Rick B. Wrote:
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> richiebee Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Rick:
> >
> > OK, I\'ll play along.
> >
> > Tricky: guilty, Guilty, GUILTY! Guillotine!
>
> So, having been completely wrong about Dutrow\'s
> \"70 plus medication violations\",
> you are just going to keep chipping away to
> justify your earlier \"Saint Mott vs.
> Evil Dutrow\" strawman? Now it\'s for a couple of
> needle violations.
The entries are out for Belmont Saturday and I\'d rather
be handicapping. I mean this is one of the three or
four days of the year I like to take the rubber band
off the bankroll (If I can find where my wife put
it), but you\'ve carried me for another round.
I was sloppy to post that Tricky has over 70 medication
related violations. I apologize to every one on the board,
and will also at this time confess that it is highly unlikely
that a Zayat horse was \"grazing in a field outside of a
bankruptcy court\" during his 2 year layoff. Sorry again.
I did not go to the google link. Let me guess that a small
percentage of Dutrow\'s misdiscretions are medication - related.
For the sake of argument I\'ll say 10%, seven of them, are med related.
Now lets take three respected NYRA trainers: Rick Violette, Chris Clement,
Bill Mott. Wait, lets add in two more: James Bond and Rich Schosberg.
Add up all of their medication related positives. More than seven, combined?
> A trainer giving his
> horse an injection of muscle
> relaxant or some such is no surprise to me: legal
> or not, it happens. Vets can\'t
> be everywhere at once. Again, to me it\'s just
> Dutrow being sloppy and getting
> caught. You think Mott has never, ever given one
> of his horses an injection of
> some sort?
There is a bit of a difference between a trainer administering medication
between races and administering lasix four hours before a race. I know most
everyone has heard the story of Doc Harthill boasting, years after the fact,
that he acted as a decoy while another vet treated Northern Dancer with lasix
before the 1964 Ky Derby (Horatio Luro and Harthill were apparently friends).
Imagine if Harthill\'s treatment made the difference in the Derby. Imagine
if Northern Dancer did not win the Derby. Imagine if ND was not given the
stallion opportunities he had as a Derby winner...
I do not know about never, ever, Rick, but I worked for Mott for
3 months at Monmouth in 1986. In 1985 I was in the same barn as
him at the Meadowlands. I was not following him about, but I never
saw him or any of his assistants using hypodermic needles. I was aware
that there was an assistant trainer somewhere on the Meadowlands
backside who had the reputation of being able to hit a jugular
on the dead run, but I never actually witnessed this.
That was 25 years ago. From what I experienced, veterinarians had
custody of hypodermic needles and gave the injections. Trainers did not
have hypodermic needles in the barn and did not give injections.
I think if a trainer gave an injection to a horse which saved the
horse\'s life, and was caught in the act, the trainer should be fined
for possessing the hypodermic needle.
Again, my frame of reference is 25 years old and maybe I am being naive,
But from what I\'ve seen, racing authorities still want some compartment-
alization between vet and trainer.
>
> I think it\'s a comedy routine -- as if racing will
> somehow magically be \"that
> much better\" if Dutrow were gone. It\'s window
> dressing, at best.
Wagering is a recreational pursuit for me. Weekends, holidays,
a stolen weekday here or there. As such, I have no reason to care
about the transparency and fairness of the game nearly as much
as someone who wagers more frequently or even professionally.
The history and tradition of Racing, the time I devoted to Racing
between 1975 - 2000, the great horses, the great trainers, that is
something that is with me every day. I want the game to survive and
level playing fields and transparency are part of this.
>
> And, FWIW: I don\'t think our host\'s pet peeve has
> anything to do
> with \"undetectable\" PEDs (which is nonsense,
> anyway, with the current level of
> expertise with mass spectrometry: there could be
> \"unidentified\" PEDs at any
> given moment, but these are isolated and
> identified rapidly now...when testing
> is actually performed, I suppose. Read on.)
>
> If I understand TGJB correctly, his beef is that
> we can\'t even be sure
> that the established testing protocols and
> procedures that are supposed
> to be in place for the stuff we know about are
> being followed. If Jerry
> is right about that (and I have no reason to doubt
> him), hell -- we bettors
> might be more \"barefoot and pregnant\" than we
> could ever imagine!
I think JB\'s observations about established testing protocols
not being enforced has a lot to do with some recent revelations,
but I would not bet more than pocket change on Pennsylvania
racing anyway
>
> And you are worried about \"magic elixir\"? Why
> would anyone spend money on
> top-shelf exotica if you hardly have to worry
> about getting busted for anything at all?
Rick, I\'m getting it from Jimbo too so I gotta go battle him. We can continue
this during the Summer, but I want at least one opportunity to argue Darth
Dutrow\'s side.
