From today\'s New York Post, it is reported by Ed Fountaine that Todd Pletcher\'s 45 day suspension from a positive at Saratoga in 2004 was upheld. Fountaine says Pletcher will likely take his appeals to court, meaning it could take years to resolve.
Question (actually a redirect on my part) to sometimes poster Barry Irwin: Will Pletcher continue to train Team Valor horses? If so it appears that hypocrisy, and not discretion, is the better part of Valor.
i like your style.
john
This is a line of questioning that has been pursued before... HP
Pursue,pursued,pursuing,pursuit,pursuivant!...yes thats the attendant!
T.V. has always done things first class and thus should continue.
But Mr. Irwin,sir, there is no last boy scout, and you need not hold up a flag or banner when defending your honor.
For who else steps before us to be left vulnerable to their thoughts and beliefs?
Offering: Record your thoughts while keeping your ass covered.
1-- Richie, that was a great line.
2-- Having said that, it is very unlikely that particular Pletcher transgression was anything more than a screw-up-- if he was using something like that to affect outcomes, there would be more positives. Much more likely it was what he said, local anesthetic used for an operation.
3-- I can\'t believe I am going to defend a guy who has savaged me in public, but I have to say that Barry is one of the very few that has used his high profile to try and get something done about drugs-- notably in an opinion piece in Bloodhorse. He ain\'t the enemy, at least when it comes to drugs.
\"Will Pletcher continue to train Team Valor horses? \"
I think the 8th race at Aqu answered that question!
...as TP and Team V\'s Colita wins the feature at AQ at 8/1...
TGJB, if you go back to January, almost a year ago, before I even knew how to edit my posts, I COMMENDED Team Valor for their zero tolerance stance towards drugs and their firing of young Mr Nicks, who they had just retained as a private trainer.
Fast forward to the first or second day of the Saratoga meet where Barry Irwin appeared as a poster and told us all to bet our houses on La Ina, a turf mare who had just undergone an operation for an entrapped epiglottis (She won and paid $7).
Some of the posters on this board, HP and myself included, took BI to task on his refusal to blame TP for the 04 positive. Classhandicapper, who said he had previously been a Team V member, was particularly outraged that we would treat BI with such disdain.
MY particular question, which was never answered, was what would have happened if the TPletch positive involved a TValor horse.
Look, Pletcher drew a 45 day suspension. When Dutrow drew 30 days for a positive in the spring, posters on this board were so happy... \"Aha, we caught the cheater\" (remember 30 days of Dutrow\'s 60 day suspension was for a claiming violation).
If racing is going to wage a war against drugs (if you\'ve read my posts I think this war can NOT be won) you can not have loopholes and exceptions which swallow the rules.
Yes, Mr Irwin has been a high profile voice against drugs, but TGJB, since you mention BloodHorse, read if you will BI\'s eulogy of Doc Harthill in that same publication. BI admits that he himself believed in Hay Oats and Water and that Harthill believed in anything which would create a winning result which would stand long enough to cash a mutuel ticket. BI admits that he and Doc Harthill were quite the odd couple on the backstretch. My point is that you can not take a stand against drugs while standing anywhere near Doc Harthill.
Doc Harthill made Doc Allday look like Doogie Howser. But where Allday is under constant scrutiny, Harthill, as one of the preeminent vets at the racetrack, was usually given carte blanche.
Richie-- I do want to wage war on performance enhancers, and I DO think it can be won, but not as long as political and bureaucratic considerations, along with ignorance, get in the way. I think Barry thinks so too. And I view Pletcher with suspicion. But I don\'t think this particular positive has anything to do with moving horses up, because if it did he either would have had more of them, or not done as well since. He\'s done okay.
TGJB
I do not want to detract from TP\'s accomplishments. His father was a very good horseman and TP came up under Lukas. I think Lukas\' greatest influence on his assistants was to teach them how to be able to find competent assistants of their own so that they could maintain efficient winning strings of horses at three or four tracks simultaneously. If TP wants to, he dominates racing for the next 15- 20 years if racing lasts that long.
But back to the positive. I hate to throw a \"Seinfeld\" reference in, but I think it is pertinent: Remember when Elaine was editing a book for Rava, the over the top author from Iceland? At one point, Elaine mentions something to Rava about a \"small coincidence\". Rava snaps back adamantly that there is no such thing as a \"small coincidence\", that its either a coincidence or its not. I feel the same way about positives.
Well, imagine my surprise when I began my Friday night refuge from the world of aggravation to find myself the subject of much consternation on the Thorograph website.
And my pleasure at finding my honor defended by Mr. Jerry Brown.
Not since the day when the Thorograph founder hosted that old television program of his, when for all the world he looked like Don Kirschner of rock concert fame, have I so enjoyed seeing him in action!
Here are some of my reactions to what has both been written and what has transpired, as follows:
1. I don\'t think Pletcher cheats.
2. I draw the line on cheating based on intent.
3. When I canned Ralph Nicks, it was because he knowingly took a shot by breaking the rules. What Ralph did was pretty inconsequential, but I had to let him go. I waited what I considered to be an appropriate amount of time and then gradually began giving him horses again. We in essence gave him our own suspension. But we did not rule him off. Had he administered something serious, he would have been ruled off.
4. What happened with Pletcher is more in line with contamination. From what I gather from Todd (and we have spoken about this in length) and vets I have talked with about this particular case, this is a non event.
5. Of course we are not going to stop giving horses to Todd based on this incident.
6. I don\'t think I am being hypocritical.
7. Trainers I avoid are those who knowingly try to subvert the rules.
8. FYI, I think a lot of trainers have cheated during the past 6 years; but I also think a lot, but not all of them, have stopped. One reason they no longer cheat is that they are now afraid to get caught. Two of the most successful trainers in California over the past half dozen years in my opinion definitely were cheating. I think both have stopped.
9. As for Dr. Alex Harthill, I thought I made it abundantly clear in my obit about him in The Blood-Horse that I didn\'t get involved in any of his magic. When we had Captain Bodgit with Gary Capuano, we used one of Doc\'s stalls and he put up sort of an addition in the front on the outside of the stall to afford the colt some added space between the crowds of people on the backstretch. All of the wise guys who knew Harthill and his black bag of dirty tricks figured something funny was going on behind the screen. Gary Capuano and I made sure that Dr. Harthill never administered anything--legal or illegal--to Captain Bodgit while he prepared for the Derby. He ran without Bute or Lasix, yet that did not stop the tongues from wagging.
10. William Faulkner once said in an interview with the Paris Review in their series of famous writers that \"in literature one rogue is worth a thousand saints.\" The same goes for racing. It is an unfortunate aspect of this game that often times the most talented individuals also are the most unscrupulous. Such was definitely the case with Dr. Harthill.
I knew the good and I knew the bad. I knew the bad because one of his former girlfriend/trainers spent two weeks staying with me and a lady friend. I heard first hand all about the magic and the larceny. But I also learned and later witnessed first hand the brilliance the man was capable of when analyzing and working with top horses.
This undeniable talent is what attracted horsemen such as Charlie Whittingham and The Jones Boys to him.
I would have to be pretty damn stupid not to form a relationship with a guy who had the talent to legitimately take my stable to where we wanted to go. The first three horses on which he performed throat surgeries came back to win stakes.
Finally, Colita today made his first start since having a myectomy at Ohio State University.
I think information of this type is vital and should be announced to horseplayers.
One of these days, perhaps even through the efforts of somebody like Jerry Brown, a support group on behalf of horseplayers will be formed and have enough clout to get racing jurisdictions to make mandatory the dissemination of information such as this.
Thank you for a thorough response. I appreciate the time you put into it.
I still believe that zero tolerance means just that.
I agree that if you had a dying horse that no one else could save, you would reach out for Doc Harthill. I watched him work his magic at the Fairgrounds in the early 80s when the Dorignac\'s and Roussell owned the place and gave Harthill his own barn. I called it the \"launching pad\"
Best of luck with Ms. Winslet tomorrow.
Barry,
Well done in my opinion. These guys on this board take no prisoners.
Anything worthwhile betting tomorrow Lime La Ina? looking for some extra Christmas..... I mean Holiday Money ...like the rest of us.....
NC Tony
With some of the guy\'s - the Super Pro\'s , I get a gut feeling that some of these positive are not inadvertant as many might think and are a technique and easily could be a statement in response to negative public relations that seem to say nothing funny is being done here and that the positive in question was really nothing more than a silly mistake or just one of those things - thus giving the impression to the general public that the illeagal substance policies and subsequent test\'s his friends administer are working . I\'m seeing a similarity w/ this to pool hall hustlers - where part of the action is to lose a couple small games in order to get into the bigger money . Most of the trainers/Vets who are potentially doing things are very slick , that much is clear .
Barry: You are free to hire any trainer or veterinarian you want. You are free to post here that "I'm going to hire any trainer or vet that I think will help my stable, even if everyone thinks those guys are juicers or aren't clean." Team Valor is a private entity, it has responsibilities to its investors, so if you wanted to be completely silent about those choices you are free to do so. That is not the course you have taken, however, and as long as you choose to post and give statements to the racing press, what you write and say is fair game. Your explanations about hiring and firing (and rehiring) trainers make no sense.
Here are the reasons you have publicly given for the decisions you have made.
1. The zero tolerance standard. You first explained that you fired Ralph Nicks as a result of Team Valor's zero tolerance towards drugs. "Team Valor has a zero-tolerance policy with regards to drugs," Team Valor President Barry Irwin said. "We had no choice other than to do what we did.\" (Thoroughbred Times, June 20, 2004). So the rule is zero tolerance, right? Apparently not, because a) even if TP's violation was as a result of contamination (and to be fair to him, that does appear to be a reasonable explanation), it's still a violation, and zero means zero, and b) you've rehired Ralph Nicks, whose case led to the zero tolerance standard in the first place. So much for the zero tolerance standard.
2. The "impure intent" standard. You have now shifted ground and wrote that you are making hiring/firing decisions based on what I'll call the "impure intent" standard. Here is what you wrote on this board in July about Ralph Nicks:
"The rules state that no injections are allowed on raceday in New York other than Lasix, which must be supervised. He broke the rule by administering the shot. It could have been water and it still would have been illegal. His intent was not pure." Again, last night, you wrote "I draw the line on cheating based on intent . . . When I canned Ralph Nicks, it was because he knowingly took a shot by breaking the rules."
Of course, this is a completely different justification than the one you offered at the time (see above – zero tolerance). Further, if you do make these decisions based on your analysis of a person's intent, and you thought Ralph Nicks had an impure intent, why in the name of Secretariat have you rehired him? Likewise, the \"impure intent\" standard cannot be used to explain the decisions you have made.
It is not possible to reconcile your statement to the Thoroughbred Times in June 2004 with most of what have written on this board on the subject of hiring and firing trainers. That statement positioned Team Valor as a standard-bearer in the debate on drugs: WE WILL NOT TOLERATE DRUG VIOLATIONS BY THOSE WE HIRE. Putting the best face on it, that statement is misleading. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and not attribute any impure intent on your part to deliberately mislead, to cast Team Valor in a more favorable light than subsequent events suggest it deserves.
It seems to me that what you want is a 20 page document that covers everything that could potentially happen concerning drug use and how Team Valor will respond instead of simply accepting his generally anti-drug stance and subsequent thinking in individual cases. None of his individual statements was the all encompassing policy position you seem to think it was.
It seems pretty clear to me what his position is.
Great, then you can clear any confusion that does exist: what is his position? And before you answer, read all the press coverage from last June regarding the Nicks incident (specifically the Thoroughbred Times article I referenced), all of Barry\'s posts from July in the \"Surgeries and Procedures\" string, and his post last night.
\"what is his position?\"
Why not allow him elaborate instead of assuming the worst?
His position may not be the same as yours or what you would like it to be, but it\'s pretty clear that he uses judgment on a case by case basis while being very anti-drug.
Speed: He HAS elaborated, in various press statements and at great length on this board. There is no assumption of the worst that you could identify in my post. If I assumed the worst, I would have said (and I did not) that he tried to paint Team Valor as the white horse in the debate on drugs, when in fact the truth is (as determined by his actions) Team Valor is somewhere in the gray. As I said above, he isn\'t obligated to offer any explanations to people outside Team Valor for why he hires or fires a trainer. Nonetheless, if he chooses to do so (such as giving a statement to the Thoroughbred Times) and those explanations are obviously contradicted by his own actions, then his statements, explanations and actions are fair game.
I think you are failing to see my point.
Unless someone is making a comprehensive statement covering all aspects of policy (like he might in a legal document to investors or others), I think it makes some sense to understand that they aren\'t expecting a lawyerly-like attack on their words. They are expecting to make a point. So it isn\'t surprising that they may need to elaborate on that policy at a later date.
If I understand you correctly, it seems you took zero tolerance to literally mean \"your definition\" of zero tolerance as opposed to the intention of BI.
If I understand BI correctly, \"intent\", \"what was used\", and perhaps other things are part of his thinking about what will be tolerated.
You may not agree with his standards, but IMO they are quite logical and consistent with a strongly anti-drug stance without being detrimental to the stable in a foolish way just to be consistent with some \"words on the subject\" that weren\'t a full expression of his views.
To me this is pretty clear unless the goal is to bust chops.
In any event, if BI elaborates further I suspect it will not satisfy you because you seem far more interested in the words he used than what he meant by them.
\"To me this is pretty clear unless the goal is to bust chops.\" says speedkills
Thanks, speedkills. Better said by you than me.
Barry,
Did you ever think that you could generate so much venom?
Hope you realize its not you.
These are not folks w/a gambling problem...just people who had or have a dream to aspire to a level you have reached.
Not only reached,but are a pioneer in setting up consortiums that are responsible to all parties involved.
We\'re not included,so you have become shark bait.Now you know why upper level equine operators don\'t bother corresponding w/such a board that responds in great quantity about a T.V. show and nada about gambling,horses or women!
May your xmas sox be filled with bagels and lox!!!
Caradoc, I don\'t see anything that is inconsistent in the two quotes. The first quote says that he has zero tolerance and the second quote simply clarifies what he has zero tolerance for. That\'s pretty straightforward. What\'s the confusion?
Barry: Nice dodge. Again. Perhaps I should not have expected more.
To you and to Speedkills: if it is so clear, then articulate it in a coherent English sentence that explains the June 2004 statement and the posts on this board.
I don\'t know Barry Irwin personally and I\'ve never had any business dealings with him. I can\'t vouch for his honesty or integrity. But I can read/hear and understand what he has said and it seems pretty clear to me.
Here\'s what I understand his approach to be from what he has stated: He has zero tolerance for anyone in his employ who intentionally tries to circumvent the rules. When someone does that, he takes his business away from them for some period of time that he feels to be consistent with the violation. After an appropriate period of time, circumstances may permit him to give a past violator a second chance. He also takes into consideration that accidental violations sometimes occur and he does not feel compelled to withdraw his business for such violations.
I think what he has said is straightforward and reasonable. Only he knows if his actions are always consistent with his policy. I certainly would not profess to know enough about his business dealings to judge his actions in this regard. But his policy seems clear.
Jim: I agree with you that Barry\'s position now seems to be that he has zero tolerance for anyone in his employ who intentionally tries to circumvent the rules, and when someone does, he takes his business away from them for some period of time that he feels to be consistent with the violation. But if that is the position, then the statement he gave when he \"fired\" Ralph Nicks is, to be kind to Barry, misleading. This is the statement he gave:
\"Team Valor has a zero-tolerance policy with regards to drugs. We had no choice other than to do what we did. This was the most difficult business decision I\'ve ever had to make, because we like Ralph and we think he is an outstanding horseman.\"
You will have to forgive anyone who gets the impression from that statement that a) Team Valor would not tolerate drug violations by its trainers, and b) Ralph Nicks was fired, done, exiled, you name it from Team Valor, forever. But the truth was otherwise, wasn\'t it? Why was it \"the most difficult business decision (Barry) ever had to make . . .\" if he was going to turn around and re-hire Ralph Nicks?
Subsequent events suggest that the statement he should have given is this: \"Team Valor has a zero-tolerance policy with regards to drug violations if we conclude a trainer intentionally attempted to circumvent the rules. We had no choice other than to take our horses from Ralph for an appropriate period of time. This is a very difficult business decision because Ralph is an outstanding horseman and we hate to suspend him for an appropriate period of time.\" Others can speculate as to why that more accurate but less admirable statement was not given.
Maybe because he wasn\'t talking to a prosecuting lawyer while on the witness stand where he knew each word would be analyzed and thrown back in his face unless every \"i\" was dotted and every \"t\" was crossed with regard to meaning. Seriously, I don\'t get you at all. I would hate to have a conversation with you about anything. I\'d be afraid to open my mouth. Most people simply do not communicate the way you seem to think except in legal documents.
That\'s one interpretation. There are others. Regardless, I doubt Barry is comfortable with the picture your post paints of him as someone who was careless with his choice of words in this episode, and nowhere has he argued that he was careless. He is an ex-writer. The language I quoted above is from a press release, which no doubt was reviewed more than once by Barry and others at TV. Within the past twenty-four hours, ON THIS VERY SITE, he has criticized others for their lack of analysis and their use of the written word. If he\'s comfortable with what your post implies about him, so be it.
Barry - It sounds like your taking a \"real world\" approach to these matters . I don\'t understand fully the in the trenches view of all this , however I\'m confident it differs emencely w/ outsider perceptions .
Barry,
Thanks for stopping by and being candid with us. You get three stars. Uhh... but while we\'ve got you here...
You mentioned Dr. Harthill\'s \"magic,\" \"his undeniable talent,\" and the idea that you\'d be unwise not to use that talent to take your stable \"where you wanted to go.\" OK. But this implies that with a lesser, mere mortal veterinarian - one who\'s not as aggressive; one who\'s working on horses for bread-and-butter 10% trainers - you\'re less likely to succeed! Take away Dr. Harthill from Whittingham and is SUNDAY SILENCE another animal? A lesser animal? Does CAPTAIN BODGIT earn less money with another, less aggressive vet? Yes? Yes? And yes? The vet\'s the difference? More so than the God-given talent and \"natural\" development of the animal? Now take Rick Dutrow out of his situation and replace him with any of a long list of sharp, capable trainers WHILE LEAVING THE SAME VET IN PLACE. Will the horses run about the same? Dutrow was replaced this Summer and the barn kept on the solid roll they were on prior to Rick\'s suspension. The bottom line seems to be: \"it\'s the vets, stupid!\" And that\'s what infuriates us dumb horseplayers because it\'s tough to read between the DRF performance lines.
Was it really Ralph Nicks that deserved the suspension? Did he initiate that \"shot that broke the rules?\" Or did his vet advise him, and then Ralph acquiesce? It seems that there\'s a separation of powers on the backstretch whereby the trainers train, and the vets vet - to a great extent, independent of each other. [I\'m thinking of the Patrick Byrne/Greg Fox incident at Saratoga a few years ago where one hand - the trainer - admittedly didn\'t know what the other - the vet - was doing. When CHARISMATIC shipped to Kentucky years ago and the Dr. worked his magic, his Ragozin sheet line suddenly took a \"dogleg left\" detour. After his stunning win in the Derby, Lukas said: \"Gee, that horse really fooled me!\" Hey, he was telling the truth!] Does Todd Pletcher look over the shoulder of his vet every time that person steps into a barn stall? I presume there\'s communication between the two. But ultimately, the vet\'s in the stall alone, \"working on\" the horse. If any fingers are to be pointed towards that barn, like in the latest situation, shouldn\'t Todd\'s vet be the one fingers are pointed at?
Finally, a blast from the past. Team Valor won the Santa Anita Handicap with the 51-1 longshot MARTIAL LAW in 1989. Good for you, and the animal\'s up-and-coming trainer, Julio Canani. You\'re geniuses. If he paid over $100 that day, do you recall how out-of-sync that performance was relative to his prior races ON THE SHEETS? I won\'t ask you if MARTIAL LAW would\'ve passed the Japan Cup test. But I\'ll be your best friend if you tell us whether MARTIAL LAW was given a little visit prior to the race by Dr. Harthill. Say it ain\'t so.
JTC
I think it\'s pretty obvious you are more interested in criticizing BI than anything else.
IMO....
Without subjective judgment being part of the process, a manager might find
himself permanently firing honest and hard working employees due to accidental positives that were in no way intended to manipulate race results etc...
Similarly, one would never be able to use the services of a highly competent horseman if he ever made a mistake in his life, even if it was obvious he was a changed individual now.
The goal is to eliminate cheating, not to criticize and hold people that are on our side on this issue to their literal words of \"zero tolerance\" when they seem to be using sensible judgment on a case by case basis. Most people would understand to begin with that judgment was probably going to be part of the process.
John-- great post. As we have said before (like, in a letter to the editor of the DRF), a vet of record should be listed in the program, and responsible along with the trainer for any positives.
And on a related note, both to your post and a comment Barry made earlier, from the Monday DRF about Mister Fotis, winner of the Calder sprint stake yesterday:
\"He had throat surgery after he ran so poorly going two turns here in September, and it worked right away,\" said Wolfson.
It might have been a little easier to handicap that horse if we had that information.
The \"Japan Cup\" test is easy, Sarafan passed it without trouble (and ran) whilst positive for banned corticosteroids; course we only know this fact because the diligent Hong Kong laboratory discovered it two weeks later.
Caradoc, I know that you an inconsistency in the two statements:
1. \"he has zero tolerance for anyone in his employ who intentionally tries to circumvent the rules\",and
2. \"Team Valor has a zero-tolerance policy with regards to drugs.\"
But I don\'t. I can read those two statements as entirely consistent. Neither one is a statement of a complete policy on drugs. Both shed some light on the policy that Team Valor seems to be using. But they aren\'t inconsistent as stated.
Jim: As I noted above, the real problem is not with any inconsistency between the two statements, but with the misleading nature of the statements BI has made about the Nicks matter, both at the time and since. Leaving aside whether he has left the impression that Team Valor would not tolerate drug violations by its trainers, his statements were that Ralph Nicks was fired, either because TV had a zero tolerance policy or because BI determined he had an impure intent, that the decision to fire him was the most difficult business decision he had ever made, etc. No, he never said in those statements that he would never re-hire Nicks, which is why I characterized those statements as misleading, rather than false.
So why is all this important? If racing is to be cleaned up, one of the first steps must be to demand an open and honest dialogue among all of the affected parties, most importantly prominent owners. No spinning, no positioning, no wrapping yourself in the flag, no trumpeting your own virtue. It's a step backward to state or even leave the impression that we don't use vets whose activities concern us, that we don't hire trainers whose activities and practices raise questions in our minds, or that we simply won't tolerate drug violations or that we won't tolerate those who have what we subjectively determine is an impure intent. As BI's actions indicate, the world of racing is more complicated than that, perhaps even necessarily so in the current environment of drugs and supertrainers. But let's get real and take the first step which is to be honest about the realities.
Well put Caradoc.
For Team Valium to put themselves as the White Knight in the War on Drugs is a palpable attempt to increase business. There are several other quality syndication groups out there ie right here at TG, Belmont Winner, Breeders Cup winner, etc. Also several others such as Dogwood, Peachtree, Solaris and West Point to name a few who all have high standards and highest stakes success.
Everyone knows Siegel is the brains behind the operation not Barry.
What\'s the old saying, \"Empty barrels always make the most noise\".