FORT ERIE, Ont. — A weird thing happened at the Fort Erie Race Track while the Happy

Handicapper was trying to pick winners last Tuesday.

About 20 minutes before the third race, it was announced that No. 7, Moondrifter, would be

a late scratch, as ordered by the stewards. Also announced were stewards' scratches of No. 8,

Armored, in the fourth race; No. 2, Fast Kisser in the fifth, and so forth. One horse was

eliminated per race for the last seven races on the card.

As the H.H. marked his program he realized something was amiss. Not only are so many such

late scratches unusual, but all the eliminated horses were scheduled to be ridden by the

Fort's leading jockey, Krista Carignan (pronounced "Carrigan" with the first "n" silent).

Sometimes it happens that a jockey gets sick or injured or has some emergency and has to

book off for the day. But usually substitute riders are found and the show goes on. But in all

the years the H.H. has been race track gambling, he has never seen all the horses under one

jockey tossed out of their races because no substitute jockeys could be found.

While neither track announcer Peter Kyte nor in-house TV handicapper Elissa Blowe offered

an explanation to the customers, a little eavesdropping and questioning around the paddock

area revealed that a controversial situation that has been simmering all season had finally

reached a boil.

The jockeys, long irritated by what they consider unreasonable over-enforcement of new

rules about whipping, staged a mini-boycott after Carignan was suspended, less than a half-

hour before first-race post time, for a violation she had committed two days earlier.

Some background: Last year, in an apparent effort to stave off criticism that racing

involves cruelty to animals, the Ontario Racing Commission — which regulates the

thoroughbred sport at Fort Erie and Woodbine in Toronto — introduced a new "light touch"

whip (officially called a "humane or cushion riding crop") with a padded "popper" made of

foam, and wrote new rules about what jockeys could do with it.

Among other things, riders may not "raise their hand(s) above their shoulder" and may not

hit a horse "more than three times in a row without giving the horse time to respond before it

may be used again."

For some jockeys, these rules have taken some costly getting used to, especially the above-

the-shoulder thing.

Robbie King, former Fort Erie riding champion who now is national manager of the Jockeys'

Benefit Association of Canada, said the Fort Erie jockeys "feel they are being badgered with

the whip rule."

He said there have been about 18 whip-infraction rulings this year involving jockeys

including Carignan, David Garcia, Sunny Singh, Anthony Stephen, Cory Spataro and others.

The ORC's schedule of penalties for "inappropriate urging of the horse" calls for a $200

fine for the first offense, a $300 fine and a one-day suspension for the second offense, a

$500 fine and a three-day suspension the third time and, for the fourth offense, an

"immediate" suspension.

Which brings us back to Tuesday's incidents.

King said a ruling came down shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday that Carignan had committed her

fourth offense by raising the whip above her shoulder while she rode a horse in last Sunday's

first race.

According to the rules, that warranted an "immediate" suspension, (as in right now, not

tomorrow) which took Carignan off all seven horses she had been contracted to ride. There was

no allowance for her to finish the program and start her suspension the next day.

The situation created howls from trainers and owners whose horses were scratched.

"Potentially it cost me $8,000," said Jennifer Davis, trainer and co-owner of Hennesy Moon,

a 7-year-old gelding scratched from the eighth race. "If he'd won, the purse is just shy of

$8,000 and he's an Ontario-bred so I would have had the bonuses and all that. ... Krista had

ridden him before, that's why she was on him."

"There's a lot of preparation that goes into it. It's not even the money," added Kimberly

Dobson, owner/trainer of Armored, a fourth-race scratch. "It's feeding them and training them

and galloping them to get prepared for a race. ... You don't scratch horses the day of the

race."

"We're trying to get our track out there. We're trying to get other people to pick it up

[on simulcasts]. How can you sell your product when horses are getting scratched the day of

the race? You want the fullest fields you can get," Dobson said.

"I don't think the riders should have done that. I think it was a bad call," Dobson said.

Davis said "I understand what [the jockeys] were doing. I think potentially it was the

wrong move at the time. It hurts us [trainers] ... I think there were other options."

Carignan and veteran jockey Regina Sealock disagreed.

"It wasn't a rash decision, but the riders felt they had to do something," Carignan said.

"We were very sorry for the trainers and the owners that were affected by it because I know

how much work and time they put into their horses getting them to the races," Sealock said.

"But we were kind of out of options on how to be heard. It was kind of a last resort.

"Everybody said, "Well, if the commission chooses to take this girl off a half an hour before

post time, then it's on their heads. Because it's not our obligation. We all fulfilled our

obligations and commitments.' "

Interpretation of the over-the-shoulder rule seems to be the main issue.

"Anthony Stephen got $500 and three days just for changing hands," Davis said.

"When he switched his whip [from one hand to another] it went over his head," Dobson said.

"It's a 30-inch stick. When you're bent over riding at 30 miles per hour you can't be

thinking "Am I two inches over my shoulder? I better look,' " Davis added.

"It's a judgment call. Like judging figure skating," said Carignan, who was reinstated

after the ORC reviewed her record and decided she had committed just three, not four,

"improper urging" infractions.

"The punishment is so severe, we feel it's just not good," Sealock said. "With the light

touch whips, and the restrictions on the amount of times that we can hit, that rule really

becomes a style question more than anything. And to be that severely punished is not right.

And we all pretty much feel like that."