LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- I was beginning to think maybe I was out of touch in finding Umberto Rispoli's ride on Journalism in the Preakness Stakes more reckless than remarkable.
I mentioned it to Rick Bozich on our webcast "Overtime" and scanned to see if anyone else was talking about it in the same terms. Most of the reaction I found? Praise. Journalism, they said, fought through adversity. Showed grit. Earned it.
No question — the horse was brilliant. But amid all the "Wasn't that cool?" talk, I kept thinking "Wasn't that lucky?" Horse racing dodged a catastrophe when three colts made hard contact turning for home, as Rispoli rushed to hit a remarkably small hole.
Journalism was multiple lengths better than the next-best colt in that race but won by only half a length. Frankly, if Sovereignty or Baeza had been in that field, he doesn't win at all with the ride that Rispoli gave him.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Bozich & Crawford
But it felt to me that there was a reluctance to rain on the Preakness parade — even by me. Then I heard Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen talking on Steve Byk's "At The Races" podcast. Asmussen is as good a horseman as there is in the world. He's been a jockey and his family has been in the business for decades.
His reaction to Rispoli's Preakness move: "He needs to quit riding him like a rented mule."
To borrow an old horse phrase, Woah.
He wasn't done.
"Maybe they've got another one back at the barn," he said, sarcastically. "Maybe they've got a replacement for him."
Asmussen, of course, trained Curlin — Journalism's sire. And he well knows there isn't another one back at the barn. Those kinds of horses don't come around often. And his own colt, Clever Again, got tangled in the same bumper-car traffic. He wasn't amused.
This isn't NASCAR. Trading paint isn't cool. In fact, stewards are supposed to be policing all this. But there was no inquiry posted after the Preakness.
"How would you like to be Luis Saez and get taken down on Maximum Security in the Kentucky Derby (in 2019), and then watch that (result go) official?" Asmussen said.
And he's right on that. Saez merely said "pardon me" compared to the pushing and shoving that went on in the Preakness, and lost a garland of roses for it.
Asmussen says Clever Again appears to have come out of the race OK, though you never really know the true impact of that kind of trip until you're racing against live competition again.
He's more worried that aggressive riding appears to be drawing less sanction or scrutiny from stewards. Or at the very least, is being handled inconsistently.
He doesn't have to say the sport is flirting with disaster if it doesn't curtail some of this in its biggest races. I can say that.
"How about the Derby?" he said. "I thought there was some questionable judgment that put people in a spot they didn't need to be. Never addressed. No movies, nothing. Get away with it. Do it again. They just keep getting rewarded for putting somebody else in a spot."
For all the HISA regulation and uniform rules and fining a guy $62,000 for hitting a horse a few too many times with his crop, how do you let some of these riding incidents go unquestioned? This could've been a three-horse pile up?
"You're turning your head now?" Asmussen said.
He has a point.
Quick sips
- Watching Shai Gilgeous Alexander win the NBA's Most Valuable Player award has been fun. Being the first winner (remarkably) from Kentucky has been part of that. But SGA's magnanimous, the praise for his wife, the Rolex watch presentation for his teammates, it's all been emblematic of a class act. In keeping with his entire season, it's been remarkably well-played.
- Aly Khalifa update. Here's an update that is no update. I requested correspondence between the University of Louisville and the NCAA on the Egyptian big man who has been ruled ineligible for next season, but the university says it cannot release the records because the player has not signed a FERPA (Family Educational Right to Privacy Act) waiver. That was expected. Still, giving it the old college try. (I should note that FERPA is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education, which on its current course, may be headed for extinction. What that means for student privacy moving forward isn't completely clear.)
The Last Drop
"With what we're under to get a horse run, and how sound they are, and who they're going to let run, here, there, and the other -- it's hard enough to keep them going in a straight line, carrying their own weight. How about you quit letting them run into each other?"
Trainer Steve Asmussen, to Steve Byk on his "At The Races" podcast
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