Invisible Stewards Race 2 Belmont Day
 

Did anyone see that incredible non-call in the second race on Belmont Stakes Day. Tiz It, Cornelio up, was off the rail, White Tie with Garcia up had position on the inside and Tiz It comes over, cuts White Tie off. White Tie, maiden - first start, gets checked hard and loses about 4 lengths. In the stretch, White Tie is coming hard and finishes 4th missing first by a little over a length with Tiz It second in front of him. Garcia calls foul at the finish, a spotter on the course calls the stewards to let them know they should look at it. Jockey comes back after the gallop out and the race is official before he gets off his mount. Garcia almost got put over the rail. :zz:

I did see it, and couldn't believe there wasn't at least an inquiry, especially considering the connections of White Tie.

I watch a lot of NY races and I find this hard to believe.

I bet White Tie and that was Garcia's fault.

You know, I've been writing about this particular issue and it shocks me that people just don't get it.

The stewards are not concerned with jockeys keeping their horses straight. Horses getting pinched on the rail is a common occurrence. It happens all the time. If you're Edgar Prado, it happens to you 50% of your rides.

I see one of two things happening:

1) someone gets killed and the stewards start enforcing this, as a result

2) jockeys start taking precautions to protect themselves against 'pinchers'. Rather than cautiously holding their position or trying to ease back, they'll bust through the opening, which is their right, since they're already there, and when the pincher comes in, he'll get dumped. The pincher will thus be put at risk. And that will put an end to pinching. Of course, some of this might lead to some bigtime spills. What the hell, these things happen there's no professional policing of a sporting even.

Garcia's 'mistake' was trying to ride cautiously rather than recklessly and almost going down rather than dumping Cornelio, who's basically been riding on ACID the past few months.

I watched it with the connections. No way was it Garcia's fault. He had position inside. If he didn't and was trying to run up there it would be. The inquiry sign should have went up regardless.

There was absolutely no reason for Garcia to have his horse that close to the pace. He was in a perfect position before he got pinched.

Oh, so your complaint is that he was too close to the pace. What does that have to do with the issue? Garcia was ON THE RAIL, clear. It's HIS PATH. Cornelio can't take it away from him. That's common sense. Of course, the stewards don't get that.

When you're driving, do you merge over or just cut off the guy in the next lane?

Maybe "people don't get it" cause you are wrong. My goodness. What a revolutionary thought. I don't fault Cornelio. He looked as startled as anyone. But the stewards didn't even look at it. It was the fastest finish made official on the day.

Thanks Math716. I looked all over to see if anyone was bringing this up and didn't find any so I put up my own thread.

I had nothing vested on the 4 but I think the whole situation is an outrage. According to the information Garcia never had a chance to lodge an objection. It shouldn't have even had to come to that, the stewards should have the inquiry sign up as soon as they hit the wire.

There are incidents like that on a daily basis and virtually never an objection or claim.

Not that he was too close to the pace, but because he was rushing his horse up the rail for no reason to join the pace. There were two other horses trying to get close to the lead and Garcia tried to put his horse on a spot on the rail that was too small and getting smaller. He was behind the the other two - not next to them. And what about the fact that Corny was getting pressure from his outside from the 7? There was no reason why Garcia couldn't just sit third and let the two speeds go at it.

Andy, did you think it should have been looked at? It seemed that the check/interference costed the horse a position. You would think that the horse would have at the worst finished 3rd. That's why I thought that they would look at it. If it would have happened in the stretch, they would have surely taken a look, right?

The horse would've won.

I did think it was admirable on the (4) White Tie's part that he came back after that incident. I thought it was impressive for a firster to re-rally like that.

Not sure if you guys heard the story about this or not. Apparently after each race if a jock wants to claim an objection, he has to go to the outrider and let them know. From what they said on tv, for some reason there wasnt an outrider available to the jocks right after the race, so no objection could have been made. By the time Garcia got back to the phone by the finish line, the result was already made official....and apparently Garcia went nuts yelling at the stewards. I am not sure why the stewards were so quick to make this official. From the head on it didnt look like the winner caused any interference, it was Cornelio's horse who definitely came over....enough for a dq? Not sure about that.

I can't speak for the stewards, but we have to believe they did look at it and decided not to review it in terms of an inquiry. Certainly Stevie Wonder would have seen the horse check and it is a steward's job to review what happened. I think there is a misconception that a decision isn't made by any set of stewards if an inquiry isn't posted. An inquiry may mean they just feel they need more time to look the situation over.

Now, if there wasn't an available outrider for Garcia to submit a claim of foul then that is a different story and it should be looked into. Certainly a rider needs to have the opportunity to make a claim. It sounds like heresay that there wasn't, so I'm not going to rush to judgement, but I certainly hope and expect that this is being seriously looked into.

Not sure if this were stated, but Jay Privman said on ESPN that he tried to claim foul but it never got to the stewards, or something to that effect