Plate Trial DQ reversed

Dance With Ravens was reinstated as the winner of the June 5 when the Ontario Racing Commission on Thursday reversed a decision by the Woodbine stewards.

Dance With Ravens had finished first by a neck in the Plate Trial under jockey Todd Kabel but was disqualified following an inquiry initiated by the stewards, who ruled Dance With Ravens had interfered with the sixth-place finisher, Atanas, approximately a sixteenth of a mile into the race. Atanas did stumble at that point but his rider, Rui Pimentel, did not lodge a claim of foul.

Dance With Ravens was placed sixth in the field of seven, with Three in the Bag, Get Down, and Out From Africa becoming the official top three finishers. Mark Frostad, who trains Dance With Ravens for Sam-Son Farm, appealed the disqualification.

The commission found that Dance With Ravens and Kabel were well clear of Atanas and any other horse in the field at the time of the incident and that "Mr. Kabel did not swerve or ride his horse either way at the sixteenth pole when Mr. Pimentel's horse suffered the stumble or bad step."