Hilariously, in a since-deleted Tweet, Donald Trump has now proclaimed himself an expert on the rules of horse racing. He’s got complaints about the decision of the stewards to disqualify the apparent winner of yesterday’s Kentucky Derby, The following Tweet was posted this morning:
The Kentuky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough and tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!
Note that he doesn’t even know how to spell the name of the state where he enjoyed one of his biggest winning margins. And what in the world does “political correctness” have to do with enforcing the rules of horse racing. I readily agree that I’m no expert on the rules of horse racing, but I’ve ridden some horses, which I expect is more than Donald Trump can say.
When we were watching the replays yesterday afternoon, I told my wife that if the rules were that a horse who interfered with any other horse should be disqualified, then the decision was clearly the correct one. But if disqualification takes place only if the horse that would otherwise be the winner interfered with the horse who would replace it as the winner, then the decision appeared to be incorrect. From what I’ve read this morning, the former is pretty much the rule, so even though the horses that clearly got interfered with ended up far back at the finish, and the ultimate winner was the lucky beneficiary of interference with other horses, the decision appears to be correct.
And it’s easy to understand why that would be the rule. When you look at the replays, there could easily have been one of the biggest tragedies in the history of horse racing. It’s amazing that the sudden move to the left didn’t cause at least one horse to fall, and with them being near the head of the pack, there could easily have been a chain reaction with numerous horses falling and having to be euthanized, and numerous jockeys being seriously injured — and all on national television. That’s the reason, despite how much Donald Trump apparently loves mayhem, the rules don’t encourage “rough and tumble” horse races.
But more importantly than whether the stewards got it right or wrong, what the hell is the President of the United States doing publicly second-guessing what was clearly THEIR decision to make? Like one of his most vociferous supporters that I know, Donald Trump is an ignoranus. And no, that’s not a typo or a misspelling. It's a word meaning somebody who is both ignorant and an ass.
But the fact that Donald Trump just couldn’t resist posting his Tweet says volumes about him. “Political correctness” is apparently anything that involves having rules and enforcing them. And Donald Trump obviously thinks that he is the fount of all wisdom about everything, and that the views of those with actual expertise in an area should be disregarded if they disagree with whatever he thinks. We’ve already seen that, but it’s stunning when he does it on something like a decision by racing stewards.