Flatter: NFL opener reminds us of a need in horse racing

How many of us racing degenerates watched the end of the
Ravens-Chiefs game last night and thought how that toe on the line might as
well have been a nose on the wire?

A toe may be a nose, but in their past performances, the Ravens
lost by four. No, not seven. Four. I took the three points, and down I went.

Griping about how the refs called illegal-formation
penalties on the Ravens more often than they should have on the Chiefs reminded
me of all the critical commentary this summer about New York stewards at
Saratoga. And during the rest of the year at Aqueduct and BAQ, pronounced bawk.

What we do not have in racing is someone like Shawn Hochuli
to step up to the mic and tell us, “The runner’s toe hit out of bounds. It’s an
incomplete pass. The game is over. Kansas City has won.”

How great would it be if we could have heard Samantha
Randazzo doing the same thing from some aerie at the Spa? “After a review, it
was deemed that the first-place horse had indeed interfered with the third-place
finisher. The first-place horse has been disqualified and placed third. The
next two horses have been promoted. The race is now official.”

Here’s the deal. This already should be happening. To take
it one step further, we should be able to eavesdrop on every word stewards say
to one another and to jockeys and to trainers and to anyone else who is seen,
heard or smelled between the time the objection-inquiry sign is lit until the
prices are posted.

I have been on this harangue before, although it usually is
not the morning after I lose an NFL bet by the nostril of a middle toe.

We have the technology, and it is cheaper than ever. Everyone
has a phone. Stewards have laptops. All this hardware has Zoom or Google Meet
or Snapface or whatever. If Bill Belichick can find his way to live social
media, so can the hoary establishment of racing.

I will not bother to repeat the case that stewards’ hearings
have been shown live at racetracks for decades overseas. Well, I guess I just
did.

This simple act of common sense can and should be put in
place today. Now. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which already
has a judicial record of overstepping its legal bounds with the Federal Trade Commission,
actually might have the right to step into this maw, albeit with 90 days
notice.

There is no more routinely unsafe maneuver in racing than potentially
reckless albeit competitive interference. There is no more frequent matter of
integrity than the twice-an-hour judgment of stewards. The case can be made that
HISA has every right to dive in here, especially because of the I and the S. Bluntly
put, it has a manifest obligation to command state regulators to order racing’s
referees to tear down their walls.

By no means does this guarantee eternal happiness with every
ruling stewards will make any more than the replay system in the NFL gets it
right 100 percent of the time. However, it beats the alternative we currently
have in racing. And it is better than what we had for most of the first century
of professional football.

Transparency should not be a dirty word, but it is. In
racing it gets thrown around by racetrack executives and state and federal
regulators like Xwitter posts that declare every breathless, shared moment in
life to be the best ever. True transparency is blindingly clear the way ever is
a long, damn time.

The problem is no one in charge of racing really wants
transparency. Pay no attention to what is going on behind the curtain. Just look
at your PPs for the next race, and don’t ask any questions. What you are trying
to look at will go away soon.

Yes, it was a really good summer at Saratoga. The Fierceness-Thorpedo
Anna duel in the Travers was an instant classic that should be rolled out and
replayed as often as the old Longhorn Network used to replay the Vince Young
touchdown run against USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

Flavien Prat burnished his rising star with an unprecedented
collection of big riding triumphs, Chad Brown belied his woe-is-me forecast by
winning another training title, and handle soared over $800 million despite one
less day of racing than last year.

There were moments of frustration, such as the prolonged
time it took to push back the Fourstardave card when Tropical Storm Debby made
the weather radar look like a Willem de Kooning painting. Colonial Downs got
the same weather and postponed that weekend’s Arlington Million with a lot more
notice.

Most important, Saratoga had only one racing death. One too
many, yes. But it was not the eight of 2023. The four total deaths since July 1
were a marked improvement from the 14 last year. That needs to be said loudly.
I presume The New York Times has yet to report this, since the reality does
not fit the newspaper’s agenda to accentuate the necrositive.

Unlike last summer, when there was a pall cast over the
meet, Saratoga left racing fans wanting more by the time the sun set on Labor
Day. There remains room for improvement. As long as New York Racing Association
stewards invite justifiable criticism, and as long as they are licensed by a
state agency, they need to show their work.

Taxpayers are required to pick up the tab for the
administration of racing in every state. As long as that is the case, stewards
need to answer to their bosses. And as long as we make payments every year on
April 15 and every half-hour on races, we are their bosses.

We are not asking for intrusive surveillance cameras in their
offices. Stewards simply need to let us in on their meetings that punctuate
public events, as in horse races. Turn on the webcams, and unmute the microphones.

As for the matter of blaming jockeys for bad rides, I can’t
help you any more than I can ask how in the world Lamar Jackson missed Zay
Flowers in the end zone with five seconds left Thursday night.

Hey, if God wanted everything to be perfect, He would not
have given us an appendix, mosquitos and Nickelback.

By the way, how great was “ManningCast: The Musical”?

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse
Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in
the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every
Friday.