Alan Truex: Maximum Security was set up to fail
In a crowd of 156,000, many thousands stood in the rain at Churchill Downs waiting to cash tickets for No. 7, Maximum Security, who led the Kentucky Derby from start to finish. The dreaded word “Objection” flashed on the tote board, but that was no reason for jaw-dropping alarm. In 145 years the first-place finisher in the Run for the Roses had never been taken down.
And this was not even a Steward’s Inquiry. When the race unfolded in real time, the three designated officials of the sport, huddling on the 7th floor of the twin-spired grandstand, saw no reason to question the outcome, although that’s their job.
This objection came from a jockey. And not from a Hall of Famer like John Velazquez, Mike Smith or Javier Castellano, who were all part of that drenched field. No, this was a complaint from a 26-year-old French-born rider of a 65/1 long shot.
Country House, the No. 20 horse for whom the objection was lodged, was far from where No. 7 was running. There was no contact between the two.
There was a foul by Maximum Security, to be sure, but it was committed against the horse who started from the No. 1 post, War of Will.
As Maximum Security led the field into the home stretch, he was spooked by the wall of noise suddenly blaring from spectators in the infield. The bay colt lurched to his right, away from the crowd. Which put him in the path of War of Will, causing jockey Tyler Gaffalione to brake while veering sharply to his right. Gaffalione, himself a mere 24, responded heroically to the crisis.
His deft maneuvering on a smart and agile colt averted contact with the leader and a chain collision that could have been the worst disaster in the sport’s history. As it happened, War of Will barely bumped Country House. But it was enough for Flavien Prat to claim foul.
The more the stewards reviewed the video – 22 minutes of reviewing 30 feet of action – the more they saw cause and effect up and down the track.
Since the horse who finished 16th, Long Range Toddy, lost stride because of the traffic interruption, the stewards not only disqualified the apparent winner, they dropped him all the way to 17th. It was like calling pass interference when the ball had no chance of being caught.
Imagine if a team in the Super Bowl drives for what looks like the winning touchdown, and officials take 22 minutes to make a decision and then they march off 85 yards.
Not even Flavien Prat thought the race had been dismantled. “When I was coming around the turn they kind of pushed me sideways,” he said, quickly adding that he recovered quickly: “In the stretch I had a fair run.”
Country House was not gaining on Maximum Security during their stretch duel. Normally stewards do not change the order of finish unless the foul altered the order of finish. Interesting that Gaffalione filed no objection. War of Will made no rally, was tiring in the stretch. He was not going to win the race no matter what, and Gaffalione knew it.
In this case, nobody blamed Luis Saez, the jockey of the offending horse. Having watched a Kentucky Derby from the infield, I can attest to a roar that’s so loud the call of the race cannot be heard. Saez had credibility when he told the stewards: “My horse got scared when the crowd was screaming.”
Saez reacted quickly, pulling the reins to the left, and his horse returned to the straight and narrow without making physical contact with another horse.
Bill Mott, Hall of Fame trainer of Country House, was not advocating a DQ for his first Kentucky Derby trophy. “I will say this: If it was a maiden claimer on a weekday, the winner would come down.”
But in a maiden claimer on a weekday you will never see 19 horses in the field. There would have been much less congestion on the front end. And of course, there would not have been a roar from the infield.
Perhaps there would not have been rain and mud, which typically cause horses to drift.
But let’s give due credit to Flavien Prat, the 10th-ranked jockey in America last year and moving up. He was perfect literally from start of the Kentucky Derby to finish and beyond. Prat generally avoided the congested areas, keeping a length or two of air ahead of him. At the end of the race, his yellow silks were surprisingly clean – just a smattering of mud across his chest, two or three smudges on his face.
With the next-to-last starting position, Prat opted to stay 4- and 5-wide rather than hustle to the rail where all the trouble would develop.
Luis Saez had ridden Country House three times and couldn’t get him out of the gate or focused in the stretch. The adolescent colt preferred to glance into the grandstand.
Good for Mott that Saez got the call for Maximum Security, who was second-favorite, at 9/2, to Bob Baffert’s Improbable at 4/1. Prat is physically stronger than Saez and most other jockeys. And though Country House is larger than the average 3-year-old thoroughbred, Prat was able to bend him to his will.
He ushered him out of the gate promptly, and then he patiently but firmly guided him into the third lane as the first turn approached. He had a comfortable trip from there on, his brush with War of Will being little more than a love tap.
Baffert, who was hoping to tie Ben Jones for a record sixth Kentucky Derby triumph with one of his three highly-bet entries, saw this 145th edition being typical: “a lot of bumping and grinding like little kids in a soccer game.”
Or it was like NASCAR, whose former star Dale Earnhardt Jr. contributed to NBC’s pregame coverage. I have to think that had he been working post-race, he would have scoffed at the massive penalty for a hasty lane change that damaged nobody.
Those who back the stewards argue that whether or not damage occurred, the rule about lane-changing must be enforced as a deterrent to future perils.
But what happened Saturday was not intentional and should not be punished as though it was.
There is something that in the name of safety should be done: Cut the field back to 14, which is the limit in all other horse races in North America. Every Kentucky Derby is a cavalry charge. Almost always there are collisions, some quite serious.
This was a better and safer sporting event prior to 1974, when an auxiliary gate was added to bring more millions to the breeding operations of Kentucky horsemen. Earning a berth in the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports looks good in the Stallion Register.
The people who run this sport lack horse sense. Truth is there’s no one running it. No commissioner, no voice from New York saying, ‘Hey guys, the race looks the same no matter how many times you replay it. You gotta make a call.’”
This is the sort of power vacuum that was sure to suck in the President Himself. @realDonaldTrump tweeted about “a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track.”
Such adroit writing that I can’t imagine the tweeter-in-chief wrote it himself. And I’m surprised to find myself agreeing with his conclusion that “only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur.”
Reeling from a procession of deaths at Santa Anita in the winter, the sport can ill afford more negative publicity about safety.
But as the NFL learned to its dismay, when the game is political football, it’s risky to be on the wrong side. The owners of Maximum Security, Gary and Mary West, are appealing the stewards’ decision, which is sure to fail. But they’re also considering a lawsuit. With the presidential seal on it, I might be inclined to bet on Maximum Security on the federal court circuit.
