was watching the San Francisco 49ers play a football game last season. The Niners were behind by five points with about four seconds left on the clock.

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick threw a bullet to Michael Crabtree in the end zone for the apparent winning touchdown.

The crowd at the last game at Candlestick Park went wild, only to be silenced by the sight of an airborne yellow piece of fabric tossed by one of the referees. He looked at the crowd and

displayed to them his left hand grasping his right, which was held upward to the sky, and moved them up and down in unison. The lights in the crowd’s collective brains flashed on and off—oh no, holding!

Seconds later the referees gathered and one of them went over to No. 55 of the 49ers offensive line and he asked him, “Hey, what happened on that play?” The player’s response was overheard by one player who later reported he said, “Hey,

my fists were closed, Jack!” Then, to the crowd’s surprise, the referee went over to the big defensive tackle No. 70 and asked him a question, and to this day, only the ref and No. 70 know what was said. After a few minutes of further discussion amongst the refs, one emerged from their little congregation and announced to the crowd, “After reviewing the video and getting input from the involved players, we are ruling that there was no holding after all.”

30 HOOF BEATS june 2014

Is He Safe or Out?Judges should make the best call using their best judgmentby David Siegel

photo by ed keys

I

Horse Care Grandstand View

Touchdown 49ers! I had never seen anything like it.

Several months later, I was watching the Stanford baseball team play UCLA at the Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto, Calif. After a close play at home, the umpire asked the player sliding into the plate, “Hey, Georgie, did Frankie [the catcher] get you or not?” I was in the first row and clearly saw that Georgie was out.

But what should he do? If he lies and says he was missed, his team wins the game and the Pac-12 Championship. If he tells the truth, he lives with his morality, but he lets his team down. What should he have done?

What was my reaction to these two situations? It was simple: how could any ref or umpire ever put a player in such a position?

If you have not figured it out al-ready, the two situations above are contrived, and did not happen. So call me a liar. But once when I was managing a baseball game, an um-pire really did ask one of my play-ers if a pitched ball that was really close “got him or not.” I stepped in and stopped my player from answering, as it put that 12-year-old in an impossible spot. I told the ump to make the best call he could and we would live with it.

So, what does all of this have to do with racing? Well, horse racing is the only sport that I am aware of (other than golf, where reporting rule violations for one-self and all others is required) where the referees solicit input from the “players” (jockeys or drivers) before making a call. I think this is ridiculous. The judges, typi-cally three in number, have their six eyes, and the benefit of at least three camera angles for any “play” they need to review.

But more than that, asking a player “what happened” puts the driver or jock-ey in a horrible position. We are taught to be honest, but by being so, we may put a fellow driver or jockey into a position to receive a fine or suspension.

And while the purse is a zero-sum game between all participants, for sure it could take money from the owner and trainer that put the jockey or driver up. So the player has a huge incentive to lie.

However, judges don’t just talk to the potentially offending driver or jockey; they talk to the potentially affected driver or jockey. He or she has an incentive on the one hand to lie to potentially improve his position in the race if the other guy is disqualified. On the other hand, one of his brethren will be punished in the form of a fine or suspension if he “throws him under the bus.”

The bottom line is that such a proto-col puts drivers and jockeys in an often

lose-lose situation and there is such a sim-ple solution that I cannot figure out why it is not adopted. Judges should decide by using their own eyes, video replays and discussion amongst themselves whether or not a horse is deserving of disqualifi-cation.

I feel it is OK when doling out poten-tial punishment that they get more infor-mation from the jockeys or drivers (e.g., the horse jumped over a cat going across the track which is why he interfered with the horse next to me) to see if there were aggravating or mitigating circumstances. But for the decision regarding the placing of a horse in near-real time, they should just “make the call.”

I would really like to hear from some judges who have another point of view. Send your thoughts to hoofbeats@ustrotting.com.

David Siegel is president of TrackMaster. y The views in this column are those of the au-thor alone, and do not necessarily represent those of the United States Trotting Associa-tion. y To comment on this story, e-mail us at readerforum@ustrotting.com.

HOOF BEATS june 2014 31

Asking a player “what happened” puts the driver or jockey in a horrible position. We are taught to be honest, but by being so, we may put a fellow driver or jockey into a position to receive a fine or suspension.

by Razerhorse

1-855-95-RAZER

®

The Propad was designed to reestablish frog function on a shod hoof and reduce concussion. It has a flexible frog support to fill the void between the frog and ground.

It is made of a dual density polyurethane to offer a softer concussion absorbing material in the heel region while still being durable, and is the only pad on the market with an independent frog support.