No One Benefits From Rushed Investigation

At the California Horse Racing Board’s monthly meeting Thursday at Hollywood Park, Ron Jensen, the board’s equine medical director, introduced a plan to implant identifying microchips in horses’ necks. This would be in addition to the lip tattoos horses already carry.

Jensen’s appearance had been scheduled before the Sweet Catomine-Santa Anita Derby affair, but the memory of the bizarre happenings preceding the April 9 race won’t go away soon.

“We’ve learned a lesson lately, that we don’t know when horses are moving in and out of the [track] premises,” Richard Shapiro, one of the commissioners, said.

There were enough lessons to go around after Sweet Catomine, under a false identity, was spirited away in the middle of the night from Santa Anita five days before the race:

* A misguided van driver, still facing discipline from state stewards, now knows better than to say he has a stable pony when it’s a champion filly in his lorry.

* Julio Canani, on the outside looking in as his relationship with Sweet Catomine owner Marty Wygod disintegrated, won’t recite the party line the next time he has a horse coming up to a big race at less than 100%.

* And Wygod, whose post-race comments ignited the mess, may have made his last visit to a racetrack press box.

The van driver, who can’t afford a lawyer, has admitted his guilt and is ready to take the fall, but the racing board has thrown out its charges against Wygod and Canani.

Still, there are no winners in this case, least of all the pell-mell investigative team that tried to sort out the issues the day after the race.

Ingrid Fermin, executive director of the racing board, had her bags packed, ready to leave for a racing conference in Kentucky. Marla Lloyd, the board’s supervising investigator, was soon to be hospitalized for hip surgery. That left Christopher Loop, a special investigator, to man the fort.

Loop, according to his testimony at the Wygod hearing Saturday, also appeared to be double-parked. By the time he was told by Lloyd to begin asking questions, there were only a few hours left on his shift, and he was scheduled to be off the next two days.

As though the principals, and the facts, would have disappeared by sundown. At the hearing, Loop kept using the word “expediency” to explain the haste that his investigation took. With a nudge from Lloyd, Loop was moving fast.

“Why didn’t you question Mr. Wygod?” Richard Kendall, Wygod’s attorney, asked of Loop. “Would he have been the most logical to talk to?”

“Yes,” Loop said limply.

“Did you want to talk to him?” Kendall went on.

“Yes,” Loop said.

“Did you make the effort?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have the answer.”

What Kendall didn’t ask, the stewards conducting the hearing did.

“Was there a hurry-up aura to what you were doing?” steward Pete Pedersen asked.

“Yes,” Loop said.

“Was this unusual?” Pedersen asked.

“Yes, sir,” Loop said.

Two days after the Santa Anita Derby, in which Sweet Catomine had finished fifth as the even-money favorite and taken herself out of the running for the Kentucky Derby, the racing board filed complaints against Wygod.

This week, after Wygod and Canani had been exonerated, Fermin and Jim Ahern, a deputy attorney general, faulted the investigation and promised changes in the system.

“Our role is to evaluate cases to make certain that complaints are based on the appropriate statutes or regulations, and backed up by sufficient evidence,” Ahern said. “We need to be more certain that cases filed by the CHRB have sufficient evidence to allow the stewards to take action in accordance with racing law. Likewise, we need to be certain there is sufficient evidence to allow any [court] to uphold the decision.”

At Thursday’s racing board meeting, Jensen’s report on microchip horse identification was turned over to a committee. If the method is eventually implemented, California would be the first state to use the system. Having it in place in time for next year’s Santa Anita Derby would be a fitting touch.

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The California Horse Racing Board took no action on proposed rules that would allow jockeys to ride heavier. “We haven’t given this matter the full amount of study it needs,” said John Harris, board chairman. The Jockeys’ Guild, which has been asking for new rules since last year, is supporting a bill in Sacramento that could lead to changes.... Fairplex Park in Pomona, which traditionally has run its September meet on consecutive days, has asked the board to run 16 days instead of 17, with Tuesdays dark. Approval is expected at the next board meeting, on May 26 at Los Alamitos Race Track.... It’s possible that Don’t Get Mad, one of eight horses entered for the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs on Saturday, might return in the Kentucky Derby on May 7.