Jay Cronley 9y

Foul calls

Horse Racing

Sports officiating is terrible.

Where else but with sports is human error tolerated, even celebrated?

Sports purists have come to mean fogies to whom old school is the golden rule. It'll take 45 seconds to use technology to get the call right? That's too long. Play ball. Anybody betting on sports deserves whatever bad luck comes along.

In manufacturing, in medicine, human error can shut down a company overnight.

In sports, officiating error has usually been considered to be a colorful part of the game. If you cheer for a favorite team, or bet the game, mistakes by the zebras are like the bumps and bruises that come with the action.

It took baseball a hundred years to find second base with a camera as a runner bore down on a phantom tag or a wishful thinking bag tap. If you should have been out, you were out. At least now you get challenges to be judged by electronics.

In the NFL when a non-existent 40-yard pass interference penalty costs you the money, you pay the man and at least take solace in the fact that the defending team will give that ref a grade of F-minus and you won't have to see him and his crew again. What's the average completion rate on a 40-yard pass in the NFL, 40 percent? Thirty five? Yet pass interference in the NFL assumes every pass on earth, even that 60-yarder that wobbled like a duck, would have been caught. At least the solution there is simple: pass interference is a 15-yard penalty, period.

In the NBA, incompetence is a foul, case closed. The sport is so fast and physical, if you're out of position, you get the whistle and if you're not mindful and mannerly, a "T" on top of that.

Officiating in most sports is so inconsistent it's almost funny unless you're on the losing end of a 55-yard pass interference call that features a football hitting a ref in the back: The time of the year seems to determine penalty-calling strategy. Early in a season, cussing might be flagged. With a championship on the line, no blood, no foul. The last minute of a tie NBA playoff game is combat.

And then there's horse racing.

In a big three-year old race in Florida over the weekend, a disqualification near the finish line caused a horse that looked like a loser to be named the winner.


Horse racing has few rules to go by and sometimes seems to be judged like Olympic ice skating or the Westminster pooch show in New York. It's a matter of opinion.

With activities whose existences depend on gambling, there are seldom officiating errors. There's no opinion required in analyzing where the roulette ball went. Twelve plus a face card is twenty two.

And then there's horse racing.

The results of horse racing gambles are sometimes judged subjectively.

In a big three-year old race in Florida over the weekend, a disqualification near the finish line caused a horse that looked like a loser to be named the winner. Picking horse race winners is hard enough without having a correct handicapping call overruled by an official's opinion. So where is technology when a horse player needs it? Where is an electronic projection based on hoof speed and angles at the time of an alleged interference?

There's an easier way.

Simply ask the racing stewards what they thought they saw: You thought a horse that hadn't been able to make up a couple of yards all the way down the stretch could have passed the leader in the last few jumps?

When you take somebody's money, you should have to address them face to face.

At least the NFL has a retired official stuck in a booth and trying to answer questionable calls.

If you know that you will be required to explain yourself, perhaps you will be more judicious in the first place. If you know there's a press conference waiting, perhaps your work will improve.

Horse race stewards are more protected than the bettors who keep the tracks open, which isn't fair.

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