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SUSPENSION NO CURE _ An Editorial Willie Shoemakers unfortunate misjudgment of the finish line in the Kentucky Derby should not be interpreted by the Churchill Downs management as simply carelessness on the part of a jockey. Every race track in this country has a responsibility to do everything it can to prevent incidents of this type. If it can happen to Shoemaker it can happen to other jockeys, for Willie is one of our ablest and most intelligent riders. Churchill Downs should not adopt a stubborn attitude but should take measures to eliminate the possibility of future mistakes. It should begin by having the sixteenth poles marked differently than the furlong poles. There is no reason why Churchill Downs should be different from other tracks. Additionally, it should install a bulls-eye finish marker similar to that in use at all race tracks in England. In this issue, Daily Racing Form publishes a photograph of the stretch at Washington Park, near Chicago, which shows the bulls-eye marker at the finish. In our opinion, this should be adopted by every race track in America. Churchill Downs officials should not delude themselves into thinking that the suspension of Willie Shoemaker has solved the problem. In fact, this newspaper believes that Shoemaker has suffered enough and that suspending him was adding cruelty to tragedy. We agree with racing commissioner George I. Holmes of California when he says, "It is not the province of racing officials to penalize jockeys for honest mistakes."
