Following a review by track officials, the Charles Town Board of Stewards, and Equibase, the official fractions and final time for the $1,500,000 Charles Town Classic (gr. II) have been amended.
Won by Game on Dude by half a length over Clubhouse Ride with Ron the Greek a nose back in third, the April 20 timing of the event was called into question with the matter reviewed by all parties the morning of April 23.
The most likely reason for the original timing was the inadvertent tripping of one of the timing beams by an outrider's pony. A decision was made to re-time the entire race by hand before arriving at what was believed to be the most accurate clocking.
As a result, the official fractions for the race will be recorded as :24.12, :47.43, 1:11.32, and 1:37.10, with a final time of 1:49.93 for the 1 1/8-mile dirt event. The originally reported final time was 1:52.27.
The new clocking of 1:49.93 stands just .07 seconds off the Charles Town Classic stakes record and .17 seconds off the track record for 1 1/8 miles, both held by Researcher.
"The important thing is that the timing has ultimately been recorded correctly without much of a delay," said Charles Town's Vice President of Racing Operations Erich Zimny. "We obviously would have preferred it to be accurate the first time, but the issue was identified and corrected as soon as it could have been."
