Joe Gorajec was somewhat unceremoniously fired last Saturday by the Indiana Horse Racing Commission. The reason was ostensibly that he spent too much time on enforcement and too little time on marketing the sport. Although under Gorajec Indiana racing had been suffering decreases in handle, some racing fans asked if it was really Gorajec’s job to be the marketing center for the sport, much less his fault that things were not booming.
I don’t know how much responsibility Gorajec should have been assigned for marketing, but I know he was responsible for making a lot of horsemen unhappy. I’ve had more than one trainer tell me they are scared to death about racing in Indiana, and one of the more prominent owners, Maggie Moss, swore off Indiana racing while Gorajec was at the helm. If you want to argue Gorajec’s job often put him at odds with the horsemen, well sure. You can’t fine and suspend people without occasionally creating a little animosity. But it is also the case that most horsemen would have been fine with Gorajec doing his job as long as they believed he was fair and honest. We understand that cops have a tough job, but we draw the line at shooting first and asking questions later. The depth and breadth of the animus toward Gorajec was too great to pass it off simply as sour grapes from people who deserved what they got.
Frankly, I think the reason given by the IHRC had the ring of a politician who says he is resigning to spend more time with his family. Clearly, Gorejec engendered reactions on the opposite ends of the spectrum. People seemed to support him or revile him, but rarely was someone apathetic about him. To many horseplayers Gorajec’s enthusiasm for enforcement was a model for all other jurisdictions. Gorajec almost always made sure Indiana was on the leading edge of drug and medication standards. His recommended punishments were rarely just slaps on the wrist.
I will admit my bias against Goraject. I had simply heard too many stories of Gorajec being arbitrary, vindictive, and making up his mind before all the evidence was in. Gorajec made myriad enemies, especially among the harness racing crowd, Having worked for high-level politicians most of my working career, I can tell you there are three critical rules.
- Make sure the politician gets the credit when the news is good, and doesn’t look bad when the news is bad, followed closely by rule two;
- You aren’t the star so don’t act like you are;
- Remember if the politician’s friends and supporters are pissed off at you, it may be the politician who pays. In other words, if the gang says you are a problem for them and they will make the politician the target of their ire, you become completely expendable.
Gorajec violated at least two the the three. More than that, it seemed like perhaps Gorajec’s prime objective was making sure Joe Gorajec got star billing in Indiana.
Whichever politicians may or may not have been getting gored, someone sent the word down to ex-state senator Thomas Weatherwax, chairman of the IHRC, that Joe had to go.
And it doesn’t matter how pure Joe’s motives might have been. If you want to survive, remember there are people from whom you need unqualified support. Gorajec made two classic mistakes. First, he asked for absolute power and control over all aspects of racing and breeding. Great when everything is going great. But much like football coaches who do the same thing, when things go badly there is only one place to point the finger. For example, Indiana breeders believed Gorajec and his policies led to significant economic loss and they made sure anyone who asked knew that. Second, he thought his righteous reputation as one of racing’s toughest regulators would insulate him against all attacks. He had assumed his record of executing scofflaws and upgrading the integrity of racing would be the single most important consideration when he was attacked. After all, what do racing fans constantly complain about? Serial violators who never get more than a slap on the wrist. Business as usual at the track. That wasn’t going to happen on Joe Gorajec’s watch.
The Gorajec supporters will see this as a clear message that the people who control racing don’t have the stomach to enforce the standards and punish the wrongdoers. It will be seen by supporters as a message to other zealous regulators that they better think twice about taking a Gorajec-like approach to enforcement. The Gorajec acolytes will not be convinced that this was anything more than horsemen who got caught blaming the cop who caught them.
I think the truth is that this was nothing less than a repudiation of Gorajec. Much like Torquemada, whose name has become synonymous with over-zealous enforcement and ignoring rights, Gorajec believed his crusade justified causing those people who may have deserved a tempered justice to lose their livelihoods and have their careers maimed right along with the clear felons. He could not, or would not, differentiate between the fool and the heretic, and so a very narrow range of harsh sentences could fit far too many crimes.
The only people who escaped were the ones that turned snitch. Many horsemen saw this as Gorajec being arbitrary, but perhaps worse than that, the culture of turning horsemen, vets, grooms, and jockeys against each other made the backside a poisonous place.
Arguments between the Gorajec supporters and the Gorajec haters are of little use. One side is unlikely to convince the other. Whether his dismissal is good for Indiana racing will be learned soon enough. What may be clearer is that for whatever reason, his firing was necessary.
Great judges understand when to dispense harsh justice and when to temper their judgment. Without knowing anything more than Joe Gorajec got fired I would question his skills as an administrator. He misunderstood the politics, he did not recognize his true friends and his enemies, but most of all he forgot the original Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or as was said in James 2
Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.