RESCINDING CLAIMS ISSUE 17.qxd_Jerkins feature.qxd 05/08/2013 18:13 Page 2
CLAIMING RULES
Rescinding T claims HE DNF issue – specifically for the CHRB, the horse must return to the unsaddling area on its own accord or it will be classified DNF – will be revisited as recently as the June 2010 CHRB meeting, said John Harris, in a May 29, 2010, email to fellow board members. Down the road other states will probably have to address these topics as well because a number of national organizations are putting heft behind revamping old rules or instituting new ones for reasons of horse safety. Leading the way are the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI), The Jockey Club (Welfare and Safety Summit), and the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), to name three prominent bodies. The status quo is under assault. It has long been the case in most racing jurisdictions that in claiming races, where one owner can “buy” a horse from another at a set price (claiming price) and become the owner of record the moment the horse leaves the starting gate, there are no expressed or implied warranties as to the condition of the horse, except for its age and sex (except in New York and perhaps a few other jurisdictions where a positive postrace test is grounds for rescinding a claim). Vesting of title, therefore, takes place immediately, and the animal becomes the property of the successful claimant “as is,” regardless of what happens during the race – including if the horse breaks down (DNF) or dies during the running or shortly afterward. The CHRB agenda item, which was actually pared down to the DNF component only and did not include the post-race testing protocol when it was put forth for public comment last October, was submitted, said chairman Harris, to safeguard against the running of unsound horses as well as to protect claimants. “I have always supported the concept of voiding claims on did-not-finish horses,” he said. Yet one month later, at the November 2009 CHRB meeting at Golden Gate Fields, Harris and the board tabled the DNF motion after the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) and California Thoroughbred Trainers (CTT) voiced opposition to the proposal. The CTT, by the way, had originally supported the
Last October, during a regular meeting of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) at then-CHRB chairman John Harris’s Harris Ranch Inn and Restaurant in Coalinga, California, commissioner Bo Derek, the actress and horsewoman, brought up an agenda item that sooner or later will likely have national ramifications. The issues: should long-held claiming rules be changed to void claims when a claimed horse doesn’t finish (DNF) a race or tests positive for prohibited substances? By Sid Fernando
Former CHRB chairman John Harris
CHRB commissioner Bo Derek
motion at the October meeting but did an about-face in November. “The CTT was the main obstacle to getting the rule passed,” said Harris. “I didn’t buy into their arguments but some on the board did.” Ironically, Ms. Derek, who’d originally presented the agenda item at the October meeting, was absent in November. Harris said that “I just didn’t have the votes on the board to enact it at that time and it was better to table it pending more consensuses.
We should bring it up again. Some trainers came up with some arguably valid concerns, but I think the sport would be well served by the rule.” He said that Ms. Derek also “would like it discussed at the June meeting.” Kelly Ackerman, a trainer who runs a claiming stable from his farm in Illinois and races in Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and West Virginia, said there were valid reasons not to enact the CHRB proposals in California or
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