I recall people pointing out at the time that this is the way it was with some other rule infractions.  For example, the placing judges at Saratoga on an opening day misread the photo and put up the wrong horse -- I am not talking about when this recently happened, it also happened in the 1980s -- they let the faulty placing stand for betting purposes but reversed it for purse payout.  There are lots of other examples where they do it this way.  I always thought \"quick official\" was unfair and why not wait for the jockeys to weigh out.  

Actually, if people really care about what weight horses carry, then we should be getting tracks to announce the weight horses carry inclusive of safety gear.  I always thought it was cheating the public not telling us overweights including safety gear. To me, that is a bigger deal that penalizing a horse for carrying less (which cannot possibly be controversial at all).

[jbelfior]

Mike:

Not to worry> at least you didn\'t write that in the Ny Post as did Ray Kerrison.

Ray has been a turf writer since 1977. You\'ll find him each weekend at Monmouth (The Snore by the Shore). Nice man but if you want to learn anything, talk to Brad Thomas.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[bobphilo]

Mike,

So let me see if I understand you, someone could bad-mouth any horse you own and it wouldn\'t bother you a bit. And it would alright with you if someone demeaned a horse that was trained by someone you knew who had recently passed away.
I guess you see no connection between a horse and its connections - why do you think they\'re called connections?

No point in arguing this further since we obviously have very different views as to what constitutes being respectful to both horses and people.  

Bob

[alm]

Wow, you\'re really sensitive.

I\'ve owned horses for 25 years and I have a feeling several thousand bettors a day have cursed my horses when they\'ve run.  Imagine if I took THAT personally (I wouldn\'t because I do the same thing to my horses myself.)  Heh, heh.

[jbelfior]

SoCalMan2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> miff Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > What would have been insane is if Downtown had
> won
> > the Belmont and the clerk of scales noted the
> > weight discrepancy. The stewards would of
> course
> > have to DQ the horse and chaos would have
> ensued.
> >
> > Can\'t you just hear the conspiracy idiots
> > suggesting that Kiaran did it on purpose to
> > cheat.
> >
> >
> > Mike
>
> The race is made official for betting purposes
> before the jockeys ever make it to the clerk of
> scales.  That was the big change that was made
> when all the tracks changed to the \"quick
> official\" -- ~20-30 years ago.  If the weight ends
> up being wrong, they change the order for purse
> payout purposes, but not for betting purposes.  In
> other words, even if the horse had won, they would
> not have changed any payoffs.  They would DQ him
> for purse purposes but the betting payoffs would
> remain unchanged.  Look, a huge amount of tickets
> were cashed before they even took the winners
> circle photo much less weighed out the winning
> jockey.
>
> I always wondered about the justice of this \"quick
> official\" when they changed the rules, but it is
> what has been done.  Does anybody remember exactly
> when it was that they switched the rules on this?
> I recall people pointing out at the time that this
> is the way it was with some other rule
> infractions.  For example, the placing judges at
> Saratoga on an opening day misread the photo and
> put up the wrong horse -- I am not talking about
> when this recently happened, it also happened in
> the 1980s -- they let the faulty placing stand for
> betting purposes but reversed it for purse payout.
>  There are lots of other examples where they do it
> this way.  I always thought \"quick official\" was
> unfair and why not wait for the jockeys to weigh
> out.  
>
> Actually, if people really care about what weight
> horses carry, then we should be getting tracks to
> announce the weight horses carry inclusive of
> safety gear.  I always thought it was cheating the
> public not telling us overweights including safety
> gear. To me, that is a bigger deal that penalizing
> a horse for carrying less (which cannot possibly
> be controversial at all).


I found out today from Ed Fountaine of the NY Post that the stewards actually held up posting the official sign pending the weigh in.

They were frantic as only Maragh and Smith were left and the rest had weighed in correctly. The reason they knew about it is because Garrett Gomez told the clerk of scales.

So here were the stewards ready to screw the betting public by ignoring their own rule. I totally disagree and fortunately for a few lucky players, it was Maragh\'s saddle and not Smith\'s.  

When we play the races, we understand and accept that riding infractions can turn our winning ticket into garbage. What we expect and assume is that the weight assignments are complied with. While the accountability for the Uptowncharliebrown incident lies with the trainer, it is understood if the connections were penalized by way of a DQ from purse money. To penalize the bettors would have been an even bigger black eye for the game.

Anyone?


Good Luck,
Joe B.