The disqualification of the maximum security in the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve in 2019 inspired a lot of controversy, and the debate sometimes felt like the Kurosawa film “Rashomon” from 1950, in which several witnesses retire for an event in very different ways. We all saw the same breed, but so many people have different interpretations of what they saw. Whose interpretation should the story determine?
This was not the first time that the Triple Crown had to suffer from several interpretations of a breed through an extended “Rashomon” debate. When the secretariat won the preakness on the way to conquering the Triple Crown in 1973, a similar controversy to brew seconds, after exceeding the finish line, began one that would last almost four decades.
Immediately after the brilliant finish of secretariat, the Pimlico-Timer reported that the last time was 1:55 for the 1 3/16 miles race, but a second slower than Canonero Iis Preakness record from 1971. Nevertheless, nobody had a reason to doubt the time of the race on the route, which was measured by an “electrical eye” called Visumatic Featherlight beam over the racetrack and was only triggered when a horse broke the beam. Visumatic was considered more precisely as the stopped watchmable watcher, who are able to go to the human mistake, which can sometimes end up for a fifth of a second or longer.
But when the official time for the race was unveiled, a buzz spread over the press box high above the racetrack. Frank Robinson, the watcher for the daily racing form, had recorded another time. And Robinson's time was not around the fifth of the route, but a full and three fifth second. Robinson clocked secretariat at 1:53 2/5. Could he be able to go out? He was a veteran watch and knew the difference between clicking on the stopwatch with a hair too early or tardy and a mistake of over a full second. He checked out with other lawn authors who got off the race from other viewpoints to see what they came up with. To his surprise, he was not the only one who had a time that differed from the route. The chief act of the Daily Racing Form, Frenchy Schwartz, also had it at 1:53 2/5. They could not have made both the same mistake independently. It must have been the machine that was wrong! In addition, 1:53 2/5 was more than enough to defeat Canonero's record.
Finally, the news of Lucien Laurin, the secretariat coach, reached that there was a discrepancy in the end time. The daily racing form was so certain that they decided more for their own time in their table of the race than in the official time, and found in their publication that they believed that secretariat was holding the recent record. The day after the race, Laurin announced that he would apply for a review of the time before he can stand out to Recent York to prepare for the Belmont Stakes.
It turned out that Pimlico was not just dependent on the visual machine. They also had their Track -Clocker et McLean Jr. as a backup if the machine fails. Until Monday, Pimlico announced that McLean was actually faster than the visumatic clock secretariat at 1:54 2/5, but he could not report this time on the race day. The Stewards voted this Monday to change the official time to reflect McLean's time. However, it was still not enough to take the recording of Canonero, so it might be all about nothing. Laurin said that the verdict “leaves me icy” and that “it is very vital”. But he left the matter alone when she prepared the secretariat for the Belmont and the chance to win the first triple crown for 25 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfwwiyqykgc
However, CBS was not satisfied with leaving it alone. The network run out of a 30-minute broadcast via the controversy, whereby the secretariat and the races of Canoneros races showed side by side and compared it frame with the frame. The network seemed to be sure that the secretariat had broken the record and had transformed a national controversy through half an hour of sending the question.
Secretariat won the Belmont in a spectacular way and broke this record. After two official racing records of three belts were determined under their belts, the secretariat owner Penny Chenery decided to formally apply for a review of the preacness time by Maryland Racing Commission on June 18. She claimed that the CBS show had convinced her that her secretariat was raised a sedate injustice because the appearance of the video tapes fell a full three lengths as a canon. This was not a question from customs. The evidence seemed irrefutable. But it didn't seem to be so everyone.
In the Baltimore Sun, the racing editor William Boniface wrote the evidence as “flimsy” and “cumbersome”. He thought Chenys asked for a hearing were out of focus for her and was selfish and unfair. “She asks the commissioners to remove the preacness record from another horse that she deserves and to give it to her stallion foal,” he wrote in his column.
The Maryland Racing Commission held a hearing in July in which it showed statements from a long list of experts, including a producer of CBS, and they observed several recordings of the race and the race from 1971. In the end, the Commission unanimously approved the request. Incredible, they added that the time that the time was wrong to change the time would now change the integrity of all sporting events.
The success balance was with Canonero and was then broken in 1985, then bound in 1996 and 2007, of which none of which was faster than secretariats unofficial daily racing time. It was only in 2012 that the Maryland Racing Commission finally agreed to rethink the question and agreed with 7-0 to change the official period of the secretariat to 1:53 apartment, a recent time that was performed with digital technologies that did not exist during the 1973 hearing. Chenery was thrilled that her horse finally got his fault, and she noticed that the time might not be right, maybe sport was not willing to accept an evaluation of an event according to the fact. “But we'll see it all the time in sports,” she said in 2012.
She is probably right. As early as 1973, William Boniface said in his column by Baltimore Sun: “When sport reaches the point where nothing is official until the ligaments are checked, it will be depressed.” What would he think – Boniface died in 2005 – in the current state of sport, the Kentucky Derby -Drama 2019 and the video reviews in sport that never seem to end.
But while sensible people cannot agree whether the review of the video evidence decreases from the drama and the excitement of sport, one thing is irrefutable: there can only be one truth, and there is nothing selfish or unjust when reworked. You may not think that a player's knee was on the floor or on foot in the line, and maybe the video doesn't show a good corner. Whatever you think, only one thing actually happened. And it is good for competitors, the connections, for all sports, for us everything we can to recognize this truth as closely as possible.
The “official” sign can lightweight up on the dead board, but it doesn't change how many seconds it actually needed to deal with this route. Forever, this number is true whether they believe it or not.
Note: This story was originally published and updated in May 2019.
