As you might imagine, this incident was a hot topic in KY this weekend, both before and after Ms. Wall's article in the Sun paper. Based on facts which should have been but were not included in the article, I'm not sure I would agree with what I assume is your position based on the title of your post.

The 1st-timer rule in KY is that in addition to a gate card a horse must have 3 "published works", one of which is a gate work, in order to start. In this particular case, the horse in fact did have the works, and the connections properly reported them to the clockers. The problem, as Ms. Wall indicates, resulted from the fact that the works were not reported in the drf & simulcast programs. While she aknowledges that the works were reported in the "program" sold at the track, what she fails to mention, & what those in attendance(which did not include the self-styled "Professor", a character worthy of a separate post) have confirmed is that the workouts were noted repeatedly over the loudspeaker at the track. What no one has addressed, & something I would think is central to the discussion, is whether the info was also communicated on the feed which goes to OTBs. Assuming it was, wasn't the info "published" in a manner which has been found to be sufficient in many instances of horses with similar names over the yrs? Given that the connections did everything they could to comply with the rules, I think it would have been very difficult to deny them the right to run their horse.

For some interesting observations re how works are reported, how to spot works which occur during the running of a race, & the author's view on what the "b" & "h" really represent, you might want to take a look at the free internet book at clockerbob.com

Putting aside the question of accuracy, my interest in this topic derives primarily from a longstanding belief that the interpretation of works is one of the biggest holes in the sheet player's game. To that end, I have unsuccessfully tried to provoke a discussion of the topic on this Bd. If you or someone else is game, perhaps a good starting place would be the very few sources which even address the subject.