Dutrow, Due Process, and Denial
Steve Zorn on how NYRA could have denied trainer Rick Dutrow stalls:
As is generally known, race tracks have historically enjoyed a broad right to exclude persons from the track, as long as the grounds for exclusion weren’t illegal. The principle was blessed by no less than Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1913 US Supreme Court decision, Marrone v. Washington Jockey Club. Under Marrone, which still retains its legal vitality in many respects, most race track managements can do pretty much whatever they want in determining whether a patron (i.e., fan, bettor) can be barred from the track. In the case of licensees like trainers and jockeys, though, the track’s options are somewhat limited — though not so much that NYRA couldn’t act …
Unfortunately, reading Zorn, it sounds as though this is a lost opportunity. Essential to kicking Dutrow out would have been quick action — like when the NYSRWB handed down the trainer’s 10-year suspension last October.
