Racing has a void at the top

In most sports, when things go badly, as they often have the last few years in horse racing, they fire the person in charge.

That person is safe in horse racing. He or she doesn't exist.

It is a sport without a rudder, an asylum run by the inmates.

Not that they haven't tried.

In January 1994, racing appointed a man named Brian McGrath as head of the Thoroughbred Racing Assn. He was supposed to be the czar of the sport, even though he knew little about it. He was there to market and brand and get more TV exposure.

He lasted 17 months.

Then, coming on the scene in 1998 was Tim Smith, who had worked for the Atlanta Olympic Committee, as well as in politics in the Carter Administration and with the PGA Tour. He was smart and personable and became the head of the NTRA, which had added the word National to its title.

"We even called him the commissioner," said R.D. Hubbard, former owner of Hollywood Park and current member of the 13-person Breeders' Cup board of directors.

Smith resigned in 2004.

Hubbard said that that didn't work because, despite the NTRA's important-sounding title, it does not have the authority to run a sport whose real authority, because of things such as wagering and rules on medication, comes from the states.

"Having a commissioner just doesn't work," Hubbard said. "It's pie in the sky."

So, two weeks after Eight Belles broke down at the Kentucky Derby and was immediately euthanized, sparking instant outrage, soul-searching and not a little defensiveness, the sport can agree only that it has no central power and can't even agree on whether that matters.

Ron Charles, president of Santa Anita and chief operating officer of powerful Magna Entertainment, the track's owner, said, "Our rules are now all over the place."

Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the California Horse Racing Board, when asked about the concept of a true commissioner, said: "We need one."

Trainer Richard Mandella said: "Great idea, but who do you get? It would have to be someone independent of any special interest group. Someone who could bring everybody together."

Maybe the idea of longtime racing secretary Tom Knust has credence.

"We need a dictator," he said.

Then there is the plan of Bob Baffert, one of the winningest trainers in the sport.