by Garnet Barnsdale

Race 10 at Monticello this past Tuesday was eventful and – to at least one reader that contacted us about the race – controversial.

The first indication that this wasn’t your typical Tuesday afternoon winners over $4,000 pace was when Jim Deveaux – who was following along in third heading to the quarter pole – suddenly urged his horse Road Untraveled several lanes off the rail while looking behind him.

It became quickly apparent that Deveaux was getting out of the way of the #7 horse Culinary Delight N, who was flying up on the outside, but was clearly having some kind of issue because his driver, Larry Stalbaum, was getting the attention of the drivers in front of him to alert them to get out of the way.

As they went around the turn heading towards the half, the field scattered as in the interest of safety everyone got out of the way of the troubled horse. That left 1-5 favorite Iwillmakeyousaywow alone on the lead with only two other horses within 8 1/2 lengths of him after most of the field getting scattered.

Iwillmakeyousaywow was never threatened, jogging to a 5-length victory while Culinary Delight was eventually pulled up safely. After the race it was announced that the troubled horse’s issue was that it had lost its bridle, so kudos to Larry Stalbaum for not only alerting his fellow drivers to the imminent danger, but also for managing to pull his horse up without incident.

But what about the bettors? Despite every horse in the race showing an “I” symbol in the official chart to indicate that it had suffered interference due to Culinary Delight’s issues, the race was made official and paid out as if nothing happened.

That’s what the reader who pointed out the race and incident took exception with and when you watch the replay of this race and see horses going everywhere to avoid the horse with no bridle, you have to wonder if he doesn’t have a very good point. Anyone that didn’t cash certainly didn’t get a fair shake in this race.