Why did Maximum Security get disqualified at the Kentucky Derby?

Maximum Security’s disqualification was almost a first in Kentucky Derby history.

At the moment, it didn’t look like Maximum Security’s win in the Kentucky Derby was controversial. Sometimes a close race comes down to what’s called a photo finish, where essentially a photo is taken just as the horses cross the finish line.

This wasn’t like that.

Maximum Security was a few lengths clear of his closest opponent, so there was no need to look closely at the wire. But before the wire (a fair amount before it) problems came up. In addition to the final photo, tape from a race is analyzed to determine that the winning horse didn’t interfere with the others in a dramatic way. That’s where Maximum Security got into trouble.

Going around the final turn Maximum Security had the lead on the rail. But rather than continuing on his way, he drifted out towards the center of the track, taking several of the other horses with him. In a race, you really want to be along the rail because that’s where the distance of the race is measured from. In the Kentucky Derby, that’s 1 1/4 miles. A horse running five wide (meaning five tracks out form the rail) the whole way will end up running a significantly longer distance than a horse running on the rail. In a race like the Kentucky Derby, which in part tests the stamina of the horses running, that can be significant. Also being pushed out by Maximum Security would have disrupted the other horse’s (in this case Country House’s) concentration and potentially his balance. The horses are elite athletes moving at top speed. Being pushed out of position will break their rhythm, and compromise their finishing. Often officials allow for a little jostling during a race, an admission that the horses aren’t machines and often just don’t track completely straight, but the contact, in this case, was ruled excessive.

After the race was run, Jockey Flavien Prat (Country House’s jockey) lodged an objection with the officials. What followed was an extensive 20-minute video review and the subsequent disqualification of Maximum Security. The final finishing order looked like:

1. Country House
2. Code of Honor
3. Tacitus
4. Improbable

The general opinion afterward was that this was an unprecedented action. The results of smaller races are changed/policed regularly, but a race as big, and in the public eye as much, as the Derby? Never before. The problem, of course, is that it has happened before. And if you thought the 20 minute review for the 2019 Derby was excruciating, it was nothing compared to the first time it happened.

In 1968, a horse named Dancer’s Image crossed the wire at Churchill Downs in first place, Similar to this years race, the result wasn’t obviously questionable. In that race, the issue was not the horses trip during the race itself, but the trainers (or owners) use of illegal drugs (for the horse.) After each race, the winner is taken and tested for illicit substances (performance enhancing or otherwise.) Most horses, especially those in a race as bug as the Kentucky Derby, come back clean. But not all of them. The 1968 Derby actually took more than 5 years before the results were finalized. To be fair, a bad trip is much easier to analyze than a drug test, be glad things happen much more quickly now.