Stewards

Maryland racing commissioners gave notice yesterday that they are not pushovers when it comes to reversing stewards' decisions.The board heard two appeals involving recent rulings on riding infractions at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course and unanimously upheld the judges each time."

In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. ignited a firestorm that burns still today. In a widely discussed article titled "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," he laid a charge at the doorstep of the Judeo-Christian community: The Bible is responsible for the world's environmental degradation. The Bible and its story of creation, he argued, sowed the seeds of the destructive mandate that animates Western civilization. Humans were given the right, the calling, by God to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and master it. " Charged by this narrative, the Western world has taken "dominion" to be one of the highest callings of human existence.

On the surface, it seems as if the stewards at Laurel Park received an unmistakably harsh message from their employer -- the Maryland Racing Commission -- last week:Wake up, and stop making bad calls.No one spoke those words publicly, but it seemed the board gave a pretty strong indication of how it felt about some of the stewards' recent decisions when it overturned three of their judgement calls.But that's not so, said Allan Levey, a member of the commission, who added that the other board members also felt that what happened was "an anomaly.

As a brisk wind blew down South President Street Sunday afternoon, 85-year-old Mary Sudano stood against a light pole leaning on a cane, a string of red, white and green beads around her neck. The Little Italy native and lifelong South High Street resident smiled and waved as four men dressed as gladiators marched past, holding a Roma Gourmet Sausage banner and flanking a fifth man dressed as National Bohemian Beer's iconic Mr. Boh character. "It's a good thing that they keep it up," Sudano said of Baltimore's annual Columbus Day parade, which at 122 years old is pitched as the longest continually running Columbus parade in the country.

Ask John Burke III what he thought of this year's Kentucky Derby, and his clear eyes gleam. Great race, he says. Nobody leaped out front to win by 10 or 12 lengths. And as an exhibition of training and skill, it was hard to beat. "Three horses were in contention coming down the stretch," says the 62-year-old Burke, shaking his head. "Got me excited, I'll tell you that." Burke is one of three stewards at Pimlico Race Course, one-third of the team that, like teams at every professional track in the nation, oversees every race.

ALBANY, N.Y. - When you watch the Preakness tomorrow, keep in mind the rules of horse racing. What rules? Good question. Horse racing is a sport in which the rules are badly in need of clarification. In reality, the rules are whatever the track stewards say they are. The rulebook gives us nothing. There is no uniformity in how stewards do their jobs, no uniformity of practice and no philosophical rationale underlying the role of the stewards who are racing's equivalent of baseball's umpires.

LAUREL -- The results of a race run 15 months ago were overturned for a third time Monday when a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge ruled in favor of the Maryland stewards in the controversial Lady Winner case.Judge John G. Turnbull overturned the Maryland Racing Commission, which had voted to reverse the stewards, who had disqualified Lady Winner from first place in the Martha Washington Handicap, run Oct. 28, 1989 at Laurel Race Course.In his ruling, the judge said that to uphold the commission might render stewards' decisions "nothing more than a mere whistle stop prior to an appeal to the commission and would cause a never-ending flow of appeals to the commission."

Trainer Eddie Gaudet alleges that the Laurel stewards made a bad call on Sunday when they failed to disqualify the gelding Glenbarra in the Sir Ivor Stakes and he appealed the judges' decision yesterday to the Maryland Racing Commission.Gaudet originally claimed foul after Sunday's race, citing interference by Glenbarra against his runner, Polaris Star, in the stretch.Gaudet claims that Glenbarra's jockey, Mario Verge, "crashed" his way between horses, ripped a bandage off the hind leg of Polaris Star and could have caused Gaudet's horse serious injury en route to winning the race.

Chalk up a victory for Maryland's racetrack stewards who have, at times, had their judgment questioned, and occasionally overturned, by the Maryland Racing Commission.A circuit court judge has reinforced the stewards' power by stating, in a unique Maryland judicial ruling, that he agreed with previous opinions from similar cases in other jurisdictions that "the commission has no power or authority to upset a [stewards'] judgment call."The decision, made by Judge John Grason Turnbull II in Baltimore County Circuit Court, came after he reviewed an appeal lodged in a race 15 months ago that involved several horse racing celebrities.

Once in a while, reason prevails.The Maryland Racing Commission apparently has found a means to avoid the absolute insurer rule. The rule, upheld in court in recent years, has sent bewildered trainers to the sidelines for offenses they swore they had nothing to do with or were helpless to prevent.The commission gave preliminary approval last week for more discretionary powers to the stewards and judges (and to themselves in cases of appeal) in cases of drug and rules infractions. In lieu of hard-and-fast penalty schedules, the change, which would become effective in early 1992, will allow officials to take into account circumstances and the background of those involved before disciplining them.

A day after the lack of oversight at Maryland race tracks came to light in a hearing before the Maryland Racing Commission at Pimlico Race Course , the commission's executive director, Mike Hopkins, said steps are already being taken to improve the situation. One of the biggest issues in the hearing that resulted in upholding the disqualification of the Rick Dutrow Jr.-trained King and Crusader from the Dec. 17 Maryland Juvenile Championship at Laurel Park was the disregard for a regulation mandating slips for each horse being treated before a race to be reviewed by the stewards or their representatives within an hour of each race.

The owner of King and Crusader, the Rick Dutrow-trained horse that was disqualified last week after winning the $75,000 Maryland Juvenile, has appealed and filed a protest with the Maryland Racing Commission. "All they wanted to do at the stewards' hearing was blame Dutrow and the [veterinarians]," James Riccio said in a phone interview Tuesday. "I've filed the appeal and a complaint because the horse should have been scrutinized before the race. They didn't vet him. I'm supposed to get protection, too. I'm not looking to send my horse all the way to Laurel and run him for no reason.

Maryland's horse racing stewards have disqualified the Rick Dutrow-trained King and Crusader and from the Maryland Juvenile Championship and fined Dutrow $500, upholding the protest filed by the connections of the second-, third- and fourth-place finishers in the Dec. 17 race at Laurel Park. According to Maryland regulations, a horse may not be treated for anything within two hours of post time, and the stewards found King and Crusader had been treated within an hour of the race by licensed private veterinarian Brian Delp.

Albert Laurence "Larry" Bartlett II, a retired salesman who with his wife restored the historic Gittings-Baldwin House in Baltimore County, died Tuesday of heart failure at Genesis Cromwell Center in Parkville. The Baldwin resident was 85. The son of a dentist and a homemaker, Mr. Bartlett was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Clarksburg, W.Va., Shepherdstown, W.Va., and Columbus, Ga., where he graduated in 1944 from high school. He served in the Army Air Forces during the waning days of World War II and remained a reservist for the next two decades, attaining the rank of captain.

Jockeys Calvin Borel and Javier Castellano were fined a combined $7,500 for their altercation at the Breeders' Cup, Kentucky racing stewards said Sunday. Both riders escaped suspension for brawling in full view of the public and television cameras immediately after the opening race Friday but were fined for "conduct against the best interest of horse racing. " Borel, who had to be restrained by security guards after instigating the fight in the winner's circle, was fined the maximum amount of $5,000 while Castellano was docked $2,500.

When Nora O'Brien hosts guests at the secluded Victorian farmhouse she has painstakingly restored, friends have been known to carp about the deafening chorus of summertime tree frogs. "I've had dinner parties where people say, 'Can't you make them shut up?' " said the 49-year-old landscape company owner and mother of three. But she and dozens of other families across the state are willing to put up with such inconveniences. For them, living rent-free inside a Maryland state park outweighs getting chased by skunks, startled by snakes or clearing horse droppings from unpaved driveways that double as public riding trails.

Omar Klinger, a 30-year-old jockey from Laurel, was suspended from racing yesterday for 20 days after clutching a knife during an altercation with another jockey.The confrontation took place Sunday in the jockeys' room at Laurel Park. Klinger and fellow jockey Steve Hamilton, 23, began arguing after the second race over riding tactics, according to the Maryland Racing Commission stewards, who issued the suspension after a hearing yesterday at the Laurel horse track.They suspended Klinger yesterday through Aug. 4 for "being involved in a disturbance in the jockeys' room" and "being in possession of a deadly weapon."

LAUREL -- Arnold Heft took advantage yesterday of his experience as a National Basketball Association referee in making a pitch that appeared to help win a purse for one of his racehorses.Heft, 71, hasn't refereed since 1961. But when he began to talk about the need for consistency in making decisions, it fit perfectly with the thinking of six members of the Maryland Racing Commission who voted to reverse a stewards' decision and elevated Heft's horse, Tacoboy, from fifth to fourth in a race here Oct. 6.It was a unanimous decision by the commissioners, who studied videotapes of the fourth race.

William J. Passmore Sr., who during a 38-year career became known as the dean of Maryland-based jockeys and then worked as a racing steward for another two decades, died Thursday of complications from emphysema at his Millersville home. He was 76. Mr. Passmore was born in West Chester, Pa. His father, William L. Passmore, who was a noted steeplechase rider and trainer, worked for horse owner and breeder Bayard Sharp at his farm in the West Chester horse country. As a youth, Mr. Passmore broke yearlings, and rode his first mount, Minneapolis, at the old Jamaica Race Track in New York when he was 15 years old - one year before the legal age of 16. "Of course I remember the date.