alexander crispin | Horse Racing Free Tips

Clancy: Will Racing’s Public Trust Survive The Actions Of Bad Actors?

The start of 2021 hasn't been particularly positive for the sport of horse racing, acknowledges Joe Clancy, editor of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred. A quartet of incidents stand out: the Gordon Elliott photo, the suspension of jockey Alexander Crispin over weight disparities, a trainer with 45 listed medication violations on the ballot for the Hall of Fame, and a horse with two failed drug tests earning an Eclipse Award.

Racing is “at some kind of crossroads, again or still depending on how you look at it,” Clancy wrote in a recent editorial.

“At its core, racing exists because of a public trust,” he continued. “Those outside the industry need to trust that the people inside the industry are doing the right things. The questions are pretty simple.”

Those questions the public should be able to ask of racing include: Are the horses well cared for? Is the wagering above board? Are rule-breakers penalized?

Looking at the 2021 actions of just the above four members of the racing industry, those questions become harder to answer. At the end of the day, Clancy wrote, the most important question is whether racing's public trust will survive the actions of the rule-breakers and bad actors.

“That's the most important question, and I can't answer it,” he concluded.

Read more at the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred.

The post Clancy: Will Racing’s Public Trust Survive The Actions Of Bad Actors? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

How It Works: A Look At How Jockeys Weigh Out

The subject of jockey weights has been a central part of the news in racing this week as reports circulated that Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey Alexander Crispin has been fined and suspended for carrying a lower weight than advertised in a race on Jan. 16.

Most people probably know that jockeys are weighed both before and after a race to ensure they are carrying the weight printed in the program or on the changes list, but unless you've spent time in the jocks' room, you may not know the finer points of how the process works.

First of all, it's important to understand the terminology. “Weighing out” refers to the process of recording a rider's weight before a race, when he or she is on their way out of the jockeys' room. “Weighing in” refers to recording their weight after the race, when they're on their way back inside.

The procedures in the jockeys' rooms vary somewhat between tracks and states, depending on the state rules and preferences of the racing officials at work in a given place.

Javier Torres, clerk of scales at Keeneland, Churchill Downs, and Kentucky Downs, said that riders at those tracks are required to check in at least 30 minutes before the first race where they are named to ride. They will consult a board where Torres has written the weights each rider must carry through the day. By the time they sign in, Torres said, jockeys already have a pretty good idea of what their weight will be that day. At sign-in, they're required to write down what their weight will be for the day and Torres uses that to calculate overweights, if necessary.

“Most of the jockeys, they know what they weigh, they know their bodies,” said Torres. “Most of them know, and I know, what they can do, what their lightest weight is they can do.”

If you sit in the grandstand throughout a race card, you may hear new overweights announced late into the card. Torres said that at the tracks where he works, that's probably because a rider didn't have a mount for the first few races and just signed in, not necessarily because they were struggling all afternoon to reduce weight or have ballooned after an earlier race.

Of course, there will be some races where a rider has to carry more weight than others. There are a few different ways the clerk can add weight to a rider. In Kentucky, Torres uses rubber pads which sit between the saddle towel and the saddle and are designed to weigh between one and ten pounds. Some riders don't care for those pads because they feel the slick outer coating makes the saddle slip, so in some cases Torres will still allow use of lead weights, which are tucked into pockets under the saddle flap.

“Most jocks have three different saddles, depending on the weight they need,” said Torres. “The more weight, they go with the heavier saddle. Sometimes their heaviest saddle isn't big enough. John McKee, he might not even weigh 100 pounds. He has Pat Day's old saddle, and that saddle has the lead built into the actual saddle. I think it weighs 12 or 13 pounds.”

In New York, lead weights are still the preferred system to add weight to a rider unless a trainer supplies a weighted pad, which must be approved by the stewards and the clerk of scales.

Kentucky, California, and New York do not count safety equipment like vests or helmets against a rider's weight allowance. In New York, clerks can count some of the horse's equipment like martingale, breastplate, or other equipment toward a rider's weight allowance.

Scales and recordkeeping vary also. In Kentucky, riders are weighed with a digital scale 15 minutes before each race and the scale's readings feed into a computer system that keeps a running record of those weights. The same happens at NYRA facilities, but at Finger Lakes, weights are manually recorded by the clerk. In Kentucky, Torres and his assistants then place the rider's equipment on a table which is highly visible in the jockeys' room, and cover it with a saddle towel to indicate it has already been measured for the day. The scale and computer readings are verified by the stewards periodically.

In Kentucky, valets do not always saddle horses for the same rider ahead of each race. Torres randomly assigns numbers to valets each day and matches them to horses by post position order, which reduces the opportunity for a valet to collude with a rider ahead of time to change equipment or remove weights. In New York, clerks randomly assign valets to different riders each day.

After the race, riders weigh back in. Traditionally, Kentucky used to weigh only the top four finishers, but now weighs the top five due to certain types of exotic wagers that include the fifth-place entry. Kentucky also allows a rider to come back weighing up to six pounds heavier – three for equipment changes, and three for the accumulation of mud or water on the rider or their tack.

New York has detailed rules on the books prohibiting riders from touching any person or thing with their equipment after dismounting and prior to weigh in. Riders are also penalized in New York and in California for being more than one pound short of their weigh out weight, or for being more than two pounds over their weigh out reading.

The topic of rider weights has long been a heated one, with many riders advocating for a higher minimum through the years. Torres said he believes fewer riders are going to unhealthy extremes to reduce weight than they did when he started as a clerk of scales some 15 years ago. He can remember one rider routinely sweating off seven pounds in the sauna each day; the steam rooms have been closed since COVID-19 began, and he believes fewer riders are “flipping” (or inducing vomiting) than they once did.

“It's hard to go in there and pull weight,” said Torres. “I tell them, don't kill yourself. I'd rather be stronger than be lightheaded trying to pull weight. To me, over the years, the number of riders having to reduce really hard to make weight is less and less. I know a lot of guys who realize now it's going to affect them in the long run when they retire.”

This piece is part of an occasional series exploring the way different regulations and procedures in racing work. Want to know how something in racing works? Email us using the Ask Ray button in the red bar at the top of this page.

The post How It Works: A Look At How Jockeys Weigh Out appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

View From The Eighth Pole: If Weight Matters, Take It More Seriously

We can only guess how much the weight carried in a race affects a horse's performance. All other things being equal, a horse that carries 120 pounds in a race will have an advantage over one carrying 123 pounds. Maybe it's a length, maybe more, maybe less. But it is an advantage.

That's why racing officials everywhere should pay heed to the ruling against Alexander Crispin, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey of 2020, for riding under his assigned weight in a mid-January race at Laurel Park in Maryland.

As Maryland Racing Commission administrative steward Adam Campola said, “There are integrity issues.”

Here's the timeline in the Crispin case.

-In early to mid-January, there were rumblings going through the Laurel jockey colony that Crispin – who already has an edge over his fellow riders with a five-pound apprentice allowance – was allegedly weighing in after a race under the weight he was assigned to carry. Jockeys (including saddle and weighted pads or lead weights if necessary) are weighed by the clerk of scales before a valet takes their saddle out to the paddock.

-Stewards met informally with Crispin and clerk of scales Frank Saumell on Sunday, Jan. 10, and had what Campola said was a “discussion” on the subject. “We had heard the rumors,” Campola said, “but there was no proof.”

-After the meeting, stewards worked with Maryland Jockey Club management to turn on the security cameras in the TIPS Restaurant at Laurel, where the jockeys and the weigh-in scale had been relocated as part of the COVID-19 protocols. Starting on Jan. 15, Campola said, the cameras were able to capture on video and record the weights of riders as they weighed out and in before and after a race.

-On Saturday, Jan. 16, after the final race of the day, Campola said he was getting into his car when he received a call from Saumell. “He said, 'Adam, I've got a problem here,' and told me what had happened.”

Crispin's mount, Alpha Queue, who finished third in the seven-furlong race, was assigned 115 pounds, but after the race came in closer to 110, Saumell told Campola.

Campola asked Saumell – who works for the Maryland Jockey Club – to have track management retrieve video of Crispin on the scales before and after the race. According to Campola, officials produced images from the security cameras that showed the discrepancy.

-A hearing was conducted on Feb. 24 (an attorney hired by Crispin asked for extra time because of his workload). Alpha Queue was disqualified and purse money redistributed. During the hearing, Campola said, Crispin offered no explanation for the discrepancy in weight.

-A ruling issued early this week said Crispin was being suspended 30 days and fined $1,000. For the final 10 days of the suspension, Crispin will be allowed to work horses in the morning. The suspension took effect on Monday, March 1.

“We were disturbed by this,” Campola said. “It doesn't sit well. We really had no guideline (on the extent of the penalty), so we called around to different places, but I didn't get anyone to say this has happened to them before. In the end, we thought it was a pretty fair penalty.”

Saumell is not suspected of any wrongdoing, Campola said.

There have, in fact, been a few cases of jockeys weighing in after a race with a lower weight than they registered just before the race. And keep in mind that, typically, riders come back after a race weighing more. In Kentucky for example, a rider is permitted an additional six pounds after riding in a race (three pounds for protective gear like safety vest, helmet and goggles and three pounds for rain, dirt or mud splattered or caked on their clothes).

In 1990 at defunct Bay Meadows in Northern California, jockey Ricky Frazier received a six-month suspension when he weighed in three pounds light after winning the $250,000 Final Fourteen Stakes by a nose.

In 2018, jockey Matt Garcia was suspended seven days by stewards at Los Alamitos in Southern California for twice weighing in about two pounds under his assigned weight.

In the 2010 Belmont Stakes in New York, Uptowncharlybrown was disqualified from fifth place when an eight-pound lead pad slipped off from underneath the saddle and saddle towel during the running of the race, causing jockey Rajiv Maragh to weigh in well under the 126-pound assignment. Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin accepted the blame for that mistake.

How could a jockey and his or her equipment weigh less after a race than before? Jockeys and horsemen I spoke to provided some insights but asked that they not be named.

One way is for a jockey to slide lead weights into his or her boots before the race and then discarding them. Another is for a rider to gorge on a meal before getting weighed pre-race and then “flipping,” or self-induced vomiting.

Finally, there have been suspicions of jockey valets removing lead weights from the slots in saddle pads after the jockey weighs out pre-race. But in many jurisdictions, valets draw numbers to determine which horse they help saddle, so are not regularly assigned to their jockey's horse.

In all of these instances, the riders are going to depend on a clerk of scales who gives a cursory glance at the weight as jockeys quickly step on and off the scale, often with the indicator arrow still moving. Some clerks of scale have gotten in trouble for allowing incorrect weights post-race, but in these cases they usually involve riders who are unable to make assigned weights and are several pounds overweight, even after the safety equipment and dirt/mud allowances are taken into account.

Two steps should be taken to clean up this part of the business.

First, use digital scales that not only have an easy to read display but also can relay the information to the stewards and record all weights taken. Second, as many South American tracks do, focus a television camera on the scale and, after each race, let the wagering public see for themselves the weights of each rider.

As Adam Campola said, “There are integrity issues.” In this case, they aren't that difficult to fix.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From The Eighth Pole: If Weight Matters, Take It More Seriously appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Updated: ‘Integrity Issue’ Behind 30-Day Suspension Of Eclipse Award-Winning Apprentice

Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey Alexander Crispin has been suspended for 30 days and fined $1,000 for carrying the wrong weight during a race at Laurel Park in Maryland, the Daily Racing Form reported Tuesday.

On Wednesday, DRF reported the circumstances surrounding the ruling. Maryland stewards had heard rumors about Crispin allegedly riding under weight.

The race in question is the ninth on Jan. 16, 2021, in which Alpha Queue finished third. The horse, trained by Lacey Gaudet, was disqualified, and the Equibase chart notes that it “carried wrong weight.” Crispin's listed weight in the chart, presumably the weight at which he was supposed to ride Alpha Queue, was 115 pounds.

Video evidence showed that Crispin weighed in at 115 before the race, but 110 afterward.

According to the condition book, Crispin can ride at as low as 108 pounds.

Maryland rules require disqualification if the jockey rides at least one pound below listed weight, while overweights may be penalized with warnings.

“We felt, as a group, that it was an integrity issue, and it needed to be addressed,” chief state steward Adam Campola told drf.com. “We wanted to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.”

Two stewards outside of Maryland, commenting without specific knowledge of Crispin's case, told the Daily Racing Form that the fine and suspension suggest Crispin may have deliberately falsified his weight, or knew that he was not riding under the assigned weight.