Kentucky Derby.
Preakness Stakes.
Belmont.
I am there.
Glued to my seat at 6:35 p.m. ET, waiting to see two minutes of sports action. I remember Silver Charm's magical run in 1997. Real Quiet's near miss the following year in 1998. Was upset when Charasmatic injured his leg at the stretch of Belmont in 1999. I missed American Pharoah's Triple Crown achievement at Belmont in 2015 because I was up in Trois Rivieres broadcasting baseball, but I did watch Justify's run through the Triple Crown a year ago.
But on Saturday, May 4, 2019, it will be a day -- at least in my opinion -- that will live in infamy for horse racing. In a sport that runs way too many horses in the Kentucky Derby, (20 is just too damn many horses on muddy tracks), and has seen its fair share of criticism for animal cruelty, and even featured death for both horse and jockey on the field, Saturday was another black eye for a sport -- that historically is viewed as American as apple pie.
From pillar to post Maximum Security was in front. A 9-2 morning line favorite after Omaha Beach was scratched earlier in the week, Max Security, with Code of Honor (13), Country House (20) and Tacitus (8) all coming right on Security's tail at the stretch, pulled away and won the race.
Until he didn't.
In a world dominated by instant replay and bad calls, the stewards (replay officials) decided after 20 minutes of scrutinizing every camera angel available to them, and calling the jockey's involved in the race's final seconds that Maximum Security had committed a foul when he got into the lane that Code of Honor was trying to enter and blocked him, impeding the race, forcing a disqualification of Maximum Security.
Instead, Country Horse, who was a distant second and was nowhere near the bumping that occurred between Code of Honor and Maximum Security was declared the winner.
It was horrible. Even if the stewards were right, it was a bad moment at the worst possible time.
The decision that Maximum Security blocked Code of Honor from moving up means that you would also have to assume that Code of Honor would have won.
How can anyone justify such an assumption?
Who is to say that Maximum Security still wouldn't have turned on the jets and finished first? The track was sloppy, and all the horses were converging into one another and bumping each other at the same time. It was a sloppy mess for everyone! Video even shows County Horse bumping into Code of Honor and Tacitus down the stretch run as well. Does that mean Country Horse should be disqualified too?
For all of those who were running to cash in their tickets once Maximum Security clearly won the race were the biggest losers of the night. Country Horse meanwhile took home a sweet purse with odds at 65-1 by post time.
Had Country Horse won without instant replay getting involved, it would have been a great story to see a long shot that nobody talked about win. But, no.
In the winner's circle as the handlers for Country Horse were awarded the trophy, you could hear 150,000 people booing in the distance. When was the last time that happened at the Kentucky Derby? Never. At least I can't remember.
Instead horse racing gave us Saturday their best impression of the NFL, a league that can't shoot straight even if it tried. This was a moment that was so bad it harkened back to the dreadful non-call against the New Orleans Saints in last January's NFC Championship game that gave the LA Rams a ticket to the Super Bowl.
That's right we live in an era where not only we can't tell what a catch or pass interference is in football, we now can't tell who really won a race at the Kentucky Derby.
Welcome to sports in 2019 folks! What you thought you saw, you didn't see. And what you thought you knew, you didn't. This is the era dominated and ruined by instant replay.
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