I don't believe the bump cost the 3 a better placing. If either closer nosed out the 3, there might have been a change. I think it was the right call.

If you compare racing to the NBA or the NFL, there are penalties or fouls on almost every play, but you can't call every penalty, you'd be there all day. NFL calls some holdings and lets some go, they can't call every single time there's a hold, a game would take 7 hours.

Little bumps and brushes happen all the time, racing is a contact sport, contact is bound to happen. Contact happens at the start of almost every race. Also, most contact happens when a horse doesn't see another horse. In this case, when the 9 went by the 3, she lugged in because there was nothing to her left side. So, in a way, the only reason the 3 got bumped is because she couldn't keep up. Do we want to 'reward' a horse for being too slow?

I see this stuff happen all the time at the gate. If a horse in the gate breaks just a touch slow, the two horses surrounding him break towards that vacant spot and the slow breaker, even if its slow by a hundredth of a second will get 'squeezed' back by the 2 horses on either side of him. But, that horse got squeezed because he didn't break out of the gate quick enough.

Do we want to reward that slow breaker by dq'ing two horses who sprung out of the gate on a dime? Many brushes and bumps happen because the bumped horse is usually getting outrun by a faster horse at the time.

In a borderline case like this, you really need to leave the result stand.