The New York Racing Association apologized Sunday after the final race on Saturday’s card was run at the wrong distance at Saratoga. Bettors were left holding the bag for the mistake that was not caught before the results were declared official.
“The stewards are responsible for overseeing the integrity of every race here on the NYRA circuit,” steward Víctor Escobar said in a written statement from NYRA on Sunday afternoon. “We would like to apologize to the betting public, fans and racing participants for failing to meet those standards on Saturday.”
Escobar, fellow steward Cody Watkins and NYRA senior vice president Andrew Offerman repeated apologies and offered explanations on a two-minute YouTube video that was posted after the Sunday card was finished. They took no questions from host Andy Serling after offering their statements one at a time.
“We acknowledge that the gate placement is the responsibility of many racing officials on the racecourse throughout the day,” Escobar said in the video. “We as stewards ultimately hold ourselves responsible for the integrity of the running of the race and all race-day operations, and in regard to this matter we ultimately hold ourselves responsible for failing to recognize that the gate was placed in the incorrect place.”
In the earlier written statement, spokesperson Pat McKenna said NYRA staff met with the stewards to figure out what why the 1 1/8-mile turf race was run over 1 1/16 miles instead.
“Human error caused the gate to be placed in the incorrect position,” the statement said. “NYRA has implemented measures to ensure that racing officials and stewards proactively acknowledge and verify the correct gate placement prior to the start of every race.”
Much the same thing was said after a mistake in a program diagram was blamed for a May 26 maiden race at Aqueduct being run at five furlongs instead of the intended 5 1/2 furlongs.
“NYRA will review its protocols to ensure this scenario does not present itself again,” McKenna said at the time.
In this case, specific steps were put into immediate effect Sunday.
“There are multiple officials that failed during this instance,” said Offerman, who is in charge of racing operations. “There’s eight separate accredited racing officials that are accredited through (the Racing Officials Accreditation Program) in addition to all the other participants, upwards of 25 people. We have started effective (Sunday) changing the way that we communicate those protocols to our team, and that’s something that we’re going to continue to evolve over the next couple of dark days to make sure that we’re in a much better place as we move forward through the rest of the meet and make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Although Offerman offered no further details, BloodHorse reported that head starter Scott Jordan and the stewards were required starting Sunday to talk to one another before the gate location was considered correct for each race. BloodHorse’s Bob Ehalt also reported that better markers soon will be put at every possible point around the track where the gate is supposed to be placed.
Offerman did not say whether anyone was suspended or fired for their role in the mistake.
New York State Gaming Commission rules say the possibility of refunds ended with the race being declared official.
“When a result is official, that word shall be flashed on the result board and shall signify that the placing of the horse is final insofar as the payoff is concerned,” rule 4008.1 says. “If any change be made in the order of finish of a race after the result is so declared official, it shall not affect the payoff.”
If stewards discovered the error before or even during the race, they could have called for refunds.
