The disqualification of the winner of the Kentucky Derby — Maximum Security — in favor of a slower steed, Country House, may be a first for the Run for the Roses. It is also, at least in our opinion, a shocking error of judgment. It will be talked about until the end of equines. All the more so because it is already being lit up on the Internet as a metaphor for our national political crisis.

The events happened toward the final turn on a sloppy track in lousy weather (at roughly the 2:05 minute mark in this video). Maximum Security, with jockey Luis Saez hanging on for dear life, had been leading the whole race. Country House, with Flavien Plat aboard, was slightly back on the outside. Suddenly, Plat would complain, Maximum Security, cut into the lane to his right and, as the New York Post put it, “forced several horses to steady.”

It’s unclear as to why that happened. “The horse, he got scared,” Mr. Saez said, referring to the noise of the crowd and noting that the steed was “just a baby.” One of the announcers suggested that Maximum was trying to avoid a puddle in the track. Maximum, in any event, promptly ducked back into his lane. He clearly would have won the race one way or another.

Yet various accounts had it that another nag, War of Will, almost clipped heels with Maximum Security. That could have ended in catastrophe. Could have, but didn’t. Country House blew by the wreck that failed to happen — yet couldn’t catch up with Maximum Security, who hurtled over the finish line well in front. We’d have let him keep his well-earned win, despite our notorious partiality to long shots.

The test for us, if only us, is intent — and who, man or horse, was doing the intending. All can see Maximum Security move to the right. It’s much harder to discern intent. It didn’t look like an intentional move, by either man or beast. It didn’t affect the number two horse, Country House, who went off at something like 65 to 1. And it was nothing like the shocker last year when Justify won the Triple Crown at Belmont.

That’s when Restoring Hope rode up beside his front-running stable mate, Justify, and then cut to the left so as to pin on the rail a competitor, Bravazo, who was giving Justify a run. It’s hard to view that as the innocent, skittish swerve that Maximum Security made this evening. It certainly seemed to us as if Restoring Hope was trying to protect his team-mate. There were no consequences at the Belmont.

What do you know but the infraction that cost Maximum Security the Roses at Churchill Downs was “obstruction.” It took the Internet about a nanosecond to start metaphoring it to the 2016 election and related controversies. “Country House won the popular vote,” is the way Josh Baro put it in a tweet. If America ran its elections the way the Derby is run, Hillary Clinton would be declared president. Another reason we’re sticking with Maximum Security.