Video snafu caused inadvertent Sunland disqualification
Stewards at Sunland Park in New Mexico inadvertently rewound a replay video to a previous race when they made an erroneous decision to demote a horse in a Quarter Horse race last Friday, according to testimony from the stewards during a hearing on Thursday morning, the executive director of the state racing commission said.
Ismael Trejo, the executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission, said that the stewards readily acknowledged the error during the hearing, which was called to examine the sequence of events that led to the disqualification. According to Trejo, the stewards made the decision to demote the horse, A Separate Star, based on a review of the sixth race, thinking that the replay was of the seventh race.
“When they hit the rewind button, it went all the way past the gap to the start of the sixth race,” Trejo said. “Reviewing that, they felt that there was interference from the two horse [A Separate Star] at the gate, and they called an inquiry and made their decision based on that.”
Trejo also said that the stewards acknowledged that they did not interview any of the jockeys involved in the seventh or sixth race.
“That was another break in protocol right there,” Trejo said.
The erroneous disqualification has upset horseplayers who had winning bets on the race under the proper order of finish. A Separate Star was disqualified from second to fourth as a result of the decision, affecting place, show, exacta, trifecta, and superfecta bets. For the race, the straight-bet pools and the exotic pools had a total of $45,937 in wagers in them.
The racing commission has had discussions with Sunland Park about refunding impacted wagers on the race, by identifying the bets through electronic records of account-wagering companies or totalizator tickets. Trejo said that Sunland will make a decision on that possibility “by tomorrow.”
According to Trejo, an order is expected to go out later today invalidating the disqualification and restoring the original order of finish, which will affect purse earnings for several of the runners.
Trejo said that the commission is still deliberating over disciplinary measures for the three stewards involved, which will require discussions with state agencies.
“This was not a disciplinary hearing,” Trejo said. “This was merely to correct an error and make it right.”
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