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Saturday, February 22, 2014

DQ - Gulfstream Rainbow Six

Twitter is blowing up. So is Facebook. Everybody is talking about the bettor who singled the #12 horse in the final leg of the Rainbow 6 at Gulfstream this afternoon, only to be disqualified out of a payoff of nearly two million dollars.

The following thread at Paceadvantege says it all:
http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111201&page=1&pp=15
Worst beat of ALL TIME (Rainbow 6 at Gulfstream) 12 wins the finale at GP, one winning ticket, gets DQed on a VERY shaky call at best. I'm sorry, but that is just wrong and screams of conflict of interest.

Then, later this afternoon, a player I know sent me the following email:
"I logged into Twinspires and tried to watch the head on replay. Guess what? The race with the DQ is the only one on the day at Gulfstream without a head on replay. Somehow, the head on replay for that race is magically blacked out!"

Here are my thoughts on this:

I may not agree with the call itself. And whether or not you agree with the call you have to feel truly awful for the bettor whose horse was DQ'd.

Good call... bad call... a call where the majority of the bettors want the stewards tarred and feathered... a call where the majority agree with the call, etc....

All of that pales by comparison to what's being done here.

This game is sorely lacking in transparency.

You see, lack of transparency is seen by many as a lack of integrity.

If you want to bring some integrity to decisions handed down by the stewards:

THE ONE THING YOU HAVE TO DO EVERY SINGLE TIME (AT THE VERY LEAST) IS MAKE THE VIDEO THE STEWARDS USED TO MAKE THEIR CALL PUBLICLY AVAILABLE.

Don't hide the video and hope the controversy fades away. In my opinion that's FAR WORSE than the call itself.

Jeff Platt
President, HANA









17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've watched the replay on twinspires all night.no problems

jack

Walt Gekko said...

There WAS a head-on shot of the stretch run during the steward's inquiry that CLEARLY showed the first finisher coming out and interfering with the second finisher. Even seeing the pan shot it was clear to me the first finisher interfered with the second finisher and the right decision was made in taking the first finisher down. There was NO conflict of interest whatsoever on this one, the correct call was made.

Sal Carcia said...

When I saw the panshot it looked like a foul. Latter in the Twinspires replay, the head-on was shown a couple of times. It was not at all clear from the head-on that there was a foul. The head-on also showed the 2nd place horse was lugging in. It was a slight infraction at best.

Earlier in the week a person was alive in the Rainbow with an 6/1 shot with a clear chance to win. The horse was totally left.

What is annoying is the game seems to be oblivious to these events. I remember when HRTV was skipping the last Gulf race live to show their Halftime show. I flagged them on this numerous times. Also, both TVG and HRTV would delay the last race at Saratoga to show a west coast pre-race presentation. They were just ignoring the fact the the last race is the culmination of a lot of exotics.

It is just too easy for this game to ignore the bettor.

Anonymous said...

Was amazed they took the horse down.

Whine and Cheese said...

Did this whiner ever hear of the "ALL" button? btw, I had the revised winner- an Empire Maker colt out of a Dynaformer mare, 1st off claim, and 1st time with blinkers, he was screaming "bet me". And you don't need the head on to see there was contact. Watch the pan around the 1/16th pole, and you can see the revised winner's head shoot upright. It was a legit call by the stewards. There were 2 people who did hit the Pick 6 yesterday, and I would bet anything that at least one used the "ALL" button on the last race, so the whiner would not have gotten the single jackpot anyways.

Anonymous said...

now they won't show the head on at twinspires.

jack

Anonymous said...

Almost noon the day after. Head on button for this race replay grayed out on TwinspiresTV. Lame.

Anonymous said...

Agree. Transparency needed.

Walt Gekko said...

The head-on of the stretch run can be found on TwinSpires DURING the stewards inquiry on the main replay. I believe there was no head-on shot because that race went off considerably later than the originally posted post time and Gulfstream likely ran out of satellite time, preventing the head-on from being shown.

Anonymous said...

I don't see where anyone is "whining." I think the author makes a valid point. The DQ race is the only race with a head on replay button blacked out at twinspirestv. Which begs the question: "Who at twinspires made this decision and what are they trying to hide?

Whine and Cheese said...

You don't need the head on shot to see the contact. You can see it from the 13's body and head movement in the pan. Why does everything have to be a conspiracy to some people? It was a legit call, and the fact that the head on was or wasn't there makes no difference. As Walt said, their card ran really late Saturday- I lost my signal very shortly after the race.

Anonymous said...

Trakus has a replay for this race on their site. It shows less than 1 path drift for the 12 while clear of the 13. Majority on Twitter said incident did not merit a DQ. Also, reports on Twitter put the track GM on the phone having animated discussion with the booth before the call was announced. That coupled with a weak call coupled with the 12 as the lone winning betting interest to take down the jackpot makes this whole thing not just suspicious but outright surreal.

Jeremy Clemons said...

Just to clarify from a TwinSpires.com perspective. We get our live video and our race replays through Roberts Communications Network and we have never intentionally disabled a replay nor replay view for any reason. We get what the track provides to Roberts.

The full view replay on TwinSpires.com does show a head on of the stretch drive.

Jeremy Clemons

TigerWoodsGuy said...

With the DQ, I had the 1/3/10 going into race 11- fortunate to have a shot at the rainbow pick 6, I can't believe how the jockey on the three overtook the 11 and a few yards from the wire let him win. That's what leads me to believe "The fix was in"- Not to mention Bravo was off the 3 horse, maybe he wouldn't play ball,

HANA said...

John Pricci interviewed Tim Ritvo today about these issues. Contrary to reports surfacing on Twitter over the weekend, Ritvo was not on the phone with the stewards. If you haven't read the interview click on the link. It's a great read.
--Jeff Platt

HANA said...

Jeremy, You taking the time to comment here is very much appreciated. Good to know the reason behind there being no separate head on replay at Twinspires is because of what you received from Roberts Communications (and not some attempt to hide video from players.)

Still, when I look at all of the circumstances surrounding this DQ... a 7 figure payoff reversed... the call itself where players on Twitter and message boards are saying by a margin of better than 3-1 the original order of finish should have been left intact... the radio button link to the head on replay grayed out on your site because that potion of the video was not received from the satellite company... how until Beyer's column today no racing journalist had seen fit to cover the story...

I'm left kind of speechless at how everything lined up the way that it did.
--Jeff Platt

Anonymous said...

Jeremy Clemons, I watched the Head-on replay many times Saturday night(comments above) at the twinspires site The next morning it was gone! Every other race has the head-on. Are you guys looking into this?

The head-on from the pan shot is not the same that's why the stewards have both angles.

Thanks, hope you'll update us on this.

Jack