Peine Forte et Dure

[richiebee]

Recent events regarding two trainers headquartered at the Parx formerly known
as Philadelphia lead me to believe that current penalties and punishments are
not deterring those who would tilt the playing field.

Exhibit 1: Defer Heaven, who ran in the Sir Shackleton at GP last Saturday.
Trained by Jorge Navarro, who needs no introduction. Looking at DH\'s TG leger,
one sees that as a 3YO trained by Wesley Ward, DH hung up a TG 3² in
the slop at Churchill. Racing as a 4 and 5 year old, DH changes hands four
times and never really comes close to that 3YO TG #; the best he can do are TG
5s at Indiana and Churchill as a 5YO. Once claimed by Navarro, DH\'s GP TGs: 4,
1, -2, 0³. OK.

The winner of the Sir Shackleton, Grande Shores, has a beautiful sheet to look
at. Now 8, GS has run 26 times since turning 6. In those 26 starts, GS has run
TGs between 0² and 4³.

Grande Shores is an admirable model of consistency. Deferred Heaven is a
dubious model of a lot that is wrong with thoroughbred racing.

Exhibit 2: Ramon Preciado. The purse forfeitures and the dainty slaps upon the
wrist apparently were no deterrent. After his SIXTH clenbuterol
positive, even the powers that be at Parx took notice and suspended Preciado
for 180 days, a suspension which I would imagine could be appealed and
postponed.

Time to go outside the box. Instead of suspending Preciado for 180 days, why
not allow him to continue training? For 180 days, however, any runner that
Preciado saddles will be required to carry 5 extra pounds of lead, with future
positives resulting in additional weight being added.

[TempletonPeck]

My hat\'s off for the title of this one, even the Russian judge would give a 6.0 for artistic value.

As for content, there are a million punishments that could be handed down, from serious fines, to outright bans, etc. Yours is another that would work.

IMO, the question isn\'t how to effectively deter people from doping, it\'s whether we\'ll ever care enough to try.

[Old Mr. Boston]

I believe a better punishment for multiple repeat offenders would be to not only ban the trainer for 180 days, but to ban all horses currently trained by him from running for an equal time. This would turn owners away from \"dirty\" trainers and eventually either clean them up or force them to find a new line of work. A win-win for the fans either way....Ken

[moosepalm]

The thread title is a marvelous bi-lingual blend of crime, punishment and wordplay.  The French were nothing if not creative, in the era of the guillotine, with their punitive measures.  Thieves were condemned to the stocks, bearing a placard describing their transgressions, which apparently included \"theft of interior door keys\", \"theft of laundry\", and \"theft of handkerchiefs.\"  More apropos to the case in hand, was the placard bearing the words, \"Escroc au jeu\", whose literal translation is \"crook the game,\" and was accompanied by mandatory banishment from the country for several years.

[PapaChach]

Well said. \"More weight!\" indeed.

[miff]

Maybe way too much legal stuff. Most of these positives are for excesses over the established baseline level for permitted drugs.Preciado claims that he always uses same amount of cc\'s and gives it same time out from race.Why are they coming up over the threshold now and not before his beef.Rudy Rod had similar issue with banamine last year.

Time has maybe come to eliminate any drug which has a side effect which may \"move up\" a horse, like clen b.Stacking is now being banned, to an extent, at some venues.
Many horsemen would be on board with eliminating some of the presently permitted drugs imo.

State regulators/venues are concerned with the obvious negative impact the above may have on the already strained entry box,handle.

[richiebee]

Mike:

Like many other stories coming out about the state of thoroughbred racing in
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, this story should be looked at and
discussed, albeit briefly because it is (California dominated) Ky Derby time.

Because it is not like the six positives were all within a month or six weeks.
There were 2 at Parx last February, then 2 at Delaware end August/early
September.

What this trainer may or may not have done is taken advantage of the lack of
regulatory cohesion among racing states and \"stacked\" four positives between
two states, thereby lessening the cumulative penal effect.

Pennsylvania signaled they had their fill last week. After RP\'s third
clenbuterol positive of the year at Parx (and fifth on the \"stack\"), he was
fined $2500 and sat down for three months. At that point, after 5 positives in
8 months, his cumulative penalty was $3000 and 111 days.

At the same time the Keystone cops were throwing the book at Ramon Preciado,
the story was breaking (and I did not really follow it) that Stronach was
looking to purchase Parx from Greenwood. Greenwood cracking down on the
medicine men to pretty itself up for a potential sale to Frank? To anyone? Is
Frank the stalking horse? Where\'s Matt Hegarty?

[miff]

Bee,

Right,it\'s derby time but very interesting shot across NYRA\'s bow with the Parx deal by Stronach. NYRA crapping bricks,rumor that Stronach making overtures in Albany to take/buy NYRA franchise which expires soon. Enormous synergies and redundancies with a NYRA deal,looks fantastic on paper.


Mike

[wipitoga]

Another Abusive repeat offender,  way to make it all fair for all
if lower level medications that allowed to be administered for training have all vets registered and pick up at track pharmacy with exact horse and date allowed on medications.
Only drugs allowed on track. No vet carry-ins
Other way is only lasix, nothing else allowed besides hay ,oats, water, no excuses
and exact penalties for 5 different levels and for 1st time, 2nd time etc.

Still don\'t understand whya each track (private property rule they use) lay down strict guidelines, as per bove.
In the meantime, have to include for betting consideration the Navarro\'s of the world.

[jbelfior]

So if we limit our betting menu to:

(1) Keenland in the Spring/Fall
(2) Saratoga
(3) California
(4) Belmont Park
(5) Turf races at a mile or longer.

......we don\'t have to deal with most, if not all, of this crap.

Less is more anyway.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[TempletonPeck]

Your list is exactly what I bet, with the addition of Kentucky Downs.

If I lived somewhere I could bet on overseas races with any ease at all, my USA handle would immediately plummet.

Why do we accept that some guys, to an extent that we can\'t know about, are cheating? In what other gambling venture would we accept that?

Cheat at poker, kicked out of the club for life is your best possible outcome. Cheat at anything else in a casino (here in NV at least) and you\'re going to the hoosegow. Only in horse racing, as I see it at least, do we just accept it as a fact of life that the events we\'re going to bet money on are probably rigged to one degree or another.

[Rich Curtis]

\"Cheat at poker, kicked out of the club for life is your best possible outcome.\"

How do you know that?

[TempletonPeck]

In a previous life I played very high stakes poker for a living, and still have friends that run some of the biggest poker rooms in Las Vegas.

[Rich Curtis]

How do you and they know that all of the cheaters get caught?

[TempletonPeck]

Oy, I would have thought it pretty clear that I meant \"Get caught at cheating...\" in those sentences.