In a year in which stewards at Canada’s five major Thoroughbred tracks handed down a record 441 rulings and penalties, it was Century Mile in Edmonton that garnered the biggest headlines with a threatening horse-jerking ride by a jockey and 25 jockeys reaping almost $17,000 in fines for 82 violations of the track’s whipping rules.
No ride in 202 days of racing at Woodbine, Fort Erie, Hastings, Assiniboia Downs and Century Mile garnered more attention than that of Dane Nelson, riding a seemingly appropriately named horse, Oops, in race 3 on July 13 in which he duels furiously with a horse named Alberta who is refusing to give an inch. Close to the wire, in a scene reminiscent of the chariot race in the Ben Hur movie, Nelson suddenly veers Oops into Alberta or, in the words of the stewards, “steered his mount into Alberta, elbowing the jockey.” It’s a jaw-dropper.
Watch that stretch drive here (go to the Century Mile website, July 13 race 3 for a more telling slo-mo head-on version):
Onlookers will likely agree that Nelson got off lucky with a three-day suspension. But, then again, Century Mile stewards handed out few suspensions; their preference were fines. The track’s two longest suspensions of 10 days were for testing positive for marijuana use.
The Infamous Elbow Incident.
All of the crop offences at Century Mile — with fines ranging from $100 to $756 — were likely the result of a new rule that prohibits a jockey from striking a horse more than six times during a race. Three of the track’s top 10 jockeys garnered the most penalties: Rafael Zenteno Jr. ($2,208 in fines, four days of suspensions for 13 offences), Keishan Balgobin ($2,220 in fines for six violations) and N’Rico Prescod ($1,440 in fines plus one day for seven violations.)
By contrast, Canada’s other four tracks — with different whipping rules — had a total of 49 violations. In general, jockeys at other tracks are required to allow a horse to respond after being struck two or three times and jockeys are required to keep their whip below their shoulders. Where Century Mile has a six-hit maximum during a race, ASD allows 10. ASD jockeys were fined $100 to $200 for 10 crop misuse violations, $200 fines were dispensed nine times at Woodbine and three at Fort Erie and $100 fines were the norm for 17 violations at Hastings although a few fines were higher because of multiple infractions.
Other headlines:
- Did last year’s “king of suspensions” retain his title? Last year, Sahin Civaci, Woodbine’s leading percentage rider at the time, made headlines as “the king of suspensions” because he accounted for eight of the 26 three-day interference suspensions. And this year? One might say he cleaned up his act. He had just one. Kazushi Kimura was this year’s leader with four. That didn’t mean Civaci, this year’s leading rider, steered clear of other steward involvement: He was fined $500 for “failure to persevere to the wire,” $200 for whipping too many times and $200 for “standing up before the wire.”
- Four jockeys thrown from their mounts; two jockeys at fault: Four jockeys were thrown to the ground in separate heel-clipping incidents this past year. Two jockeys caused all four of them — two of them each. Pierre Mailhot at Fort Erie was suspended 15 days for two errant rides and Luis Contreras at Woodbine was suspended seven days for each of his. Fort Erie stewards also fined Mailhot $100 for “disturbing the peace and making himself obnoxious,” $200 for working his horse on the rail, which is a no-no, and $50 for smoking in a non-smoking area. Contreras managed to steer clear of any other involvement with Woodbine stewards.
- Drug penalties: Assiniboia Downs’ leading trainer hit the hardest: Five-time leading trainer at Assiniboia Downs, Jerry Gourneau, was hit with a $10,000 fine and a six-month suspension in July when four of his horses tested positive for the class four anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone. Gourneau called the positives “a mystery” which was backed up by his vet who said the drug had been administered well within the prescribed limit.
Leading Woodbine jock Sahin Civaci had just a single interference ruling this year, compared to eight in 2023. (Michael Burns photo)
- Also at ASD, trainer Mike Taphorn was fined $1,000 and suspended for two days for a “prohibited substance” positive. At Woodbine, trainer Robert Tiller was fined $500 and suspended three days for a positive of a class 4 drug that is used in combination with another drug to help control swelling and bruising. And at Fort Erie, trainer Richard Davis was fined $500 after provincial gaming commission inspectors found unused hypodermic needles and syringes in a random barn search.
- “Interference” offences decline at Woodbine: Last year, Woodbine stewards meted out 26 three-day suspensions to jockeys for causing “interference” during a race. This year that number fell to 12. Of course, eight of the penalties last year were to Sahin Civaci; this year he got one. Other tracks use other language to describe the same errant riding: Stewards at ASD call interference “careless” riding and handed down 11 of those charges with fines of $100-$200. Jockey Arthur Budhu drew the most severe penalty — $400 and five days — for “brutal, excessive and indiscriminate” riding. At Century Mile nine one-day suspensions were handed down for “dropping down before clear.” At Hastings 11 fines of $250 to $500 and three one-day suspensions were issued for interference. There was just one interference charge at Fort Erie which resulted in a $200 fine.
- Hastings was ground zero for “improper behaviour”: It didn’t seem to matter where anyone went at Hastings, stewards found reason to cite someone for misbehaviour. They issued 11 rulings, roughly equal to the 12 for all four of the other tracks. There was everything from multiple “official warnings” to 15-day suspensions. Causing a disturbance in the race office and testing area drew $100 fines, assistant starter Kyle Chadwick’s conduct and “offensive language” at the starting gate earned him a $250 fine, owner/trainer Kevin Scott was fined $500 for “creating a disturbance and acting in an improper manner” while valet/assistant starter Richard Hamel drew seven days and a $200 fine for “acting offensively” and “failing to follow the racing inspector’s instructions.” Hit hardest was assistant starter/groom Natalie Woodrow, who faced two 15-day suspensions: one for not following a racing inspector’s instructions and the other for violating her conditional license agreement in the barn.
- Century Mile trainers ordered to take “Respect in the Workplace” course: Century Mile stewards found a novel way to deal with misconduct. While they meted out a handful of $100 to $200 fines for “unprofessional conduct” toward security, they also ordered two trainers — Seymour Biggs and Jessica Bell — to take a “Respect in the Workplace” course within two weeks. Meanwhile, at Woodbine and Fort Erie it was the language in the rulings that appeared designed to make the recipients cringe: “For disturbing the peace and making themselves obnoxious” two licensees at Woodbine were fined $200 and $300 and one licensee at Fort Erie was fined $100.
- Marijuana use still under scrutiny at Century Mile: In what has become an annual event, it seems, Century Mile has again slapped two jockeys with 10-day suspensions and $150 fines for testing positive for marijuana use. That’s exactly what happened the past two years as well.
- Unseated riders no longer face compulsory suspensions: Last year, Ontario stewards forced jockeys thrown from their horses to undergo a concussion protocol before riding again. There were no such suspensions in 2024 for unseated jockeys.
Coggins Tests — or rather the lack of Coggins Tests — drew the opprobrium of Hastings stewards to the extent that they fined five trainers $300 each and a sixth $600 (for a second offence) for not being able to show their horses were negative to equine infectious anemia. Those fines compared to fines of $100 and $200 for two similar offences at Century Mile.
Stewards similarly didn’t want to see horses being worked out along the rail and fined miscreants $100. And not getting a horse on time to the paddock, confusing the sex of a horse, entering an ineligible horse into a race, or scratching a horse without permission resulted in fines up to $300.
There were only a few cases of jockeys easing a horse before the finish line and one case, at ASD, of a jockey urging a horse “that was clearly out of the race.”
In 2022, Canada’s Thoroughbred stewards issued 209 penalties and rulings — which seemed a lot at the time. But last year the number grew to 384 and this year it’s 441. Can anyone care to hazard a guess on whether we’ve reached a limit? Some tracks have found reason to bring down the hammer more extensively than ever, especially Century Mile and Hastings, which have relatively short meets of 43 and 42 days, respectively. Fort Erie raced 40 days, Assiniboia Downs 50 and Woodbine 127.
The visuals at Century Mile were clear: Stewards were carefully adding up every motion of a jockey’s crop right out of the starting gate and, when the limit of six was reached, the jockey had another fine or suspension to deal with. Eighty-two of the 173 steward rulings were for errant crop use.
