Owner protests non-enforcement of Santa Anita race condition

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

So horseplayers would have moved up the winner because his trainer has some horses at Los Al running in $3K claiming races at 4F?

Sorry, but I find your argument specious in this particular case. We aren't judging horses by the number of horses a trainer has. Do we ever know it anyway.

You know where I stand on information to horseplayers, and I spend a good portion of my life at least trying to add to the information available to horseplayers, but I have trouble seeing where there was actually an issue here. We're handicapping horses...aren't we?

As we discussed privately, this isn't what I meant. Bettors need to be able to trust printed conditions. I'm sure you agree they are often very important when handicapping a race. For this particular race, no, bettors had the PPs and bet accordingly. I just think having "spirit of the rule" conditions sets a bad precedent. We need to be able to trust what we read in black and white in the PPs. The racing secretary can't be this haphazard about it.

You or I could have written clear, concise conditions that matched the intent of the "new" race conditions in a few minutes I'd bet. Maybe even Steve too.