covelj70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope the irony of TAP beginning his suspension
> for his positive on Wait a While the day after his
> sweep of the derby preps isn\'t lost on anyone.
>
> Not coincidentally, Wait a While was one of his
> only runners in recent memory that actually showed
> up on Breeders Cup day.
English Channel?
Ah we are back to the good old days, arms weary from fanning the flames of
innuendo.
A word of advice to those waiting for the dramatic downfall of the Usual
Suspects, to those who can\'t wait to see the cheaters apprehended, maybe slapping
the cuffs on a top trainer as he is about to tighten the girth on a runner on one
of Racing\'s biggest days, and leading him away in shame before a national TV
audience.
That advice would be: Don\'t hold your breath.
To use Wall Street jargon, the Usual Suspects have become \"too big to fail\". As
the marginally successful owners and trainers drop out of the game, the survival
(and we are talking about survival now, not success) of Racing will increasingly
depend on the continued participation of the stables headed by the Usual Suspects.
The Usual Suspects will continue to be allocated as many stalls as they request,
and will thereby control the types of races which are written in the condition
book and which of those races will be run in the afternoon. The best bred runners
and the deep pocketed owners will continue to find their way to the stables of
these Usual Suspects.
I have been reading about \"supertesting\" and \"zero tolerance\" and \"24 hour
surveillance\" and \"detention barns\" since I first began monitoring this site in
2004. To his credit, our host has pursued the elusive level playing field
relentlessly.
What changes have we seen between 2004 and 2010?
In New York, Usual Suspect and multiple offender Rick Dutrow has gone from a high
percentage trainer to a high percentage trainer who has been entrusted with
runners who compete at Racing\'s highest level, ie Triple Crown and Breeder\'s Cup.
At the same time, second generation horseman (and I mean that in the most
complimentary way) Del Carroll retired at an early age, no longer able to procure
the racing stock necessary to compete.
In California, Jeff Mullins (who famously called us all \"assholes\") continues to
thrive on the West Coast after multiple offenses (and one detention barn
violation at Aqueduct which showed either absolute disregard or absolute ignorance
of a basic rule of Racing). Multiple Offender Mullins continues to maintain a
high win percentage and train runners in Graded Stakes; world class horseman Neil
Drysdale struggles along with a strike rate in the low teens.
What about the Midwest? Multiple offender/Usual Suspect Steve Asmussen has done
OK, thank you, entrusted with the care of arguably the 2 best American equines to
have raced in this short century, Curlin and Rachel Alexander.
Even if Racing has the tools at its disposal to stop the foolishness, Racing
chooses not to. In a fascinating post on the Ragozin board by Racemaven,
Racemaven states as a fact that Todd Pletcher (Usual Suspect) was \"warned\" by
officials (probably before the 08 Saratoga meet, when Pletcher sent out runners
at a very UnToddly 13% rate) and again was \"warned\" shortly after Patrick
Biancone was snakebitten.
Speaking of Biancone, he is perhaps the poster boy for racing\'s reluctance to
punish malfeasors. PB has recovered from Racing\'s slap on the wrist, and now
moves freely about the major circuits and enters horses in graded stakes races,
this even after he was essentially banned on two continents.
Racing\'s reluctance to clean its own house is also evidenced by Florida\'s
expulsion of Kirk Ziadie without a detailed explanation for his banishment,
choosing instead to utilize its right to exclude him on the basis of some
unspecified conduct detrimental to Racing.
Michael Gill was only denied the right to participate at Penn National after the
jockeys there refused to ride his entries and further refused to ride in any race
in which he had a runner entered.
I have personal knowledge of a trainer in NY/NJ, himself a multiple offender, who
was banned from NJ racing after a few of his animals died after what has been
described to me as a \"bronchial dilator experiment\" gone horribly wrong. There
was no public record of this banishment; the trainer was simply asked to leave
the grounds.
My point: Racing does not want the black eye that would come with enforcement
of drug positives. Racing dodged a bullet when PETA, after the Eight Belles
tragedy, realized that the mainstream public only cares about Racing one day a
year (two if there is a Triple Crown on the line); PETA at that point refocused
its attention on Colonel Sanders and fur cloaked celebrities. Similarly, Congress
briefly turned its eyes on Racing and then realized that there was not enough
mainstream concern to give the issue any prolonged sizzle.
Not only does Racing not have the inclination to punish its major players, but
the methods of enforcement (supertesting/surveillance/detention) have
historically proven ineffective. The cheaters are years and millions of dollars
ahead of the enforcers. Even JB has admitted that the strongest deterrent facet
of supertesting is the ability to catch the cheaters at some point in the future,
when the technology of detection catches up with the cheaters. By then, purses
have been distributed and more importantly to most of us, tickets have already
been torn or cashed.
The best we can do as handicappers is to use the information JB has asked us to
remind him to publish. That data will show that Pletcher\'s stable has advanced
dramatically over the past weeks; our \"job\" will be to try to determine when the
wave has crested, when the inevitable bouncing will begin, and when we can bet
against some exhausted short priced favorites in some high profile races.
As for now, I\'ll be riding the wave, but I won\'t be holding my breath.
