Flatter: Machado error exposes bigger problem in gambling

Luan Machado misjudged the finish line in the finale
Wednesday at Keeneland, turning a win into a loss. The reactions were unfortunately predictable.

Reasonable racegoers who hopefully still make up a mostly silent
majority winced but accepted the fact that their fellow humans are fallible.
Social-media jackasses, however, called for Machado to face draconian penalties
that would have violated his constitutional right to be free of cruel and unusual
punishment.

There is a more troublesome effect from all this sturm und drang.
It underscores a growing anger among sore losers who probably have no business
making a wager on anything sporting let alone having the freedom to post
vitriolic broadsides while hiding behind a burner’s avatar.

Horse racing is not the only sport or facet of life where
forgiveness is not an option. How dare a U.S. president from either party deign
to answer what someone perceives as a crisis by playing a round of golf? A
computer glitch grounds flights, so let’s fire the airline CEO. That cuppa joe
was too hot when it was spilled onto a thinly garbed lap, so find an ambulance
chaser and take legal action against the coffee house. That last one keeps
happening.

Pity the employee who works for someone who lurks in the
shadowy bulwark of social-media anonymity typing the phrase “you had only one
job.” This is the sort of Peter-principle poster child who grinds someone for taking
one too many minutes for a bathroom break. And where are those TPS reports?

As Charles Barkley said, “Social media is where losers go to
feel important.” There was no shortage of them after Machado made his mistake Wednesday.
It was amazing how many Pick 3s and 4s and 5s and 6s supposedly were ruined
when the 13-1 long shot accidentally conceded to the 19-1 long shot.

One would think this should happen far more often at places
like Keeneland and Gulfstream Park and Laurel Park and Oaklawn and overseas at
ParisLongchamp. They all have two or more finish lines. That this is
such a rare occurrence really is a credit to the professionalism of jockeys.

The blurry memory of the 1957 Kentucky Derby has been
regurgitated this week. That was the one where Bill Shoemaker famously misplaced
the wire. He thought it was at the sixteenth pole at Churchill Downs, where there
was and is only one finish line. At first he lied about it to stewards, who did
not buy his story that Gallant Man stumbled. After he finally ’fessed up, Shoe got
a 15-day suspension.

That was not even the first time Shoemaker had made that sort
of gaffe. In 1990, Bill Christine wrote in the Los Angeles Times that it
had happened at least twice before. So three times out of 40,350 rides. With
only that 99.9925 percent rate of knowing where he was going, Shoe somehow still
got to the Hall of Fame. Good thing X did not exist back then.

It was called Twitter in 2012 when Luke Nolen stood up in
the last 100 yards as champion Australia mare Black Caviar was closing in on her
triumph at Royal Ascot. She still got to the line first, but a winning margin
that should have been a length ended up being just a head.

“I didn’t misjudge the winning post,” Nolen said. “I just thought I could
coast.”

Oops. A three-time champion jockey in Australia did that.
He, like Shoemaker, seemingly is remembered more for the mistake than the
myriad successes.

Fortunately, Twitter was so new 12 years ago that Nolen did
not face the same wrath Machado has. That and the fact there is a difference
between a near miss and a bad beat.

That razor’s edge is a chasm when it comes to common decency,
certainly now in a day and age when betting on sports has burst out of the
shell of condemnation. If we can be out in the open about point spreads and prop
bets, then that must give us license to take pot shots at jockeys. Or to lung
out a golfer who was in danger of making that putt that would be a money-loser
for some degenerate gambler.

Just last year at a golf tournament near Chicago, one such
patron whose craving for action was exceeded only by his thirst for cocktails yelled
at Chris Kirk during the backswing to “pull it,” as in a five-foot putt that would
decide the outcome of a bet that was worth, wait for it, $3.

A shouting match followed between the losing lout and Kirk’s
playing partner Max Homa.

“I love that people can gamble on golf, but that is the one
thing I’m worried about,” Homa told Golf Digest.

Lest we think these are rare cases, consider what the NCAA
learned just last week in the results of a study that it commissioned from Signify
Group. Reviewing more than 1.3 million social-media posts, it was discovered that
18 percent of 5,000 confirmed abusive attacks were sexual. The second most, 12
percent, were related to sports betting.

“The increased exposure to online gambling only exacerbates
the online abuse,” Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter said, “with many
student-athletes receiving death threats via social media.”

So this goes way beyond Luan Machado or Luke Nolen or Bill
Shoemaker making like Leon Lett before the goal line or a bunch of racetracks asking
for trouble with multiple-choice finish lines.

Because hardened bettors never make mistakes, they look for someone
to blame. Yes, I have cursed players and coaches for what I perceive to be
stupid decisions when I have made stupid bets. And yes, I have used my
platforms over the years for hopefully more measured critical commentary
regardless of how I wager. I am pretty sure, however, I have not called for
anyone’s death or some life-altering damnation for a difference of strategic
opinion or a display of human error. I save such flagellation for myself.

To that end, we are our own worst critics, and this is where
my concern for Machado and other jockeys comes to roost. Less than two years
ago we lost Avery Whisman and Alex Canchari, two riders who committed suicide.

“This needs to be addressed,” jockey Trevor McCarthy told
PBS last year. “We take a lot of beatings mentally and physically. With the
mental and physical state, when you mix both of them together, it can be a
recipe for disaster. Look, there’s proof of it, right? We lost two guys.”

Jockeys are taken for granted way too often. There is a
reason I habitually sign off my interviews with them by saying “safe rides.”
It is a reminder for me to appreciate the risky business they perform every
half-hour every afternoon, not to mention all those gallops and breezes every
morning. Most are underpaid, but even the richest and most successful are not
immune to the risk of life.

What Machado did Wednesday merited a fine and a suspension. I do not believe for one second there was something more nefarious going on. At the same time, it was not an inconsequential mistake. But it was forgivable. Some of what was written about him by anonymous reprobates was not.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse
Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com
are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.