If you thought horse racing’s CAW drama couldn’t get any more embarrassing, buckle up. Pat Cummings hopped on Twitter and basically said, “Yeah… it’s actually worse than you think.”
This week, Cummings was invited to speak in front of the Model Rules Committee at the Association of Racing Commissioners International.
Big room. Big topics. The kind of place where the sport is supposed to pretend it has its act together.
Instead? Total clown show.
According to Cummings, things were going fine until ARCI Director Ed Martin tossed a softball to the head of the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau — you know, the group that’s supposed to oversee tote integrity and answer hard questions about CAWs, past-posting, and whether the tote system runs on dial-up.
Martin asks him if he wants to address some questions.
And the guy… declines.
He literally said nothing.
In a meeting about CAWs.
In front of regulators.
About transparency.
You cannot make this up.
Fuck my life.
Cummings said the room let out a collective gasp, and he immediately told the commission reps, “No disrespect… but not answering questions here IS part of the problem.” Absolute dagger.
And he’s right…how do you rebuild trust when the people in charge treat basic transparency like it’s a state secret?
He didn’t stop there. Cummings pointed out that the TRPB is a subsidiary of the TRA — meaning racetracks technically control the group that’s supposed to provide oversight.
And when official voices stay quiet, it just fuels every suspicion horseplayers already have: past posting, shady data access, tote vulnerabilities, hidden info, and CAWs firing with tools the public will never see.
His final message was basically: fans already think something sketchy is happening… and the silence from the people in charge is only proving them right.
This sport keeps insisting everything’s fine, but when the integrity guy ducks a transparency question in front of regulators?
Yeah. That’s how you lose the room.
And the bettors.
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