Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for April 14, 2025

Jason discusses Saturday's objection in the Jenny Wiley and how inquiries and objections are conducted and looked at in racing. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope the weekend treated you well at the windows and in life! 

I feel like in sports for the last five years, some of the biggest changes in the games have involved officiating. Instant replay and challenges have become more common, the cameras for reviews are much better, and in some cases, technology now makes the decision instead of a human being. 

I do believe most people land on the side of “just get the call right,” but there’s a number of fans who don’t want to take the human element of officiating out of decision making. I’ve seen many hockey fans complain that it’s annoying when goals get overturned because a player was half an inch offsides. I suppose it depends which side and team you root for. But I get it; to see a play taken away because someone else was half an inch offsides is kind of weak. But if a player is thrown out at first base by half an inch, he or she is still out, and at some point in every call, there has to be a line of right or wrong, safe or out. 

Which brings us to Saturday’s Jenny Wiley S. (G1) at Keeneland the stewards’ decision not to take Choisya down after a jockey's objection spurred a review. One of the things I think is tough about watching inquiries and objections in U.S. horse racing is that so many of us don’t know the exact rules being applied. We often hear about “cost the horse an opportunity at a better placing” or just “a foul is a foul.”  

I include myself in the “us” mentioned above because I don’t think even I know exactly the rules. I feel like I know when a foul occurs and what the stewards might do after a race, but I feel like I’m just guessing based on past experiences. Not because I know what the exact rule is and how it’s being applied. And I’d guess a lot of players kind of have that same experience when it comes to watching inquiries and objections. 

Another note about inquiries and objections. It seemed that Saturday it was just a jockey’s objection that was posted and not a stewards’ inquiry. I think for some players this feels as though the stewards didn’t see it in the first place and had to be alerted to it. 

At tracks where I’ve worked, generally it’s been labeled one or the other, but sometimes they label it as both. In my opinion it should be labeled however it was initiated, including cases where both apply. I’ve had times where the stewards came right to my booth to say “inquiry into the homestretch.” Then 20 seconds later they come back in and say, “in addition to the inquiry, there’s a jockey’s objection 3 against 2,” and both are looking at the same incident. But in my opinion, this communicates to the public both that the stewards saw it, and thought it was worth a review, and that the jockey wanted to bring it to their attention and claim a foul. 

The reason I think this is important is that I believe some people feel like a jockey’s objection doesn’t get as serious a treatment as a stewards’ inquiry. I would actually love to see the numbers, but I also think it would skew towards more DQs on inquiries than objections; usually if it’s egregious, the stewards always post an inquiry right away because it was more obvious to see. Jockeys’ objections tend to be a little more subtle and not obvious. 

That makes the Jenny Wiley race and decision a bit more perplexing because it happened to the leaders in the middle of the homestretch, where we have good pan and head-on shots. I get that when an incident happens on the turn, it’s a little harder to gauge the depth of the drift out or foul. Mind you it shouldn’t be, with drones and other technologies out there for tracks to purchase and use, but I digress. I think for the betting public on something like this it should have been an obvious stewards’ inquiry initiated and a jockey’s objection as well. 

It’s very hard to make officiating something where everyone will find agreement. I feel like with tennis and their tracking technology, they’ve mostly achieved that. Gone are the days of John McEnroe screaming at linesmen when they missed a call. But with the mighty NFL, even using today’s technology, people every week are still arguing whether something was a catch. I get that officiating in racing will never be to a point where everyone agrees on a call, but we should get to a point where everyone agrees with the processes and the rules themselves. Or at least everyone knows what both are. 

Have a great week everyone!