This needs to go on the record.

The disqualification in Saratoga's 10th and final race today of first place finisher Super Simple for alleged interference with runner-up Guacamole was, frankly, a shocking and indefensible call by the NYRA stewards.

Head on video shots showed Super Simple barely coming out late in the stretch drive and barely brushing Guacamole, and that was only because the badly tiring pacesetter was drifting out, leaving Super Simple no other option but to take the course she did.

In a vacuum, the disqualification of Super Simple would have been an extremely controversial call that would have been extremely difficult to defend.

However, these matters do not take place in a vacuum. In today's fifth race at Saratoga, Brimstone drifted out five, six or seven paths through the stretch run (depending on your definition on what a path is), herding Top of the Page. Top of the Page was challenging for the lead at the time he was carried out by Brimstone, but his efforts fell short and he eventually and narrowly lost second money.

The NYRA stewards let the result in the fifth race stand. That was controversial enough, but it wound up making their decision in the 10th race all the more mystifying.

These decisions - allowing the more eggregious infraction in the fifth race stand, yet disqualifying the far weaker incident in the 10th race - are the definition of stewards's inconsistency, which is more than merely maddening to the horseplayer, the game's most critical customer base.

As a horseplayer myself, radically inconsistent decisions from the stewards's stand like this one make me question whether I'm getting a fair shake battling a game that is tough enough as it is. Imagine how less inveterate horseplayers than I feel.

Stuff like this can literally drive people right out of the game. And that's bad. Really bad.