Jockeys are under scrutiny around the country right now and that is what happens when hard-earned cash is wagered on a daily basis. The truth of the matter is that nobody is perfect and mistakes will happen.
One incident occurred at Mountaineer on July 23rd when jockey Nicole Disdier misjudged the distance of the race and totally threw the complexion of the race out the window.
But before we get into what happened with this apprentice rider, know that misjudging the finish line has happened to, arguably, the best rider of all time, Bill Shoemaker. He won nearly 9,000 races, 10 national riding titles, and 11 Triple Crown races. In 1957, he turned a sure win in the Kentucky Derby into an embarrassing loss when he stood up too soon before the wire, misjudging a furlong post for the finish line about Gallant Man, who was beaten by Iron Liege.
The third race at Mountaineer on July 23 was a $10,000 starter allowance race carded at the unusual distance of one and three quarter miles on grass and Disdier was about a runner named Havermeyer Street.
Either Havermeyer Street trainer John Capellini didn’t inform his rider of the distance of this race or maybe Disdier forgot, but she opened up 3 lengths on the field early and increased the margin to a 22-length lead, and then reality hit the fan. The runner was eased up going past the finish line the first time as the rider thought the race was over.
No horse can go that fast in a race that far and live to tell about it. Before you knew it, Havermeyer Street was dead last and gasping for air.
To give Disdier the benefit of the doubt, she is a rider with a 7-pound head start because of her inexperience, and she has done well at Mountaineer winning with 10% of her mounts but she will surely remember the ride aboard Havermeyer Street.
The other situation occurred at Ellis Park on July 2 and it involved a race in which the 6-5 favorite, Tizthedream, was given a questionable rider, jockey Jesus Castanon.
The runner walked out of the gate, but was making up ground when he was, according to the chart, ‘snatched near the sixteenth pole’ and eventually lost by about 7 lengths.
As far as the investigation is concerned, there were no apparent betting coups established early on. The payouts of the race were pretty consistent to a normal race and none of the betting pools were any larger or smaller than what would be considered normal.
Jockeys are under the camera for the entire time during a race and it is mandatory they give the maximum effort to protect the bettors but this can be a very fine line. As far as this particular race is concerned, the horse and the rider did not look at all comfortable since the horse was acting up in the gate.
Face it, these jockey put their lives on the line every single race and, quicker than a New York minute, disaster can occur.
After this poor start by Tizthedream, Castanon let the horse tell him what he wanted to do instead of panicking and rushing the horse up. When a rider rushes a horse up when the horse is not used to it, things tend to unravel quickly.
Tizthedream was racing erratically and that also puts the jockey in a very scary position. Probably at this point Castanon was just hoping to finish the race and get unsaddled.
The truth of the matter is that these things happen at times. A horse may not be feeling right to the rider, or the race may be a hopeless cause halfway through the event because a horse is not travelling right. It would really be an injustice to punish the horse and ride and whip the runner hard the entire way, when getting a piece of the purse would be difficult if not impossible.
And as far as the rider is concerned, Castanon is an established performer. He is popping at a 21%-win rate at Ellis Park this meeting and it seems unfathomable that he would risk a successful career on a non-descript runner that had to drop into a maiden $20,000 to earn the first win.
Over the years, I’ve known plenty of people that never made a bad bet or a bad selection, but always had to yell and scream at the ‘stupid’ jockey. When making critical decisions in an instant, mistakes happen and sometimes it is just the way the chips fall.
Stay tuned to see if the investigation into Castanon bears any fruit.
