Equibase corrects 2018 Kentucky Derby chart
Equibase has issued a revised chart of the Kentucky Derby to amend the finish-line margins posted by several horses in the field, including a 10-length change to the margin between Solomini, who finished 10th in the race, and the 11th-place horse, Firenze Fire.
The revised chart was posted on Tuesday morning, a day after speed figure makers had raised concerns about several of the margins in the chart that had been released on Saturday night, approximately two and a half hours after the Derby had been run. The speed figure makers included Craig Milkowski, an employee of TimeformUS, which is owned by Daily Racing Form.
Solomini had initially been listed as finishing 2 ½ lengths ahead of Firenze Fire. The revised chart now lists the margin as 12 ½ lengths. In addition, the margin between the 12th-place finisher, Bolt d’Oro, and the 13th-place finisher, Flameaway, has been changed from a head to 6 ¼ lengths, while the margin between Flameaway and Enticed has been changed from a head to 4 ¼ lengths.
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While none of the changes impacted horses who finished in the money for betting purposes, the changes will affect the speed figures earned by all of the horses who finished behind Solomini, in some cases in very significant ways. Taken together, the three changes add up to a 20-length difference in the total beaten margin of the horses finishing worse than 14th.
Steve Peery, Equibase’s Eastern Field Supervisor who was part of the chart-calling team at Churchill, said that he mistakenly entered the wrong margins for the three horses, and he apologized profusely for the errors in the original chart.
“I am incredibly sorry for the mistakes I made,” Peery said. “Accuracy is the most important thing to me. It was a clerical error. I punched in the wrong numbers. That’s all it was.”
Peery said that Equibase waited until Tuesday to issue the revised charts so that he could review all the original notes gathered by the chart-calling team. He said the original photo-finish had all the correct data, as did the notes he took when the photo-finish team relayed the beaten margins to him.
Milkowski and others had reviewed videotapes and photographs of the race to make the case that the original margins for the horses could not be correct. They had posted the evidence on social media sites.
One still from a video from the vantage point of track announcer Travis Stone clearly showed that Solomini was at least 10 lengths ahead of Firenze Fire at the finish line. Other stills from videos of the race clearly showed daylight between Bolt d’Oro, Flameaway, and Enticed.
“I am 100 percent sure that what we have posted now is accurate,” Peery said.