Ask The Experts

You really ought to invest in the NY Times, if you\'d read this week, you\'d know what I was talking about.

Smoking fast 1:38 mile...

I\'m done I think, not one horse could run with him in a mile in 1:38? Not one?

I know, I know, track variant, raw times, but the horse has 1:37 median mile, from 6 races, 4 tracks, 3 states, and two surface conditions, and Bolt was destroyed by a 1:33 mile, and came home in...about 1:38. At some point, 1:38 is 1:38.

They\'ll probably build a statue to George Soros\'s horse, who appears to be part of an elaborate money laundering scheme according to several news reports. I notice NBC didn\'t mention Soros or the 200 Chinese billionaires or the money laundering. They could have done a heartwarming cameo on when he was a card carrying member of the NAZI party when he was young in Germany.

sigh

It\'s been a long time since I posted, but I have some experience with professional human sports doping, so I thought I might contribute a little.

Regarding Justify, I\'ve been convinced he\'s on a regimen since the foot problem. Most dopers shoot up in between their toes to hide the bruises. I imagine shooting up in a hoof is no different. If you shoot up into the most obvious places--sholders, flanks, withers--the tenderness is exposed just by rubbing your hands along the animal, even if you can\'t see the bruise for the hair.

If you shoot up in a hoof you\'d want the hind on the horse\'s less dominant side. Like humans, most animals are righthanded, Justify\'s lameness was in his rear, left hoof. Injection site tenderness is very short lived (think of when you\'ve gotten a vaccination). The horse was reshod with an ordinary shoe.

For EPO, you want to shoot up no later and no earlier than 3 weeks out to evade testing and still have a full tank. You also want to avoid any serious physical exertion during that time period, because not only is the EPO itself being metabolized naturally, exertion accelerates this. Between the KY Derby and the SA Derby the horse loped around in 1:13s, between the KY Derby and the Preakness the horse didn\'t do much of anything. The best time to dope is immediately after your last test, like the day after the KY Derby or SA Derby.

Two weeks out the EPO tank is maybe still 3/4 to 2/3 full. Running in the Preakness could have knocked another 1/4 to 1/3 off or more. The longer an athlete is on EPO, the less EPO their own bodies produce, sort of like how chapstick use over time ruins your lips\' ability to fight chapness on their own, so the amount lost varies with use. In the Tour de France, the mid-Tour rest day was the re-up day, 1.5 weeks in. With the Preakness and the Belmont testing, the horse is likely unable to re-up due to testing. Last week,  both Baffert and Barnes said repeatedly they wished they could run him last week, which seems counterintuitive given the need for the freshest horse possible for the Belmont.

The next step is recovery, which is the purpose of steriods. The steriod of choice with humans is testosterone, because like EPO, it occurs naturally and is difficult to test for. The key indicators of testosterone use is muscle sculpting and aggression. In fact, if you give a girl a short boost of testosterone, she can svelt up very nicely, very quickly, no dieting required. You pointed out the horse\'s current appearance, but the more telling sign to me is how keyed up and aggressive the horse is behaving: bucking and kicking under tack and rider, biting everyone, getting incensed by other horses, running off in 46.80, fighting when forced to run slower. Their chosing not to school is also a red flag for me, it suggests fear that doing so could make the horse go full on roid rage. Likewise, schooling by sitting a long time in the gate suggests to me a fear of him freaking out in the gate, something he\'s never shown a propensity for doing, but a horse hopped up with testerone might just.

This a horse, who had trained up to the Derby loping around in company in 1:13s, now has the other horses yelling at him. Stallions typically scream at other stallions they find threatening triggered by pheromones released by testosterone.

FWIW, the horse was also keyed up in the Preakness post parade, whereas he had been calm in the KY Derby post-parade.

I do not work at and am not associated with TG. These opinions are strictly my own and should not be interpretted as being those of TG or any poster here.

read the article and read the complaint

not sure why you are outraged at peta based on this. am surprised, given all you know about the dirty side of this sport, that you arent at least a little outraged by what is passing itself off as journalism regarding an issue that you care a lot about.

couldnt find the full length video that bloodhorse says is linked on khrc website. couldn\'t find anything on the khrc website about the peta investigation tbh, that is probablly because the investigation is still underway and no conclusions have been rendered yet.

I wouldnt blame you if you missed this fact--the article is written to imply peta\'s complaint was found to be baseless as an indisputable matter of fact/law. but the opinion that no smoking gun was found and that peta\'s complaint is fallacious is solely the opinion of the author of the article.

the review of the evidence, which I doubt included the most necessary documents, the medical records and testimony of involved persons under oath, was made by, and the conclusions were reached by, the article\'s author,  and no one else. in fact, im sure that the author didnt have access to real evidence or he would have mentioned it.

this is as deceptive as anything the article accuses peta of doing. even the way the article covers its ass by saying \"that is not say investigators wont find violations...\" is manipulative.

for all the vitriol against peta\'s heavily edited footage (which was known all along, as it was less than 5 minutes of 10 hours), this article was no better--it sets it self up as an article reporting the khrc\'s findings but does not quote any one at the khrc, instead it relies on the authority of milt toby, a horse racing author (whatever the hell that is) and an unidentified rules expert. period.

the drugs peta says were administered, the article confirms were administered. the issue is whether they were administered by a vet and/or if they required to be prescribed by a vet. this has yet to be determined as the article admits. but even if they fall within the legal lines, you know that that doesnt make them nonperformance enhancing, or legitimate in the true sense of the word. and it certainly doesnt mean they are therefore good for the horse.

peta\'s filing a complaint about the drugs is neither radical, nor nefarious. people filing complaints about suspected violations of any kind are how our system works. someone sees something that looks fishy to them, they inform the apprpriate authority, the appropriate authority investigates. shocking.

regarding the remixed dialog accusation. the article confirms blasi cursed the horses profanely, and that one of the horses he cursed was teardrop after she lost and then came up lame. then the article states that peta edited the original 5 minute video so that it appeared that blasi\'s cursing teardrop occurred during an endoscopy. even if peta did play his rant over footage of an endoscopy, its a difference without distinction. he cursed the horse, the article confirms he cursed the horse. peta did not manufacture anything. and again, there has never been a question that the original video was an extremely edited version.

so...the issue that has you raising pitchforks is that peta may have played confirmed dialog with unrelated footage. the question when this sort of thing is done is whether the footage gives the dialog another connotation (or vice versa)--here is doesnt. and without seeing the full footage I refuse to give this hack the benefit of the doubt that the footage isnt what was originally with the rant (conversations around endoscopies in horse stalls are hardly unusual). I guaranty this was the only instance where remixing occured or more would gave been described...ones that actually did result in a change in connotation.

the article sounds like it was written by assmussen\'s lawyer and released by them to bloodhorse. I\'ll take the nyt and drapes credibilty over an industry rag\'s any day. if bloodhorse wants to get into a credibility pissing match with times, it will lose. it wont look good if drape/nyt reports that bloodhorse is letting assmussen write its articles about him.

I m not a member of peta, but I will say this, they are not hacks and they absolutely know how to conduct undercover investigations that are unasailable in a court. peta exposes animal abuse by corporations who make assmussen look like a pan handler. they\'ve filmed inside feed lots and slaughterhouses in states where doing so is a felony, and have won. they have a top notch legal counsel. they are not just some dumb zealots with cameras and axes to grind. most important, they dont care if everyone hates them. the more you sqwauk about this, the more people hear about it, the more likely something gets done. and they\'ve won, or rather the horses have.

the language wasnt mine,  i was quoting what was said on the tapes by blasi--did you watch it? if you dont like the language thinking it was mine, you should be outraged that it came out of blasi\'s mouth, in about every other word he uttered

if nbc had aired the tape, asmusen would be in jail right now and racing would be facing the wrath of the american public for animal abuse. it was irresponsible not to run the the tape given they devoted significant air time replaying asmusen\'s redemption interview.

animal abuse is a crime in all fifty states with jail time...running a horse with severe hoof problems is animal abuse and if a non-industry vet had seen nero\'s condition, he would have been bound by law to report it...the industry vets are too but...

you\'re attitude regarding the welfare of the horses is exactly why I walked away. im ashamed I watched the derby. I said I wouldnt but like an addict I couldnt stop myself

ps: if you\'re done with it why even respond?

looking at the official chart, without considering the time, the race was run like a classic fast where the speed collapsed

2nd place went to a horse 18th at the half, 17th at the 3/4, & 11th at the mile
3rd place went to a horse 9th at the 1/2, 8th at the 3/4, & 5th at the mile
4th place went to a horse 12th the half, 11th at the 3/4, & 10th at the mile

with the exception of chrome, the leaders for most of the race finished 9th and 14th

also the only horse in the top 7 trained by a big time trainer was danza

the 3/4 split was respectable, i\'d say two things were going on--that there was definitely a strong head wind in the stretch and that the doping protocals worked this year.

head winds are a nightmare and their effect increases with the size of the object and the speed it\'s traveling.

in cycling, head winds can only be countered by riding in echelon. if you lose the wheel if the rider in front of you, you can drop 50-60 yards in less than a minute.

beyer gave a huge number to verazano in the haskel for the slowest haskel in 40 years won against a lame horse and claimers on a dead air day. he was a huge supported of verrazano. chrome ran just as dominate a race at a longer distance against better horses on a day with acknowledged strong winds, but beyer wasnt on chrome\'s bandwagon and picked againt him in the derby

just saying

if you\'ve seen gladiator, the african who rescues russell crow uses maggots to clean russell crow\'s wound--he packs it full of maggots.