Anyone who had made a win bet on Trounce in the seventh race on December 29th at Aqueduct made an astute and correct wager. Under apprentice Lorenzo Lezcano, the horse crossed the wire 4 1/4 lengths in front of Arromanches in a race that was simply no contest, validating the opinion of thousands of bettors who played the favorite. But Trounce's backers never got paid. Instead, Trounce was disqualified for interference after committing a foul that had no bearing on the outcome of the race. Thousands of horseplayers were left with worthless tickets.

Handicappers have come to accept that life at the racetrack is unfair and that tough beats are part of the game. But anyone who bet to win on Trounce that day was unnecessarily shafted, and it happens all the time.

The horse clearly fouled Arromanches, cutting him off at the eighth-pole when bearing in under Lezcano, but it was an irrelevant infraction. At the time, Trounce had a full head of steam and was in the process of passing a tired Arromanches as if he were tied to the furlong marker. Arromanches was not going to win, period. (In a footnote to the story, the remarkable Arromanches was credited with his ninth straight win thanks to the disqualification).

The NYRA stewards apparently didn't take that fact into account, which wasn't that surprising. There are few hard and fast rules about how to adjudicate a foul claim. New York State Racing and Wagering Board regulations do stipulate that: "a horse crossing another so as to actually impede him is disqualified, unless the impeded horse was partially in fault..." Usually, though, when a horse commits an obvious foul it comes down. Stewards rarely seem to take into account whether or not the foul affected the outcome of the race.

"The horses almost clipped heels, "NYRA steward Dave Hicks said. "We had to use our judgment on that. Could (Arromanches) have been any closer? No one really knows that. We try not to take the number down if the horse was much the best, but he stopped that other horse so badly it was difficult to overlook."

Lezcano was handed a 10-day suspension for careless riding, which he has appealed.

It happens all the time, in everything from claiming races like the one that featured Arromanches and Trounce to the biggest races on the calendar. The great Dr. Fager won the 1967 Jersey Derby in a common gallop, crossing the wire 6 ½ lengths in front. The 3-10 favorite, he was disqualified and placed last for crowding other horses on the first turn.

"Usually, in our judgment, if there was an infraction we take the number down," said Gulfstream steward Walter Blum. "If you try to figure out whether or not the horse who got bothered was going to finish in the money or not you're playing God and we don't like to do that."

Understood. But stewards need to allow some simple common sense into the equation, which would better serve the gamblers. Why should the bettors have to pay a price when the only culprit is a jockey guilty of making a mistake?

There is another way. When a horse is clearly dominant but bothers another horse, go ahead and punish someone, but not the bettors. Suspend the jockey. You might even want to take away the purse from the horse. For betting purposes, leave the race as is. Make up an entirely new classification of disqualification. Call it a Second Tier-DQ, or something like that, and make it standard procedure at every track in North America.

Actually, it's happened in the past. In 1994, Calder stewards gave jockey Herb Castillo Jr. a suspension for careless riding, but did not disqualify his horse, who was the easiest sort of winner. That ruling made particular sense because the horse he bothered finished back in the pack and would not have finished in the money with a perfect trip.

"You have to use your judgment and common sense," said Hicks, who was then a steward at Calder. "In that case in Florida we left the number up but gave the jockey days. There was no question about the foul, but we thought the foul didn't affect the outcome of the race."

Amazingly, Hicks and crew took a lot of heat for doing the right thing. The story was splashed all over the front page of the Daily Racing Form. George Gianos, who trained the bothered horse, Pidgeon's Ability, who was not moved up after finishing sixth, told the Form: "Who is to say if my horse hadn't been whacked sideways he couldn't have finished in a money position. I think this thing sets a bad precedent."

Actually, it should have set a very good precedent, but it didn't. All these years later, Castillo's case remains an anomaly. It's time to rethink the issue.