How to fix the Kentucky Derby

The solution is simple.

This is, in fact, how it was always supposed to work: The Kentucky Derby is meant to be the singular event that reminds the general public about horse racing and maybe, just maybe, lures a few people into regularly caring about the sport.

We probably should have realized that it would take a hugely controversial decision to launch the event fully into the mainstream — and that said event would possibly turn fans away instead of convert them into regular track-goers.

Yet there’s a simple, reasonable solution to the issue that has shrouded the 145th Kentucky Derby in controversy. It will be anti-climactic. I promise you.

But first a few thoughts on what happened Saturday, when a nearly 22 minute review resulted in Maximum Security becoming the first Derby-winning horse to be disqualified in 145 runnings of the race. Country House, a 65-1 long shot, was declared the winner, and soon the takes were coming from every corner. Even President Donald Trump felt the need to weigh in, blaming “political correctness” for what he saw as an unfair decision.

Except it probably wasn’t unfair. Or even wrong. The decision took a while, yes, because of how momentous it was. Beyond that it’s pretty simple: a horse can’t veer into other horses to try to win a race. Maximum Security did.

That’s a pretty easy call. As easy as the pass interference call in the Rams-Saints game should have been. Maximum Security moves over drastically, covering three lanes, and directly impedes at least two other horses and forces at least one other jockey to slow down to avoid what could have been a dangerous entanglement.

As Country House trainer Bill Mott, who won his first Kentucky Derby due to the “bittersweet” call, said, “If it was a Wednesday on the third race on the card, this horse is coming down.” He means “coming down” from the top of the leaderboard.

The reason the decision took so long, and why there’s still so much consternation about it now, is that the Derby isn’t a normal horse race. Again, by design. You don’t see 20-horse fields in other races. Even the most lucrative ones are capped at 14. So jockeys aren’t accustomed to it. Nor are horses. Each year, America’s premier horse race is also one of its sloppiest — and, accordingly, there’s at times been a different standard for how it is run.

It’d be like that pass interference call in the Rams-Saints game happening because, somewhat inexplicably, they decided to let a bunch of extra players on the field for that down — and then the officials said, “Well of course somebody was going to interfere, there’s so many players.”

That’s where Gary West, the owner of Maximum Security, came down on it (starts at 2:40 mark).

West blames Churchill Downs, which hosts the race, for allowing 20 horses because it is “greedy.” And while there is no doubt, whatsoever, that a company sponsoring wide-spread wagering on animals accomplishing athletic feats is, at root, greedy, there’s probably more nuance to this.

The Kentucky Derby, and the chase for the Triple Crown that begins there, has long been held out as a possible gateway to engage new fans. A few years ago Churchill Downs implemented a revised way for horses to qualify for the race, involving a points system and specific races leading up to it. That was supposed to generate hype about top contenders earlier, and make it easier for the common fan to follow the trail to the Derby. So, allowing a 20-horse field meant there was more hope to go around during that process — and it has ultimately made for diverse fields filled with owners, trainers and horses from around the country.

Saturday’s mess, though, proved that the hype generated by a giant field isn’t worth it.

So, that’s the solution: Limit the field to 14.

Told you it would be anti-climatic.

It’s actually probably time to alter other things about the Triple Crown, while we’re at it. Now that two horses accomplished it in four years — after a layoff that started in 1979 — maybe we should acknowledged that asking such young horses to run long distances three times over a short period (early May to mid-June) doesn’t make much sense. Many trainers are reticent to even start their horses down that path. They’d almost never ask so much out of them under other conditions.

But for now, limiting the Kentucky Derby field is the next step. Use it as an opportunity: market the six horses who missed out on qualifying for Derby as the aggrieved, still waiting for their shot to prove they can knock off the Derby winner in Baltimore or New York.

Because that’s what gives racing life this time of year: the idea of all those challengers stalking the one true champion. The worse thing that can happen is that such a champion never emerges. He almost certainly will not this year. We’ll instead keep looking back to Louisville and at that tangle as they all turned toward the stretch, too many horses trying to get to the same place, forever mired in a pack that was simply too large.