Marshall Gramm Cheated Horse Racing And He's Accepted A Provisional Suspension, But Horseplayers And Horse Racing Deserve the Full Truth

We had Spygate. 

There was Deflategate. 

Wiki says there was something called Napgate, but I don't remember it. I guess in May 2010, Ken Griffey Jr. fell asleep in the clubhouse, according to two teammates. From the ESPN story at the time

"He was asleep in the clubhouse," one player told the Tribune. "He'd gone back about the fifth inning to get a jacket and didn't come back. I went back in about the seventh inning -- and he was in his chair, sound asleep."

The second player, who is reported to know Griffey better, claims the scuffling slugger has had difficulty sleeping at home.

"He doesn't sleep well at night, he's away from his family, he's comfortable in the clubhouse," he told the Tribune. "They could have awakened him."

I'm a little older than Griffey was in 2010. And hand up, if it's after like 9 PM and I lay down and go horizontal to watch a game, it's a 50/50 shot I fall asleep. Maybe 60/40. I get it. Getting old fucking sucks. Don't get old. 

Anyway, thanks to The Paulick Report, horse racing's latest scandal has its own 'gate,' GrammGate. 

Horse owner, handicapper, college professor, and Jockey Club Member Marshall Gramm knowingly accessed private vet information for horses that were not his. He found a loophole, and instead of alerting anyone and helping close it, he used AI to access 4 million records. As a horse owner and handicapper, he had access to information others did not.

Simply put, he cheated. 

Grammgate. It's bad, for a lot of reasons. 

On Monday, Gramm accepted a provisional suspension from HISA, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which is a private, self-regulatory organization created to establish uniform national rules for Thoroughbred racing in the United States. Gramm accessed their records. This is important. 

As part of the provisional suspension, Gramm has to give up the horses in his Ten Strike ownership group. He has agreed to return any contest winnings he had during the six-week window HISA says he has access to the vet records. He'll do the same with purse money from races won by his Ten Strike horses. The NTRA, which runs the NHC (National Horseplayers Championship), has stripped him of NHC membership for now. And he's barred from playing in the 2027 NHC. If they'd like to award me his seat, I'd be okay with that. Just sayin'. 

Oh, and he can't go to a racetrack during this suspension, and HISA could still move forward with more charges. 

Great. You can find all these news items on various websites and blogs on Tuesday. 

These sanctions against Gramm are fine, but let me speak for 99% of horseplayers - not enough.

But what about this? ⬆️⬆️

Last week, horse owner and Rico Bosco's friend Mike Repole offered to fund a fully independent, third-party investigation into how this breach happened in the first place. Find out what The Jockey Club (another supposedly important racing entity) knew about one of their members accessing this private information. 

Listen, I'm not an owner. 

I don't work in the industry. 

I'm a horseplayer. A proud horse player. 

I bet on horses Three or four four or fimes a week. I've bet horses at weddings. In bathrooms. At six or seven tracks. I watch replays. I make trip notes. I just bought an iPad just for handicapping. I have a watch list of horses I want to bet back next time. I have multiple group texts with friends that I know almost JUST from horse racing. I've planned my vacations around racing. I love race trackers. This week I'll spend most of my time in the greatest place on earth, Saratoga Springs, NY, because of racing. It's gotten tougher to love, but I love the game. 

I say all of that to say that as horseplayers, we don't have enough info on this. And I don't trust HISA to be 100% honest with their own investigation. 

Horse racing is super protective of itself. As one racing insider told me this spring, "The thing racing is most afraid of is bad PR." Are they going to be honest about - 

- How long Gramm had actually had access to these records? 

- Who he sent his info along to? 

- Did other people have their own access? Like, all Gramm did was change a character on a URL to get this info; it's not rocket science. Could other people have had this? 

These are a few questions that, if the answers make HISA and racing look bad, they might not want to answer 100% honestly to horseplayers like me. There's serious CYA potential here. 

Racing is a betting sport. Without the bettors, these horses are out running in meadows for fancy ribbons. Without us, there are no $1 million purses or massive TV contracts. You owe it to the bettors to get all of the information from this investigation out there. 

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The other day, a horse won a race with a jockey basically no one knew was riding him. When people are betting hard-earned money on the races, that's a big deal. 

And so is this. We need to know how deep this breach went, and I don't trust HISA to be completely honest. To be completely honest. I think if they're running the deep dive on this, we'll get a sanitized, protective set of answers. 

We need them to take Repole up on his offer. Or announce they've hired their own outside firm to do their own third-party, independent investigation. 

I'm worried this is worse than just one guy getting access. And I'm worried we'll never get an honest answer without a third-party review. The sport - and horseplayers - deserve it. 

Grammgate should not be the end of the investigation, but just the beginning.