Horse racing oddity: starting gate tractor malfunction

It may not have been as exciting as Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, but as Mary Rampelllini reported in the Daily Racing Form:

The featured ninth race at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., on Thursday was declared a no contest after the starting gate was unable to be pulled from the racetrack because of problems with a tractor. Wagers on the race were refunded, while bets tied into multiple races were given an "all" in the ninth race.

"We had a tractor malfunction," said David Longinotti, assistant general manager at Oaklawn. "We told it to go, and it wouldn't go. We'll obviously completely check out the tractor tonight, and hopefully we won't have any more problems with it in the future."

The horses started to be pulled up at the top of the stretch in the 1 1/16-mile race. Jockey Calvin Borel, who was aboard the front-running Richwood Silver, noticed the gate and began shouting to his fellow riders while pulling up his mount. The starting-gate crew and outriders also waved off the field. There appeared to be no injuries as a result of the mishap.

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Enjoy this video from March 13, 2008. Terry Wallace is the announcer.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• thoroughbred
• horse
• racing
• oddity
• starting
• gate
• tractor
• malfunction
• Oaklawn
• Park
• Terry
• Wallace
• Calvin
• Borel

[luvolife01]

Jockeys did a great job!!!

[tobybirdmann]

what an announcer. call it to the end man.haha

[PasoFinoLover21]

Oh, and that gate still up, must have cost a lot of time and must have really SUCKED. Poor jockeys :-(

[PasoFinoLover21]

@poochgal592 don't u DARE dis barrel racing! I'm learingto now, and the horse I ride is a barrel racer and I'm just learining. Trouble, the horse, loves running the barrels and you can feel all of the excitment under her. Horses love it and there are many precautions taken like the rider is usually traned well before they start and there's usually lots of troting or even just circling first. They also check to make sure the sand wnt be slippery. It may be a little risky, but all are, even racing

[Butla93]

@futurejockey8 haha yup that was supposed to be wouldn't lol

[futurejockey8]

@Butla93 don't you mean machines will always be better than horses? lol Your second sentence contradicts the first.

[futurejockey8]

@LopeForestLope I don't think the race was even considered haha nobody won, nobody lost.

[LopeForestLope]

ok I just read some of the comments. It stinks that I cant watch a horse racing video without someone acting like babies and fighting over it. That goes for both sides of the argument.

[LopeForestLope]

nice. So how did they place that race? good job to the jockies. That couldve been bad.

[HatashiLuvsU]

Even though they had to be slowed down, that one jockey let his horse win :3

[Butla93]

That's why horses will always be better then machines. You would have that problem with a couple of draft horses.