I know less about horse racing than many people, maximum horses, and probably even a few cows. But something approximately this area, the Kentucky Derby, felt acquainted. It wasn’t the race, precisely, or the arguable disqualification of Maximum Security. It became this questioning line: certain, and the rules say Maximum Security should have been disqualified for committing a nasty, but not in the Kentucky Derby.
You see this logic in sports loads: the larger the moment, the less the regulations have to count numbers. We want to take that line of thinking, pour lighter fluid throughout it, and set it on the hearth.
The policies are the regulations, and we should implement them equally in each professional sport or occasion. This became continually true, but it’s particularly true now, with a million remarkable excessive-definition, up-near replays in every sport. We scream when a ref doesn’t see a shoelace go out of bounds. We overturn calls while a ball wobbles an 8th of an inch or a basketball grazes a fingernail. How can we all at once decide the regulations shouldn’t all be enforced while a championship is on the line?
As Country House trainer Bill Mott said after the Derby, “If this were a maiden claimer on a weekday, that horse [Maximum Security] would come down. It’s the Kentucky Derby. However, it’s now not alleged to depend.” Yes, of the route, Mott had a horse in the race. But the logic is impeccable.
If you argue that Maximum Security no longer commits a bad, that’s satisfactory. (I defer to my man Tim Layden to analyze that one.) But in case you say the stewards should have allowed it slide because “what’s up, it’s the Kentucky Derby,” and those got inebriated and wagered money and notion the race became over, that’s wherein you lose me.
I want Maximum Security’s connection to take a sportsmanship lesson from Auburn’s teacher, Bruce Pearl. (Yeah, I recognize: an unlikely preference.) Last month, Auburn misplaced a Final Four sport to Virginia after a controversial foul became known as not using a time left. It was close. But it turned into a nasty. And Pearl stated in a while:
“My recommendation, as an administrator of the sport, isto name it if that is a fout. Call it at the start of the game, call it in the center of the game, and name it at the end of the game. Don’t call it any greater or much less at some other time during the sport.”
We must truly all agree on this with the aid of now. NHL refs should no longer “swallow their whistles” in playoff overtime. NBA refs need not let hacking go uncalled to “allow the players to decide” the game. NFL officers should now not forget about maintaining or facemask consequences or the 4 thousand different penalties they name. And stewards need not ignore a foul because Maximum Security changed into the “great horse” and “deserved” to win.
If we trade how we put into effect the regulations when a championship is on the line, we create numerous troubles. It’s no longer honest to the competitors: they play, practice, and put together all year for games that can be performed under very particular hints. It’s also not open to the officials, who put together all 12 months to implement those concrete suggestions and can’t fairly be expected to change how they operate while the general public is looking.
Also, asking officers to trade guidelines enforcement at their will invites corruption. Officials are supposed to make judgment calls based on whether or not policies have been broken, now not primarily based on who “deserved” to win. The video games’ integrity relies upon officers not making judgments like that now.
Would Country House have won the race if Maximum Security had stayed in his own direction? My opinion as a man who knows very little is that possibly not. But that’s no longer the stewards’ problem. They are presupposed to enforce the regulations.
The rules are the guidelines on every occasion the video games are performed. Sometimes, the regulations change while the stakes are better for obvious reasons. For instance, the NHL does not stage three-on-three beyond regular periods within the playoffs, finding it irresistible within the everyday season. NFL playoff games can not result in a tie after one time beyond regulation. But the penalties remain identical. All we should ask of any authentic is to try to be truthful. That method tries to get all calls right, regardless of what’s on the line.
