Pro Golfers See USGA, Rulemaking Madness In Kentucky Derby Race Reversal

As a fan of horse racing, I was saddened that the likely best horse could not be crowned the Kentucky Derby winner, but the rules are explicit and the sport came within inches of a catastrophic pile-up when Maximum Security drifted badly and deserved to be disqualified.

There will always be bickering over the decision and plenty of unanswered questions over the oddity of a jockeys Flavien Prat and Jon Court having to lodge an objection when the Inquiry sign should have gone up after the race concluded. And while I don’t expect pro golfers to know some of horse racing’s rules, particularly given how things went down, it was still fascinating to see a few players lump golf’s governing body in with the Churchill Down stewards (Golf.com’s Pat Ralph with a roundup.)

That’s an ignorant notion on many levels, but particularly when the rules mocked are designed to protect lives. Time will vindicate the Derby decision, but the jump-to-conclusion mentality working against rules enforcement these days can’t bode well for the future of rules and rulemaking in sports.