NO JOKE
April Fool's day, Sunday, and minutes before the first race on day 2 of the Woodbine meeing, 7 horses were suddenly scratched, all from trainers Jody Hammet or Reade Baker.
While rumours and whispers sped through the track, the actual reason the horses had to be scratched was because of the trainers not having up--to-date workers compensation certificates upon renewing their trainer's licenses for 2007.
The licenses from last year expire on March 31 (thus they were allowed to race yesterday) but upon renewing, if the cerificate is not provided, no license. A technicality for sure and a necessary one according to the rules of racing.
All of a sudden, the fields got really small again at Woodbine. Oops.
POLYTRACK played better as far as kickback today, thanks to a steady drizzle early this morning and afternoon but it was incredibly speed biased today, more so that yesterday. Five furlong races or no, the track was playing only for speed.
In reponse to numerous questions and a comment (below) regarding the Polytrack and its effect on horses breathing it in, yes, many horses are being scoped after the race and are found to have lots of fibre and stuff in their lungs. They cough it out, that's it. Not sure what can be done about that but in conversations with several trainers and owners today, the horses were filled up with the stuff and no, that can't be good.
More notes from this weekend soon...
While rumours and whispers sped through the track, the actual reason the horses had to be scratched was because of the trainers not having up--to-date workers compensation certificates upon renewing their trainer's licenses for 2007.
The licenses from last year expire on March 31 (thus they were allowed to race yesterday) but upon renewing, if the cerificate is not provided, no license. A technicality for sure and a necessary one according to the rules of racing.
All of a sudden, the fields got really small again at Woodbine. Oops.
POLYTRACK played better as far as kickback today, thanks to a steady drizzle early this morning and afternoon but it was incredibly speed biased today, more so that yesterday. Five furlong races or no, the track was playing only for speed.
In reponse to numerous questions and a comment (below) regarding the Polytrack and its effect on horses breathing it in, yes, many horses are being scoped after the race and are found to have lots of fibre and stuff in their lungs. They cough it out, that's it. Not sure what can be done about that but in conversations with several trainers and owners today, the horses were filled up with the stuff and no, that can't be good.
More notes from this weekend soon...
posted by Jen Morrison @ 6:00 PM
5 Comments:
At 9:27 PM,
Anonymous said…
I don't think they mentioned why the horses were scratched on the Score. I really hate the way they make things secret like that. If it wasn't for the big drug busts lately we probably wouldn't have found out about the Workmen's Comp reason.
But they did make a case about Gold Quill's workouts. Speculation was that a fast one must have happened "in the fog."
Bahen, when interviewed after the race said the last one was slow, but the one before was fast.
37:4 b 54/61 was the fast one?
Just another thing the game needs to address.
At 3:52 PM,
Anonymous said…
Judy, I understand that, but there seemed to be no attempt to get to the bottom of it. And WEG should start being a lot more transparent in light of all the bad press lately.
They actually opened a can of worms when they started talking about the fact that Gold Quill only showed two (slow) workouts, and hopefully it will result in some changes.
At 4:50 PM,
Anonymous said…
Aren't those trainers experienced, successful trainers? Shouldn't they know the rules of racing by now. Are they the only ones who didn't get their paper work done? The works in the fog are unknown to bettors but how often does that happen?
At 6:02 PM,
Anonymous said…
seems kind of funny that 2 big barns like Baker and Hamett would have their horses in training at Woodbine for a month or so and just forget to get their Workers Comp done...don't you think they would have been on the ball with that? A trainer need to prove that their workers comp is in order everywhere a trainer ship to in order to run.
At 3:26 PM,
Anonymous said…
So if Baker wasnt here until sat. should he be listed as trainer? He wasnt actually training them himself. Long license line ups are no excuse. All other trainers were sure to do it on time.
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