SANTA ANITA : Officially, It Can Be Too Quick

Years ago, trainer Red Terrell and his rider, Cash Asmussen, were walking back to the jockeys’ room minutes after a race at Belmont Park. Their horse had finished third.

“The second horse claimed foul against the winner,” Terrell said.

“Yeah?” Asmussen said. “The second horse bothered my horse a little bit.”

Terrell stopped in his tracks, grabbed Asmussen by the arm and ran back to the winner’s circle, where they phoned the stewards with their own foul claim.

The stewards, ruling that the winner had interfered with the second-place horse, took his number down. Upon further review of the videotape, they decided that the second-place finisher also had committed a foul. Terrell’s horse was moved up from third to first. Improbably, Asmussen had ridden a winner.

The story is relevant because of an item on the agenda for next Tuesday’s California stewards committee meeting in San Francisco. They will be discussing whether the state should again consider using the quick official after races.

Quick official, a concept that has caught on in several states and Canada, requires that jockeys claim foul before they dismount, telling outriders, who phone the stewards. Track managements say that by posting the “official” sign sooner, the time between races is reduced and bettors receive their payoffs quicker and have more time for handicapping the next race.

Maybe so, but is saving a couple of minutes each race worth a compromise in fairness?

“There’s a big concession that you make,” said Sheila Gaudreau, a Bay Meadows steward. “Quick official does work, but I’ve worked in states that have it and states that don’t, and I’m not necessarily for it or against it. But the thing is, if you decide to use it, make sure you do it right.”

In 1990, before Gaudreau arrived at Bay Meadows, the San Mateo track ran the $250,000 Final Fourteen Stakes. Allijeba beat Tex’s Zing by a nose, but when the winner’s jockey, Ricky Frazier, weighed in after the race, the clerk of scales found that he was carrying three pounds less than he was assigned. The stewards acted quickly, declared Allijeba a non-starter and gave the victory to Tex’s Zing. Frazier was given a 60-day suspension.

Had quick official been in effect, the numbers of the horses and their mutuel prices would have been posted before Frazier weighed in. Those who had bet on Tex’s Zing would have been beaten by a horse whose jockey had broken a rule. As it was, bettors with money on Allijeba got refunds because of his non-starter status.

“California was on the verge of approving quick official at that time, but that race changed everybody’s mind,” said Cliff Goodrich, president of Santa Anita.

Goodrich hopes quick official will be approved now.

“The Bay Meadows race was an isolated instance,” he said. “Something like that isn’t going to happen often, and if it does happen once every five years, we’re just going to have to live with it. The advantages are the overriding consideration here. What we hear most from our patrons is shortening the time between races, and with the influx of races from Northern California on our programs, there’s going to be continued emphasis are getting the programs finished in good time.”

Jockey complaints about quick official have been rare. Kent Desormeaux, who came to California in 1990, used to ride under the rule in Maryland and says it works.

Gaudreau said, “Under quick official, a disqualification for a jockey coming back light would have to be treated like a horse getting a drug positive. The public would already be paid off, but the purse money would be redistributed.”

Tony Chamblin, president of the Assn. of Racing Commissioners International, can visualize quick official causing problems.

“Quick official is not in the model racing rules that we recommend to all the states,” he said.

Pete Pedersen, a steward at Santa Anita, is against quick official, but suspects that it will eventually be approved by the California Horse Racing Board.

“Riders from New York, where they don’t have quick official, come out here to ride in stakes,” Pedersen said. “You can remind them all you want about it, but in the heat of battle, I can see where they might forget and get off the horse expecting to claim (foul).

“I don’t think quick official will save any time at Santa Anita, anyhow. The jockeys’ room is quite a distance from the track, and that’s what eats up extra time. You’ve got to give the jocks a reasonable amount of time to get back there, wash their faces and change clothes for the next race.”

Horse Racing Notes

Cardmania, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and likely to be voted national sprint champion for 1993, makes his first start this year, facing seven opponents Saturday in the $100,000 San Carlos Handicap at Santa Anita. The 8-year-old gelding will carry 122 pounds in the seven-furlong race, five pounds more than The Wicked North and Monte Bleu. Others entered are Exemplary Leader, Portoferraio, Davy Be Good, Charts and Arrowtown.

Trainer Wayne Lukas reported improvement in his son, Jeff. “His cerebral pressure is better, and there was more movement of his hands. He put his hand up to his face at one point.” Jeff, his father’s chief assistant, has been in a coma for more than three weeks after suffering multiple skull fractures while trying to flag down a horse in the Santa Anita barn area. His condition is listed as serious.