The Worst DQ Ever

[Rupert Pupkin]

There was a disqualification on Saturday (Feb 13) in the 9th race at Golden Gate that is definitely one of the worst DQs of all time, if not the worst. They disqualified a horse that had nothing to do with the incident that occured. The horse was not involved in any way.

In a majority decision, the stewards disqualified a horse named Preemptory for an incident that occured going into the far turn. Here is what happened. There were three horses bumping each other going down the backstretch. Preemptory was not one of them. Preemptory was on the far outside and was nowhere near these three horses that are bumping each other. Going into the turn, the bumping got worse and a couple of the horses were severely impeded. When the incident occured, Preemptory was nowhere near any of these horses.

As I said, Preemptory was on the far outside. There was no evidence that he came in at all. Not only is there no clear evidence that he came in, even if he did come in, he is totally clear. If you watch the pan shot and hit the "freeze" button right when the incident happens, you will see that Preemptory is over 1 1/2 lengths clear of these horses.

So, not only is he totally clear, there isn't even any clear evidence that he drifted in. When horses hit the turn and they switch leads, they usually do slightly drift in. It is possible that he slightly drifted in. I can't tell you fir sure that he didn't. But there is certainly no conclusive evidence that he did. And even if there was, he is totally clear any way. This is clear on the pan shot. It's truly amazing that the stewards took this horse down. At least one of the stewards was smart enough to dissent.

There are plenty of DQs that are borderline calls. This was not a close call. This horse had no involvement in the incident. The 3 horses involved were bouncing off each other like pinballs well before the major incident occured.

By the way, you can watch the race for free (both the pan shot and the head-on) at calracing.com. Just go to "replays".