By T. D. Thornton
The bizarre incident at Parx racetrack Sept. 21, in which one jockey apparently urged his horse to a second-place finish after taking possession of a rival's whip, has been assigned an Oct. 9 hearing date before the track's board of stewards.
The hearing date–which will occur 18 days after the race in question–was confirmed on Thursday by Brandi Hunter-Davenport, the press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
In the fourth race Sept. 21, a bearing-out Interchange (Fairbanks), ridden by Angel Castillo, brushed with the tiring Distant Thoughts (Lemon Drop Kid), ridden by Pierre Hernandez-Ortega, causing Castillo to drop his whip.
As the pair approached the final furlong, Castillo, according to the Equibase chart, “reached over and grabbed Hernandez-Ortega's whip out of his hands.”
Interchange rallied to finish second at 7-2 odds, beaten three-quarters of a length. Distant Thoughts, the 8-5 favorite, faded to sixth.
The whip-snatching did not result in a disqualification. But Sept. 22, Walter Remmert, the acting executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission, told TDN that the two riders would be summoned to a stewards' hearing to determine if the transfer was an act of force or a complicit exchange.
Initially, Remmert said hearing notifications would be delivered to both jockeys by Sept. 23, and that the hearing would occur within 10 days.
Subsequent queries by TDN to confirm the hearing date were bounced from the Parx stewards to the PHRC to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Remmert did not return a voice message left on Wednesday inquiring about the reason for the delay in scheduling the hearing.
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