Maximum Security Jockey Suspended After Kentucky Derby DQ

Kentucky Derby / Facebook, Darwin Vizcaya / Twitter

Thousands of people around the country watched the Number 7 horse, Maximum Security, cross the Kentucky Derby finish line first on May 4 by 1 3/4 lengths. He had 9-2 odds of winning, and was a pre-race favorite to win the whole thing.

People who bet on Maximum Security to win, place, or show were ecstatic when the race came to a close! If some of them were like us, they probably left whatever Kentucky Derby viewing party they were at feeling like a winner.

That feeling vanished pretty quickly. 

Minutes after the race finished, two jockeys filed objections saying Maximum Security and its jockey Luis Saez, impeded their paths, as well as several other horses. Race stewards quickly took it under review and determined that their claims were valid, forcing them to disqualify Maximum Security. This was the very first time a winning horse was disqualified from the Kentucky Derby for interference.

The second place horse, long-shot Country House, got bumped to first place. At 65-1 odds, he is the second-biggest long-shot to ever win the Kentucky Derby.

Many news sites had to issue corrections on articles that had been published, including The Washington Post.

Maximum Security’s owner filed an appeal to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and it was ultimately denied. He told Fox News he filed the appeal because “rules were not appropriately applied.”

West said last week that he will “file a lawsuit in the appropriate jurisdiction,” according to Fox News.

Now, a week after West is threatening to sue, Kentucky racing stewards have issued a ruling against Saez for his disqualifying Kentucky Derby ride. They suspended him for 15 racing days, from May 23 through June 14, for “failure to control his mount and make the proper effort to maintain a straight course thereby causing interference with several rivals that resulted in the disqualification of his mount.”

You can read the entire official ruling here.

On Friday, Saez’s attorney gave the stewards a video replay of the race, hoping to prove that the jockey and his horse were forced to veer into the path of other horses because of the horse War of Will.

Watch the video Saez’s lawyer submitted below.