Worst DQ of All Time?
 

Tampa 7th today. I get the DQ’d horse came out but there was no contact.

As a bettor I have no faith in really anything anymore as it pertains to horse racing. Dramatic? Yeah. Honest? Hell yeah

Can you post the head on and pan for the incident?

It was the 7th at Tampa today.

What a gross way to lose a race. IMO if the inside had just maintained a straight course outside would have never gotten by.

However, I believe inside did in fact clearly initiate and make contact. You can clearly see outside moved off it's path by about a half lane.

All horses are entitled to a clear and unobstructed path. Given the desperately small margin of victory IMO the Stewards had no choice in the matter and correctly DQ'ed.

In the long and storied history of horse racing there has NEVER been a horse taken down that ran straight.

For a brief few minutes coming up on 17 years ago, I thought the worst DQ of all time was going to be Better Talk Now in the BC Turf. Instead it became one of my favorite races of all time and solidified my love of that horse and Dominguez. Just had to watch it again for old times sake!

I respectfully disagree. I saw no contact. Sure the rider moved out but it was race riding.

I’ve seen horses carry other horses 5-6 paths before with no DQ. The eventual winner was carried out maybe a path, probably less, with no contact.

Bush league call at a bush league track.

The DRF chart calling termed it slight contact. If there was NO contact I think you would always be able to see light between the two horses. Which clearly wasn't there.

You might want to slow it down to super slow mo or even frame by frame. I've seen a whole lot of stretch runs looking for contact. In that race there most definitely was.

Who cares what the chart says? The Tampa chart caller is horrible. Anyone that does replay work will attest that he’s horrible at his job. Chart caller LMAO...

The optics were bad, I get that, but the rider on the runner up didn’t flinch, he just rode all the way through. Wouldn’t he at least have reacted if he was bumped in to?

Either way, no one here can say they haven’t seen MUCH worse stay up almost daily. This was a bad rider getting taken down because the leasing rider claimed foul.

I’m going to compliment you though Vic. You’ve managed to not make this all about you...yet.

Congrats!

Finally got around to watching this. That was a pretty bad DQ. How do you justify something like that to the betting public?

I know that you’ve seen enough races to know that this isn’t true.

I know the optics looked bad but in reality it was just race riding. Just tough watching worse everyday that stays up

The margin was a nose, if even that (literally a bob). There was contact and the 5 was pushed out 1.5-2 paths. The 5 had all the momentum and the 4 would have come down even in the stringent of jurisdictions. I've seen some egregious DQs, but this is a non-story.

1.5-2 paths?

You watch the right race?

My problem with the DQ is that the contact and/or foul is not even really noticeable on the pan shot. I don't see the 5 get slowed or change its stride, so I have trouble believing that what the 4 did actually impacted the 5 or changed the result of the race, even with the small margin. (The flipside to this is, I also don't want to see jockeys exaggerating things to try to sell it to the stewards, which we also see some times and I can't stand.)

I guess the finish is close enough for the steward's the make this call, but I don't agree this would have been a DQ in every racing jurisdiction. I suppose it could be, but steward decisions are inconsistent enough that it's really hard to know how this would have been decided elsewhere.

I dont necessarily agree with the DQ but the four horse moved over multiple paths and made contact with the other runner. I fault the jock on the 4 for not controlling his runner as he was headed straight near the wire but his actions with the reins seemed to move his runner to the right. The left rein is slapping the horses neck. Would the slight contact and the jocks actions weigh in on the stewards ruling? Im just asking, I agree with Moses that this most likely would not be a DQ in most jurisdictions, unless of course, it was the horse I wagered on :rolleyes:

This was a silly DQ and, at best, it's questionable that there was any real contact. The runner up certainly didn't react to anything. I know it's a different track, but a horse was left up in NY a couple of weeks ago that did MUCH more, and the margin at the finish was virtually identical.

Using a chart call to back up an opinion is a slippery slope. Whether or not someone likes the work of any chart caller, trust your eyes, not someone else's.

I get Dahoss's frustration. Most whines about disqualifications are just that...but this seemed like an unnecessary decision. Surely much worse contact happens in many races that gets completely ignored. Why are stretch brushes so much worse than ones in other parts of any race? A turnover in the first quarter of a basketball is possibly as costly as one late in a game.

Because, depending on the severity of the contact, there is the whole race to recover? Or, the other three quarters of the game to make amends for the one mistake? It's not like the incident occurred at the top of the stretch and the 5 had a chance to re-rally but just hung, losing by a couple of lengths. It happened close to the wire and the 5 had all the momentum.

Here are a couple of example excerpts from the HKJC:

You may not agree with the call (as I certainly didn't when I had Tigre du Terre at 140-1 in one of the sickest nose bobs ever), but this is far from the worst DQ ever. Probably not even the worst this year in Florida.

What does a decision at Hong Kong have to do with anything?

Also...weren’t you someone who thought Maximum Security should have stayed up in the Derby? How should he have stayed up but this was an obvious DQ?

I guess my point in all of this is this is a great example of punishing the bettors, where the right thing to do is punish the bonehead rider of the 4 and let the result stand.

Not to mention consistency. We have all seen much worse stay up. Let’s be honest, the game has serious issues with integrity. If a guy like me who is can be rough around the edges but a loyal customer for 25 years is doubting things at this point, what chance do we have with new fans