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What is wrong within the race is the standards of horse racing. Was it a violation or not. According to the stewards, the CHRB code was not broken, therefore no violation as the incident should not have affected the outcome.
Had it been a riding violation then it should have been penalized. If, in football, a quarterback makes a pass play to his LEFT that ends up a touchdown but a player on the RIGHT side of the field is caught holding, the touchdown is taken away and the team is penalized. It doesn't matter that the penalty had NO OUTCOME to the pass play itself. If a violator of the rules gets caught, there will be a penalty applied.
In horse racing, the violations of rules are not always penalized but decided upon by a supposedly unbiased group that addresses the issue on a case by case basis.
In the race in question, it seems there needs to be a clearer rule set into place regarding the handling of horses during the first unviolateable (new word) distance from the starting gate. Plus the ruling should be in place at ALL tracks and render the stewards job easier.
As is, I am surprised it does not happen more often other than the sanity of the jockeys not to put themselves, their fellow riders and their horses in greater risk than they already are.
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