Crispin fined and suspended for riding horse at Laurel at wrong weight

Alexander Crispin, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice rider for 2020, has been suspended for 30 days and fined $1,000 after he rode a horse with the wrong weight, Maryland racing officials confirmed on Monday.

Crispin, who rides at 108 pounds, according to the Laurel Park condition book, was issued the suspension at least a month after stewards disqualified Alpha Queue from a third-place finish in a Jan. 16 race at Laurel. The chart notes the horse “carried wrong weight” in a footnote. The suspension started on Monday.

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J. Mike Hopkins, the executive director of the Maryland Racing Commission, confirmed that the suspension and fine were issued, but said he could not comment in the ruling, which has yet to be issued. Stewards conducted a hearing last week into the matter, people familiar with the matter said.

Michael Berey, a Baltimore lawyer who represented Crispin at the hearing, said on Monday afternoon he could not comment on any aspect of his representation, citing attorney-client confidentiality. Kevin Witte, Crispin’s agent, did not immediately respond to a phone message.

Crispin is the leading rider at Laurel Park this year, with 33 wins from 156 mounts and approximately $900,000 in earnings. He has a 21 percent win rate and a 54 percent in-the-money rate. In 2020, he won 103 races from 539 mounts.

Under pandemic protocols, weigh-in and weigh-out procedures for riders at Laurel have been changed several times, including in recent months. Maryland racing rules require the disqualification of a horse if the jockey rides at least one pound below the listed weight, while overweights can be penalized with warnings.

Two stewards in jurisdictions outside of Maryland said that the 30-day suspension indicates that Crispin either deliberately falsified his weight or had knowledge that he was riding under the assigned weight. The stewards, who did not want to be identified while commenting on a case for which they had no direct knowledge, noted that all major states require disqualifications of horses that carry less weight than they are assigned, but that stewards have wide discretion when assigning penalties to riders in those cases.

“If it’s a mistake, if it’s something that happens because a clerk misreads the weight or picks up the wrong saddle pads, we wouldn’t even fine the jockey,” one of the stewards said.

Linda Gaudet, part of the Team Gaudet ownership group behind Alpha Queue, said that she was notified in late January that Alpha Queue had been disqualified from his Jan. 16 race, for which the gelding was supposed to carry 115 pounds. The third-place purse was $3,300.

“They got our money, but all I was told was that we carried the wrong weight,” Gaudet said.