No violations. Ky Racing Commission won’t bar Sheikh Mohammed and his Derby favorite.
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission is not going to take any action against the royal, multi-billionaire owner of this year’s Kentucky Derby favorite for allegedly kidnapping his daughter a few years ago.
In short, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum — ruler of Dubai, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates — and his Godolphin racing operation will be allowed to race the unbeaten Essential Quality, now at 2-1 odds. Officials told the Herald-Leader that the sheikh would not be in attendance on Saturday, (although there are plenty of VIP spots in Churchill Downs where he could go unseen).
A group of lawyers from the University of Louisville filed the complaint on Wednesday asking to have Sheikh Mohammed and his horses barred from Churchill Downs to protest his alleged treatment of his daughter, Princess Latifa, who is apparently being held against her will in Dubai after being seized on a boat off the coast of India in 2018 as she tried to escape. Another daughter, Princess Shamsa, tried to escape in England before being caught and has been little heard of since. In February, Princess Latifa released a video saying she feared for her life; last month the United Nations asked the Emirates for proof of life.
Los Angeles civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom, UofL law professor Sam Marcosson, and the U of L Human Rights Advocacy Project filed the same complaint in 2019, but the Racing Commission rejected it because it was based on press reports. This time, however, the lawyers had more concrete evidence — last year, a British court had found evidence of both kidnappings during wardship proceedings for Princess Haya, Sheikh’s Mohammed’s ex-wife, who was trying to keep her two children with the Sheikh in England.
But apparently, it was not enough.
“In consultation with counsel, and according to Kentucky regulations, the KHRC has determined the complaint does not articulate a violation of KHRC regulations,” was the brief statement issued by Executive Director Marc Guilfoyle on Thursday night.
On Thursday night, Marcosson called the decision “deeply wrong” and is “simply untenable in light of prior Commission decisions finding that it has the authority to bar individuals based on misconduct that is far less egregious than Sheikh Mohammed’s actions in kidnapping and holding his daughter, Princess Latifa, in violation of international law and human rights ... The message of today’s decision is that if someone is rich and powerful enough, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission will give them a free pass from enforcement of our law.”
Yes, yes, all that is true and yet somehow, you can be neither surprised nor disappointed. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, a mix of 15 political appointees and professional horse people, with, according to its web site, exactly ONE WOMAN MEMBER, is hardly known as a bastion of moral fortitude or political correctness on social justice issues. Kentucky’s racing poobahs decided only last year that it would no longer allow people to say racist things out loud and that yes, after 100 years, it really was time to figure out why Black people disappeared from the industry so completely. There are still only a handful of women trainers — just one, Victoria Oliver in this year’s Derby — and even fewer women jockeys. Keeneland just hired the first woman president in its history, and it’s not clear if a woman has ever been one of the three ruling trustees that oversee the Keeneland board.
Racing commissions are there to decide if they should overturn bans on popular trainers whose horses fail drug tests, not set geopolitical human rights agendas for Middle Eastern royals who sometimes want to be modern and Western and sometimes do not. It’s kind of hard to blame the KHRC or the British Horse Racing Authority, which is facing a similar conundrum, for not banning one of the richest and most successful owners either country has ever seen from spending his billions on breeding, racing and buying horses when he has never been found guilty in a court of law (and never will).
Yes, it will be awkward if Gov. Andy Beshear has to earnestly hand the Derby trophy to a man accused of ordering his henchmen to stuff his daughter in a car or tie another up on a boat, but certainly no worse than in 2019 when the winner was disqualified, which then-President Donald Trump declared was an act of political correctness.
And let’s face it, it’s a fascinating story, and the more it gets out, the more pressure there is on one of America’s most important Middle Eastern allies to move into, let’s say, the 19th century when it comes to treatment of women. And maybe for American racing to join the 20th. So if you object to racing’s lax standards on any of these social justice issues ( we haven’t started to talk about wages and benefits for backside workers), send a letter to your nearest friendly race track and let them know that racing still needs non-billionaires to watch it and bet on it, and you’d like to see them do just a little better.
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 7:27 AM.
