I was hoping to tune in tonight and find the TSheets for the 4 subject horses I mentioned earlier, (Lawyer Ron, Left Bank, Freedom\'s Daughter and Warners), unfortunately they were not provided, but I\'d like to make an educated guess about what those sheets would indicate to buttress the point that performance enhancing drugs were involved in their demise.
Lawyer Ron was a precocious 2YO and an active 3YO. He had established a level of performance and was a good horse. Plech took him over and struggled a bit with him but in the Whitney ran him as fast as a Negative 5 or better, far exceeding his previous level of performance even though that level was fully established by frequency. Plech was going to run him in the new Breeders Cup Dirt mile, but immediately after the Whitney spoke of pointing him for the Classic.
Left Bank, was a fast shortish winded horse, until his 5YO year. Suddenly he jumped up to performance levels in his last 2 races that were in the TFig category of Negative 3. I believe that at the time, such a figure would have been the fastest TFigs ever assigned. After that remarkable Whitney, Left Bank sickened almost immediately and was dead in 2 months.
Freedom\'s Daughter was a 2YO filly and only had 2 starts. She died undefeated, but if I don\'t miss my guess her last win a Grade II was her career top. It was a slow raw time race, though TGraph could clarify the Figure.
Warners was a 3YO colt. He started a total of 6 times and once again was dead in about a week after winning his last race. A race which I believe was probably a career top. Once again, Tgraph could clarify that issue. The following site says he died of \"laminitis\". Obviously, it was much more than that:
http://www.pedigreequery.com/warners
It may be that the subject horses did not all run last race career tops. If they didn\'t it wouldn\'t change the fact that their deaths were Not random. But a finding by Tgraph that they were career tops would add even more weight to the issue.
Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his negative number on was one of the strangest surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep trotting this up shows that you just do not want to face facts.
You also don\'t want to hear anything about the horsemanship that brought about improvement in that colt after he was no longer ridden by an incompetent exercise rider.
Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.
The surface was the difference between Lawyer Ron\'s last two races. This is a fact that could save you money in the future.
Barry Irwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his
> negative number on was one of the strangest
> surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep
> trotting this up shows that you just do not want
> to face facts.
>
> You also don\'t want to hear anything about the
> horsemanship that brought about improvement in
> that colt after he was no longer ridden by an
> incompetent exercise rider.
>
> Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to
> twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.
And you give yourself a hole in the sand, enabling you to use a trainer believed by handicappers and horsemen to be a cheat? How do you explain Left Bank and the two other horses in his barn who dropped dead after running lights out a few years ago at Saratoga?
Mr. Irwin,
I\'m not sure if I posed this question to you earlier. Could you please share with us your knowledge of the use use of anabolic steroids in thoroughbred race horses. Is its use nonexistent? Isolated? Widespread? And, do you attribute any improved performance due to the use of anabolic steroids? Finally, can you identify any trainers who administer anabolic steroids to their horses?
Thank you.
A conspiracy is an inchoate or incomplete crime. What we are discussing is \"fait accompli\".
The track played well to the right type of horse in two races. It was able to produce a fast time for a fast horse, but it was not a crazy speed track. Plech\'s post race comments that he was taking Lawyer Ron Breeders Cup Classic is additional evidence it was not a pure \"carrying\" track.
\"Horsemanship\"? hmmmm, As soon as he made the Derby in 2000 with four entries they\'ve been fawning all over him with \"horsemanship\" comments. He was 32 at the time. I\'ll state again, his \"horsemanship\" appears to have developed when he took on \"Dr.\" Steve Allday.
I\'ve heard a lot of reasons to play ostrich about Plech\'s antics, but I have to tell you claiming the exercise rider ruined Lawyer Ron\'s regimen is by far the most comical. Where did you come up with that crazy conspiracy? The doper himself I bet. And some accuse others of believing anything.
I\'ve put some good stuff on the table, but here we are without much of an interest in digging deeper. Barry you are in a position to discreetly ask the man when he took on his star employee and Tgraph has the data to shed light upon the \"allegations\" that I am leveling.
To Catch a Crook, you have to investigate him.
CtMC
Barry Irwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his
> negative number on was one of the strangest
> surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep
> trotting this up shows that you just do not want
> to face facts.
>
> You also don\'t want to hear anything about the
> horsemanship that brought about improvement in
> that colt after he was no longer ridden by an
> incompetent exercise rider.
>
> Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to
> twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.
JR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mr. Irwin,
>
> I\'m not sure if I posed this question to you
> earlier. Could you please share with us your
> knowledge of the use use of anabolic steroids in
> thoroughbred race horses. Is its use nonexistent?
> Isolated? Widespread? And, do you attribute any
> improved performance due to the use of anabolic
> steroids? Finally, can you identify any trainers
> who administer anabolic steroids to their horses?
>
> Thank you.
JR,
I know you posed this question to Mr. Irwin and I as well as you would like to hear his answer. Perhaps you missed my post where I excerpted 2 quotes from a recent DRF article. Here they are again.
The American Graded Stakes Committee, which is overseen by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, moved to add the anabolic steroids to the post-race testing regimen after receiving reports that anabolic steroids were present in at least half of the post-race samples of horses that won 30 graded stakes last year, according to Andrew Schweigardt, the secretary of the committee and an official of TOBA.
The regulation of steroid use has become a major topic of discussion in the U.S. racing industry in the past 18 months. The U.S. is the only major racing jurisdiction in the world that allows the unregulated use of anabolic steroids, which can build muscle mass, restore a horse\'s appetite, and help horses recover from strenuous exercise.
>I\'ve heard a lot of reasons to play ostrich about Plech\'s antics, but I have to tell you claiming the exercise rider ruined Lawyer Ron\'s regimen is by far the most comical. Where did you come up with that crazy conspiracy? The doper himself I bet. And some accuse others of believing anything. <
Are you trying to create controversy or are you actually trying to understand Lawyer Ron\'s ability and performances this year and last?
I strongly suggest that you watch the replays of all his races leading up to Derby last year. With few exceptions, you\'ll see a series of races where LR was on the rank side and/or the jock moved prematurely and then had a difficult time with him. It was so clear he was a tough horse to relax that on the one instance he actually did so, it was a major part of the discussion on TV by Jerry Bailey etc...
No explanation was ever given for why he was a little rank, but Barry has given us a very logical one. Even if he\'s wrong, it doesn\'t change the fact that the horse was probably not performing up to his potential.
I can probably still get my hands on a series of high quality pace figures for some of those performances if you\'d like. Then you\'ll be able to see some evidence that he was running better than it looked based on final time figures alone.
The potential for that horse to improve because of that issue alone was apparent and the reason for the purchase. Throw in the typical development to be expected from a high quality spring 3YO through his 4YO campaign and his early form this year is no shock at all. Neither is one peak performance with a controversial speed figure.
Humor me a little. Let\'s not look at speed figures at all.
The Whitney field was a solid, deep, and evenly matched field, but none of those horses was a legitimate Grade 1 horse before that race. Most of them were Grade 2/3 types with occasional decent performances in weak higher level races. Beating that group (Wanderin Boy?) by 4-5 lengths was hardly a breathtaking performance. It was a legitimate Grade 1 performance against a less than stellar but deep field.
Regardless of whether LR\'s performance was illegally enhanced or not, this is about as bad an example of evidence for cheating as you can find.
Five years ago Pletcher had horses at Saratoga dropping dead at the rate of one a week.
This last weekend Pletcher had THREE horses ridden by Johnny V. and Garrett unable to hold leads and passed in deep stretch.
Red Giant
English Channel
Sunriver
Something that was absolutely impossible to do even once much less three times back then.
The verdict is in. Pletcher is NO LONGER doping his horses.
CTC said,
\"It may be that the subject horses did not all run last race career tops. If they didn\'t it wouldn\'t change the fact that their deaths were Not random. But a finding by Tgraph that they were career tops would add even more weight to the issue\"
....run a top on TG and risk dying!! Hee Hee. Chuck, surely, you had too many beers when you posted that.The idea that horses that run fast figs breakdown or die more often than slower runners is only opinion with no facts to support it. Most breakdowns/injuries, app 20 to 1 at NY tracks,occur during training, breezing, jogging etc as opposed to during a race(natch,they train far more often than they run).To what extent the PREVIOUS race/races plays in breakdowns is subject to widely varying opinions.
It makes sense that powerful drugs could add up to death/breakdowns but that has not been proven yet.On a related subject, there are all sorts of RUMORS with regard to the case involving Patrick Biancone.It seems the KY racing authority has gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure their legal position before proceeding with their findings.Sounds ominous for the frenchman.
Mike
Mike
There are some weird ideas on this series of posts...here are a few insights about them.
First, horses have been on steroids a lot longer than human athletes. I\'ve been breeding for 25 years and the first broodmare I bought off the track went from muscle-bound to frail in a few weeks.
The steroids were legal, so no one was cheating. On the other hand, steroids do some nasty stuff to some horses, beginning with building their body mass beyond the strength of their skeletal structure. Producing breakdowns.
The good trainer knows just how far to go with steroids or he ends up with no horse.
Second, none of us really know if certain trainers are using drugs, but suspect it, based on the performances of their horses and in certain cases, the times they\'ve been caught operating outside the rules. When Assmussen was questioned about his 19 violations on the HBO special, all he could claim was that people were jealous of his success.
Still, one might say he was just pushing the envelope, training on drugs that did not clear his horses\'s systems by race day. OK.
Regardless of what we know or don\'t know, our suspicions can be very helpful as betting guides. For example, I suspect a crooked trainer can get away with a lot more at some tracks as opposed to others.
That\'s how I tracked the Triple Crown with uncommon success this year, believing it would be made harder to cheat at Churchill than it would be at Pimlico or Belmont.
Several years ago, knowledgable about the differences in legal painkillers allowed at the Triple Crown tracks, I predicted Charismatic\'s Belmont breakdown. I reasoned he became a different horse in Kentucky because so much more was permissable there (as opposed to California), maintained it in Baltimore where no one would know any better and finally feel the pain in NYC, where the restrictions were the tightest. Feeling the pain, I reasoned he would misstep at some point in the race and he did.
The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping.
I predicted to friends (not on a post here) that English Channel would flatten out in the stretch run of the Sword Dancer. Does that make me a genius or just lucky? Well, maybe somewhere in between, but I will predict this horse will fire bigtime at the Breeders Cup if he is entered in the Turf, because I know Monmouth and don\'t believe they have the capacity to do anything more than hand out blankets of flowers to the winners.
For my part, this will be my last post on the subject. I think Jerry Brown\'s recent post amply described the current state of affairs in racing and no one on this website has anymore insight than does Jerry.
ALM wrote;
\"The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping\"
.......Pletcher has been leading trainer, dominating the last 5 years,what are you talking about,Saratoga Harness?
Mike
He\'s dominating this year????? Excuse me. Check the actuals.
alm,
you wrote:
The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping.
... now check again the \"Recent Seasons\"(your words)who dominated, breaking many training records. If you claim something was being done, the question is: to whom? Not TAP, he won the title the last five straight years.
Mike
Sorry, but I think you misunderstood me. I suspect (the operative word) that something is being done differently by the track management in how it is approaching testing, detention, whatever...to the effect it has a chilling effect on the super trainers.
I don\'t KNOW anything, but the outcomes at Saratoga seem substantially different this season. A 25% trainer has become a 15% trainer. Historically speaking, you would expect 15% from a top barn with top horses, but not from TAP.
Maybe he\'ll get hot as the season goes on...maybe not. Meanwhile, I\'ll bet him differently at different tracks.
ALM:
In support of your contention one could point to the great meet hay oats and
water Hall of Famer William I.(and the I stands for Ichabod) Mott is having,
yet on the flip side Rick Dutrow is sending out winners at a 33% clip.
I believe that I read in DRF that NYRA will be reevaluating its detention
regime, possibly realizing that what used to be accomplished with syringes and
surgical tubing close to post time is now being accomplished (allegedly) with
timed release oral supplements.
miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CTC said,
>
>
> \"It may be that the subject horses did not all run
> last race career tops. If they didn\'t it wouldn\'t
> change the fact that their deaths were Not random.
> But a finding by Tgraph that they were career tops
> would add even more weight to the issue\"
>
>
>
> ....run a top on TG and risk dying!! Hee Hee.
> Chuck, surely, you had too many beers when you
> posted that.The idea that horses that run fast
> figs breakdown or die more often than slower
> runners is only opinion with no facts to support
> it.
Miff, you\'ve taken a very focused premise and expanded it to the ends of the universe. I said no such thing. I said that the Non Random Sample of Plech\'s August 2002 Die Off Ran Fast in their last races. Won those races and died within days thereafter, even from all things as One Week Accellerated Laminitis.
Most breakdowns/injuries, app 20 to 1 at NY
> tracks,occur during training, breezing, jogging
> etc as opposed to during a race(natch,they train
> far more often than they run).To what extent the
> PREVIOUS race/races plays in breakdowns is subject
> to widely varying opinions.
>
> It makes sense that powerful drugs could add up to
> death/breakdowns but that has not been proven
> yet.On a related subject, there are all sorts of
> RUMORS with regard to the case involving Patrick
> Biancone.It seems the KY racing authority has gone
> to unprecedented lengths to ensure their legal
> position before proceeding with their
> findings.Sounds ominous for the frenchman.
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
> Mike
Good observation, but RD isn\'t entering many is he? May just be picking his spots better at Saratoga. I could be dead wrong in any case. I will just bet as if I am right...it hasn\'t turned out badly this season.
Steroids use is fairly widespread among trainers, especially by those horsemen whose approach to medication is that they will use anything under the sun that might help them win a race.
The appropriate use of steroids, as farm as vets are concerned, is for a) hormone replacement therapy for geldings and b) as an appetite inducer for horses that are not eating well.
Invariably, steroids are used for two things, which are a) to add muscle mass and b) to allow horses to recover from races and hard training.
The last-mentioned use is far and away the most significant plus factor for the use of steroids.
I would say that at the major tracks, a majority of horsemen use as a minimum small doses on a regular basis.
Silver Charm, your reasoning suggests that if a trainer such as Pletcher is cheating that his horses will automatically win, which makes little sense. The three horses you mentioned that were raced by Todd Pletcher were beaten at a very high level of racing. Is it just not possible for you to imagine that at this high level some horses are just better than others, regardless of what they may be administered? Based on your reasoning a guy like Pletcher should be winning at 100 percent if he gives them illegal substances.
I understand what your real point is and know where you are coming from.
But I humbly submit to you that even if a guy like Todd is cheating that this and this alone does not insure victory.
As for the 3 horses in questions, Sunriver\'s class is still not fully known on the grass; Red Giant ditto; and English Channel has been hard used of late. The two at Arlington ran on a surface that tired out seasoned, top horses.
Bad examples this time, sir.
Here goes my final comment about Lawyer Ron.
Any trainer will tell you that the most important person in dealing with a racehorse is the exercise rider.
You can take a top horse, give him an incompetent exercise rider and in less than a day or two that has horse can be rendered useless.
I have heard this time and time again over the last 38 years in racing.
It is a measure of The Clown\'s mania over proving that Pletcher is a bad guy that he not only overlooks this important information, but calls it comical.
I am not making this stuff up.
I am the guy who bought the horse for the current majority owner. I saw the problem with my own eyes. And everybody at Churchill Downs knows that the horse was compromised by the exercise rider.
Now anybody that will not even consider this change of riders to be important just doesn\'t want to listen. In the case of The Clown, he has an agenda that leaves no room for this explanation.
Barry Irwin wrote,
\"I understand what your real point is and know where you are coming from.\"
I believe you do understand my point. And with all do respect to someone as knowledgeable as yourself.
When all of the EPO suspicions and accuations were being made in the last five years. Pletcher trained horses who had the lead at the eighth pole probably were 100% guaranteed winners.
I am not the first person on this Board to have made that previous observation. TGJB or maybe Michael D. may have been one of the others. But I am the first regarding last weekends results.
Only time will tell I guess.
There have been major advancements in EPO testing over the last two years, and many states are now testing for blood-doping agents.
If Epogen was giving certain horsemen an edge, their days should be numbered.
Where is the board going with all of this stuff? Tales of dead horses,Columbo and TAP,enough already. I would imagine in only a perfect world, the board would be filled with handicapping races or good looking patterns, not day time tv.
bordercollie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Where is the board going with all of this stuff?
> Tales of dead horses,Columbo and TAP,enough
> already. I would imagine in only a perfect world,
> the board would be filled with handicapping races
> or good looking patterns, not day time tv.
Drugs affect handicapping races and good looking patterns.
In a perfect world, drugs wouldn\'t be as pervasive as they presently are.
Drugs are a major issue, nothing wrong with discussing them here, doesn\'t matter what side of the argument you agree with.
When people like Barry Irwin take the time to comment on various subjects, as well as the many other successful and intelligent people around here, I don\'t see how that is comparable to \"day time tv\".
I\'m sure we all bet at one time or another, TAP, Dutrow,Lake, Mullins, Contessa and numerous others, the guys that are accused of using all the time. My point is talking about doesn\'t do anything about anything, we are going to bet their runners and bet against them.
Mike -
Glad to see Bianconne getting some mention . Going back to 2005 , Chekhov ran IMO curious numbers including a 6 pt top h? ...
But before I send the next one out to D.H. Lawrence , My personal impression of English Channel had him destined for place last weekend , he figured to be wide and has been a point off his top all year ...
Also , after following Chucks pedigree quarry , which he thankfully provided , I was wondering if anyones heard of \"Sudden Laminitus Syndrome\" ?
mark
Chris McCarron stated when he retired from racing that one of the reasons was that he was sick of watching horses finish in front of him that were not getting tired inside the eighth pole.
We all saw this same thing, commented on it and knew who the trainers were that were milkshaking and using EPO or something akin to it.
Why do you think there was such an uproar a few years ago?
But if you think that Pletcher needs Silver Charm to let the world know that he may not be cheating anymore, you are either smoking your socks or drinking your bathwater (with all due respect of course).
Anybody in his position would have to be loco to be using any illegal substances to positively impact wind at this point.
This is NOT news, my friend.
(And there is no proof that Pletcher ever used these things.)
AGAIN-- the way the rules are set up, a trainer can be using performance enhancing drugs on his horses, and not be doing anything \"illegal.\"
Aside from alkalizing agents, I believe California (and only recently) is the only state to do any testing to distinguish whether Clenbuterol is being used as a race day drug, as opposed to the way it is supposed to be used (therapeutically). Since this is a powerful bronchial dilator we\'re talking about, the difference is not academic.
right barry, do you think hes going to use them all the time? man your not getting it are you?
>AGAIN-- the way the rules are set up, a trainer can be using performance enhancing drugs on his horses, and not be doing anything \"illegal.\" <
IMO, the problem here is that many people are focusing their attention on the trainers and not the industry.
Why attack someone that is following the rules in a highly competitive sport where millions of dollars are at stake when what people really don\'t like is the rules?
For all we know, there are some trainers that are using performance enhancers legally that would rather run totally clean but can\'t because they would be out of business. They are actually on our side. The trainers we want to punish are the ones that are breaking the rules. Other than that, we need to change the industry.
Barry Irwin wrote.
\"But if you think that Pletcher needs Silver Charm to let the world know that he may not be cheating anymore, you are either smoking your socks or drinking your bathwater (with all due respect of course).\"
In regards to smoking my socks and drinking bathwater I tried both in college and it didn\'t work..................
Barry Irwin wrote,
\"Anybody in his position would have to be loco to be using any illegal substances to positively impact wind at this point.
This is NOT news, my friend.
(And there is no proof that Pletcher ever used these things.)\"
Barry whenever I handicap races with Pletcher horses entered, (except two year olds) I see a lot of,
Previously trained by Michael McCarthy, or Anthony Sciamatta.
The 60 day suspension Pletcher recently served for doping horses at Saratoga two years ago was not a myth. I would bet big money the people who conducted those tests stand by their work. And apparently Pletchers attorney\'s agreed too because they dropped their case.
Your above thinking is exactly why we nicknamed him, TEFLON TODD................
Any opportunity to let your voice be heard would be a good thing. If you are concerned about drugs, opportunities may arise for you all to speak out at a forum where real decisions are made to make change.
barry please explain. if pletcher was taught by all these great trainers, what does he do now that puts him so far ahead of them? drugs .... period.
Chuckles, being rather ignorant of real horses and real veterinary medicine, is probably unawares of acute laminitis (having only Barbaro\'s laminitis battle on TV and in the racing press to provide his medical education); and how quickly acute laminitis can strike and kill, and what it can be secondary to - septicemia, colic, etc. ...
New York tests for clenbuterol, Pennsylvania, Delaware ...
>>The 60 day suspension Pletcher recently served for doping horses at Saratoga two years ago was not a myth.
Pletcher was accused of one horse having a measured level of a commonly used joint-block agent, a level that is known not to be therapeutic and could not have affected the level of performance of that horse; a measured level that, by the time of his appeal, had been lowered by the governing body to below the level of Pletcher\'s found positive. I believe he got 45 days, not 60.
Drug abuse in racing is a huge problem. The above case isn\'t even a blip on the radar screen of importance.
The way many posters on this board are ignoring those trainers with repeated positives, of more significant and truely performance-altering drugs, in favor of going after one who repeatedly, in many jurisdictions, tests clean, is silly.
No, wait ... the more ludicrous thing is a person with no obvious demonstrated medical or pharmacologic knowledge, with zero intimate or factual knowledge of the cases in question, deigning to perform complete autopsies, including cause of death, off of a set of handicapping sheets, and publishing his findings here on this board.
No, wait ... the most ludicrous thing is that people listen to him.
Maybe someday the people on this board would like to start to contribute to fighting the abuse of drugs in racing, in some sort of positive way?
sighthound Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chuckles, being rather ignorant of real horses and
> real veterinary medicine, is probably unawares of
> acute laminitis (having only Barbaro\'s laminitis
> battle on TV and in the racing press to provide
> his medical education); and how quickly acute
> laminitis can strike and kill, and what it can be
> secondary to - septicemia, colic, etc. ...
Actually, I\'ve known of Laminitis ever since the case that almost felled Nijinksy II. It eventually got him, but not the first time.
And of course, I remember Big Red.
Besides, Barbaro didn\'t die from Laminitis.
He should have died from a broken leg, but greed took him instead.