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[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

I've interviewed a number of stewards (including one in CA). I've even gotten them to sit down with me and watch races (that I picked). It's interesting to listen to their analyses, and perhaps the most interesting thing is that they usually made sense in their arguments, even though there were races where they disagreed about whether a horse should be taken down. My unscientific study suggested that stewards are more likely to agree on stretch calls, but less likely to agree on backstretch fouls. There was one backstretch incident that I thought was a clear foul, and still had one of three stewards argue the horse shouldn't have been DQ'd (the horse wasn't by the way, and there wasn't even an inquiry).

I don't think I feel as harsh towards the stewards as some do, but I did become convinced that there is a rubric that permeates each respective set of stewards. Before a specific event occurs, they already have an idea of what is worthy of DQ and what is not, and it varies at least slightly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That's not to say there is perfect consistency within a jurisdiction, but they do seem to have patterns, even if they said, each inquiry is evaluated on its own merits.

It's sort of like the courts. How can a point of law wind up getting one decision in the district court, a different decision at the court of appeals, and a reversal at the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote. Shouldn't it be clearer? As I said, what seems to be clear is that the rubric of the jurisdiction and the "politics" of the steward have a lot more to do with decisions than anybody wants to recognize.

There are only a couple of things that could be done to gain consistency. One, go to the central stewards concept, where all DQ decisions are made by a central authority of three or five or seven experts. Two, go to strict definitions of foul, and always rule a foul is a foul. That's how it used to be, and it sucked but it was consistent.

Wrt to courts, all notions of "the law is easy, how come cases come out 5 to 4" do not survive one semester of Jurisprudence at a top law school.