I was reading about the alleged rape at the University of Virginia in which the members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity were accused of staging a gang rape initiation ritual. The story appeared in Rolling Stone and the outrage that emanated after the publication was no surprise. There is inevitably a rush to judgment in such cases, and the fraternity paid by having their house trashed, windows broken, and being forced to move to hotels. Pretty much the same thing that happened to the Duke Lacrosse team. Considering the non-stop media coverage of the Rolling Stone story and the vitriol spewed on social media sites, the guilt of the frat boys was a forgone conclusion.

The only problem was none of it was true. The members of Phi Kappa Psi realized within 24 hours of the story being published that not only were they innocent of the alleged charge, the incident never occurred. At that point, the fraternity decided to not say a word for fear of making things more difficult. They shut-up and took a public pounding. Much of the credit for exposing the fraud goes to T. Rees Shapiro from the Washington Post, who did what Rolling Stone did not – finally talked to the fraternity members. Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the Rolling Stone reporter, blithely ruined the lives of innocent people in the name of sensationalizing what may be a legitimate problem, just not in this case.

We’ve all watched old Westerns where a mob insists on instant justice for someone accused of a crime. We’ve read and seen real pictures of black people who were lynched in the 20th century. Lately we’ve watched video of groups like ISIS beheading hostages guilty of little more than not being a zealot bent on ruling the world. In each of those cases the vast majority of us are repulsed, and immediately see the wrongness of pronouncing someone guilty before knowing all the facts or because they are in some way different. We know mob justice is wrong, but sometimes we are helpless to stop ourselves against the tidal wave of public opinion. If you were one of the people who thought Phi Kappa Psi deserved to be stoned the day after the story came out, you might be feeling, at the least, sheepish. Given an opportunity, the system would have properly investigated the allegations, found the facts, and meted out any punishment. Unfortunately, the only crime in this case was committed by the fake victim and the reporter who didn’t do her job.

Yet in horseracing we are often quick to rush to judgment when it comes to trainers. David Jacobson generates such enmity that over a thousand people signed a petition asking that he be thrown out of New York. Jacobson was suspended in 1981 for failing to provide a horse named Hugable Tom with proper care and was kept out of racing until 2007. Since he has been back he has been the poster child for everything wrong with racing. The petition cites his three medication violations for phenylbutazone and clenbuterol and his numerous fines for “failing to conduct business in a proper manner.” Let me tell you, the list of transgressions meriting a fine by the stewards is almost endless and I’ve previously mentioned things like a male stablehand being fined $50 for using the ladies bathroom because, in his mind, the men’s facility was disgusting. The fine would have been higher except he did remember to put the seat down when he was finished.

Jacobson’s heinous instances of failing to conduct business are usually not specified by New York, but in one case necessitated the scratch of his horse resulting in the cancellation of a race (at the winter meet at AQU by the way). That’s right, it was Jacobson’s fault that AQU had to cancel a race. His other offenses included things like

• not having the proper colors for his horse in the paddock;
• not having the proper foal papers;
• using an unauthorized blinker;
• a turf shoe violation.

He also ran a horse in Pennsylvania in violation of New York state racing rules. Figure that one out.

Oh, and his drug violations for clenbuterol and phenylbutazone – they occurred in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland, not New York. That’s right, he hasn’t violated New York’s medication standards since 2007. In a subsequent piece I’m going to go into great detail about the failures of laboratory testing and how the results are misued by racing commissions.

The petition also cites five horse deaths as the final nails in Jacobson’s coffin. However, not once does it mention the evidence that the deaths of these horses was clearly a result of Jacobson’s negligence. They died, Jacobson was the trainer, he needs to be ruled off the track.

So what has the New York State Gaming Commission figured out? Well they haven’t figured out what medications he is abusing. They haven’t figured out how Jacobson was culpable in the racetrack deaths of his horses. And believe me, New York has looked at Jacobson the way CSI looks at evidence. In fact, the most New York has on Jacobson is that he is guilty of the equivalent of a series of parking tickets in that state.

Am I defending Jacobson? I am defending his right to due process. I am defending his right to be judged on the facts of his transgressions and the severity of the violations by a proper authority, not a mob of people hopped up on their own righteousness. He may be innocent or guilty, but there is a right way to go about proving that.

Jacobson is not a sympathetic figure. His father, Buddy Jacobson, was famously quoted as seeing horses as nothing more than machines, a way to make his living. He felt no great attachment to them in the way many horse lovers do. While David has been circumspect enough to not express the same negative feelings toward the animals, he is stained with the unavoidable problem of being Buddy’s son. New York never forgave Buddy Jacobson for leading the nine-day strike by stable workers, and it is not a stretch to suggest some folks still carry a grudge. Jacobson does seem to run his horses at short intervals, and to many who are not licensed trainers that is all the proof they need to label Jacobson as abusive. Ignore the fact that the horses are checked by the state vet before being allowed to start. The state apparently shares no culpability in the mind of the mob. New York dealt with trainers like Jacobson by installing a 14-day rest rule for the AQU winter meeting. That wasn’t enough for the mob. Nothing short of the death penalty will be punishment enough.

Do you know how much pressure there is on trainers, especially those with sizable stables, to fill out fields at AQU in the winter? Do you know about the bartering that goes on between the racing secretary and the trainers? Enter Horse A over here, and I’ll write a race for Horse B. As much as New York may dislike trainers like Jacobson, they need them to run a successful meet.

If the mob had petitioned NYRA for a proper investigation and hearing, fine. If the mob had asked for a public meeting to discuss Jacobson, fine. Frankly, I’m tired of those who may even sincerely believe they are the defenders of the sport calling for summary justice against those they have convicted in their minds. You aren’t helping by singling out trainers. You are reinforcing the notion that cheaters abound in racing. You provide the cynics and the haters with one more reason to oppose the sport. Do it the right way. Investigate cases. Find the evidence racing commissions have ignored.

If Jacobson is abusing horses, running them when he knows they are hurt, or improperly medicating them, I am going to be the first to call for racing to deal with him. Just show me the incontrovertible evidence. But until then, my focus will be on the fairness and competency of the racing commissions, many of which hide behind the absolute insurers rule and do ridiculously poor investigations. I will not be part of the mob who follows the ironic dictum of Sheriff Cobb in the movie Silverado.

“We’ll give him a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging.”