Mall,
Just kidding with the title. It has come to my attention that you have been mauling little Julie Krone on a different site. If you will be so obliging as to attack her here, I will try to defend her. I think she\'s kind of cute. Perhaps you will prove malleable (couldn\'t resist).
And here I thought from the title that this was going to take me to task for tabbing Davis as the 1st to flip, now that it\'s known that Harn will plead guilty this morning. Per JB, the disclosure today that all three have for the past yr been collecting on counterfeit copies of uncashed tix qualifies as \"all hell breaking loose\", especially for my friends at Autotote. At least I was right about the addition of a certain respected and popular NYorker, none other than Mayor Rudy, recently described in the WSJ as the \"embodidment of credibility.\"
My beef with Julie and the press coverage of Julie has nothing to do with how she looks. She spent a considerable period of time before her retirement riding while she was taking powerful psychotropic drugs for clinical depression, something which was not disclosed to the betting public, trainers, owners, or other jockeys. The way I see it, her conduct placed the property and safety of others at risk without their knowledge, something which Mall, who is all in favor of widely available treatment & removing the medieval stigma attached to mental illness, does not approve of.
Mall wrote: \"My beef with Julie and the press coverage of Julie has nothing to do with how she looks.\"
You need to change your priorities.
\"She spent a considerable period of time before her retirement riding while she was taking powerful psychotropic drugs for clinical depression,\"
The poor thing. That\'s a tough fight.
\"something which was not disclosed to the betting public, trainers, owners, or other jockeys.\"
An enlightened bunch if ever there was one.
\"her conduct placed the property and safety of others at risk without their knowledge,\"
Does the conduct of owners and trainers ever put Julie\'s safety at risk? What should we do about this? How many riders and trainers have or had drug and alcohol problems? I can think of many, including four of the greatest riders who ever lived. Did these riders tell the owners and public before they sought help? If not, where was Mall\'s outrage?
Mall: What about all the drugged horses that the trainers put Krone on? Putting her neck at risk without her knowledge.
Julie competed at the highest levels, so I doubt that there are very many owners who knowingly placed her safety at risk. Are there trainers who place the safety of jockeys at risk? Yes, of course, and I feel even more strongly about them, because the reason is usually money, as opposed to trying to overcome a disease. Absolutely there have been and are trainers and jockeys with undisclosed alcohol and drug problems, who put the safety and property of others at risk, which is every bit as bad or worse than anything Julie Krone has ever done, but in my mind that doesn\'t excuse what she did. My outrage on these and many other matters was always there, but I hadn\'t yet discovered the world of Bds, something which some may very well wish was still the case.
Mall,
OK. You are angry at a few owners, many trainers, and many riders. So far, you have named only Julie, whom you are more forgiving toward because she was quite ill. Let\'s hear the others. I expect your condemnations to be longer and louder.
This is a complete non-sequitor, but:
When Julie was starting out she rode first call for John Forbes in New Jersey, and Forbes was training a lot of horses I was managing. One day she was riding an allowance sprinter called Lauren\'s Quest, and as they straightened out for home the horse collapsed. Julie was in tears, and said she had heard something snap, and begged anyone who would listen to \"please put him out of his misery.\"
Well, not exactly. Turned out the horse had heat exhaustion, got up, came back to run and win 7 days later, and several more times.
But-- she was a terrific rider, and you have to love a gal who hits a rival jock who almost dropped her with a chair in a jock\'s room brawl.
JB wrote: \"she was a terrific rider, and you have to love a gal who hits a rival jock who almost dropped her with a chair in a jock\'s room brawl.\"
Yes. And you have to love a girl who, while doing TV here, used to bounce around near the walking ring at Hollywood Park, short dress flying every which way, acting very much like an ecstatic, effervescent beach ball. The thought of her being depressed is depressing as hell.
Let\'s suppose, for sake of argument, that I had a list of 2k jockeys, headed by PVal, who rode on illegal drugs which risked the safety of other jockeys. I do not see how what those on the list did or didn\'t do would have anything to do with the limited question I thought we were discussing, which is whether Julie\'s decision to continue riding after she was diagnosed with clinical depression and given powerful prescription drugs was right or wrong, good or bad. It is only after that question is answered that it makes sense to me to discuss how good or how bad what she did was in comparison to others.
On an entirely unrelated matter, but one I found outrageous at the time & am reminded of by Jurmela\'s MJ post, to the best of my knowledge no one from the media ever mentioned the central issue in the much publicized high stakes golf game which was one of the reasons MJ ended up taking a break from the NBA & making a fool of himself playing minor league baseball. Everyone involved stipulated that MJ lost $1 million & then \"negotiated\" with the winner and paid only $300k. There is a name for people who do this which derives from the early days when British bookmakers used to flee to Wales to avoid paying bets. Why no one covered this angle of the story & why anyone would believe anything MJ says at this point are mysteries to me.
Mall;
Put yourself in her boots. You are one of the great riders in the world. Without that, you are just another button-cute 97 pound young woman. You have clinical depression. As a part of addressing that problem you are going to .... quit riding?
Give one thousand people that choice. How many quit? Low single digits, if not zero. Be fair.
Alydar;
Did you ever hear Julie\'s race call from Belmont Park? A sloppy track turned a big field into a 3-horse field. Durkin let Julie do the call and it was a hoot. \"He\'s gonna need a bath from his toes to his nose!\"
It still bugs me that the only Belmont I\'ve missed since \'89 was Julie\'s on Colonial Affair. Racing needs Julie every bit as much as she apparently needs racing.
Bob
Jerry,
Your story about Julie riding a Forbes horse that you were advising on reminds me of another similar Julie story. In 1987 Forty Niner had just lost a heartbreaking stretch duel by a neck to Alysheba in the old Marlboro Cup. A race that was run in track record time. Laffit Pincay was the rider and after the race he told the connections, Woody Stephens and Claiborne Farm, that the horse needed blinkers. The next race out for Forty Niner was not the traditional step of the Jockey Club Gold Cup, back then run at 1-1/2 miles, but the NYRA mile(now the Cigar Mile). However Pincay was not the rider because there was a jockey strike or walkout, whatever you want to call it. There had been a lot sabre rattling going back and forth that if Pincay did\'nt ride the horse in the NYRA then he would not ride the horse in the Breeders Cup. Pincay being President of the Jockey\'s Guild at the time stated there was no way he would cross the picket line and he did\'nt. The rider of record that afternoon in the NYRA was none other than \"Billy Fox\". He managed to hold on tight enough for the entire eight furlongs and Forty Niner won.
Now we get to Julie. Somehow she landed the ride on Forty Niner despite having little or no experience in a race of this magnitude. Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm said he had seen Julie ride at Monmouth that summer and he was impressed with her. The Breeders Cup was at Churchill Downs that year and the field was \"loaded\" with the likes of Alysheba, Seeking the Gold, Personal Flag, Waquoit, Cutlass Reality, etc. As they reached the half-mile pole things got a little tight and suddenly Forty Niner was pulled-up, a la Thunderello, but then inexplicably restarted once he was last in the field.
As the field neared the wire Alysheba once again proved his greatness by holding off a late charge from Seeking the Gold to win. However, the image of Forty Niner flying down the middle of the racetrack to finish fourth still makes me sick to my stomach. When Julie was questioned later on why she pulled the horse up, her explanation was, \"she thought she felt the horse take a bad step and that he was breaking down\".
Mall wrote: \"Let\'s suppose, for sake of argument, that I had a list of 2k jockeys, headed by PVal, who rode on illegal drugs which risked the safety of other jockeys.\"
Why, for sake of argument, is PVal on top? It has been a long time since PVal\'s problems have surprised anyone. Using him defeats the purpose. (I want to add that he\'s my all-time favorite rider.) Think of riders at the very top, Mall. The very top. I want to see you go after them for withholding information.
\"I do not see how what those on the list did or didn\'t do would have anything to do with the limited question I thought we were discussing, which is whether Julie\'s decision to continue riding after she was diagnosed with clinical depression and given powerful prescription drugs was right or wrong, good or bad.\"
I see what you\'re trying to do, and I\'m not going to let you do it. What you are doing amounts to selective prosecution of Julie.
\"It is only after that question is answered that it makes sense to me to discuss how good or how bad what she did was in comparison to others.\"
Nonsense. You\'re skipping history as tragedy and heading straight to history as farce. Please give me your lengthy condemnations of the sinners who came before Julie. If you look really hard, you might even find a couple of men.
I want this on top so Mall won\'t miss it.
Bob,
I forgot about this:
\"It still bugs me that the only Belmont I\'ve missed since \'89 was Julie\'s on Colonial Affair.\"
Damn. The Belmont to miss was 1998. Nothing of significance happened that year.
\"Did you ever hear Julie\'s race call from Belmont Park?\"
No. Can you direct me to it? I showed you mine. You show me yours.
\"Racing needs Julie every bit as much as she apparently needs racing.\"
Well put, Bob.
While I still can\'t forgive his ride on Middlesex Drive in the BC Mile (early speed type on the hedge from the one hole, taken back, aarrrgh!) the come back of Shane Sellers has been a stupendous success down in Kaintukeee. He\'s always been better than Julie imho. BTW, Julie provided little in her on tv analysis, just short of a babbling idiot from what I recall.
Other big time sinners Pat Day former druggie/alky abuser before he found religion. It\'s amazing Earlie Fires has been able to win over 6000 races with his bouts with Demon Rum. Would\'ve ridden more big time horses had he been a tad bit more reliable, Chop Chop Chavez a rank amateur with the whip compared to Earlie. Mark Guidry disappeared some years ago from the Chicago circuit with a cocaine problem.
Whichever drug one gets hooked on, it\'s tough to defeat. Those that come out on top are always in danger of returning to the quagmire. Kudos to those that can.
The idea that one cannot offer an opinion on the judgment of a woman jockey without 1st, or at the same time, also condemning male jockeys makes even less sense than the implication that I am a sexist. Nothing could be further from the truth, something you would know if you were familiar with my longstanding & well-documented efforts on behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed, not that a woman who is already in the hall of fame & who is making a riding comeback fits into either category. And while we\'re on the subject of sexism, which has nothing to do with the question on the table, isn\'t one of the basic tenets of feminist ideology that men demean women when they are presented as passive objects in male fantasies?
Again, the question you still haven\'t addressed has nothing to do with what someone else did or didn\'t do, let alone me or my ideology. And I am not in a position to address your comment that I am \"skipping history as tragedy and heading straight to history as farce\" because I have no idea what you are talking about.
This started out with me expressing my disapproval, for safety reasons, of Miss Krone\'s decision to continue riding, without telling anyone, after she was diagnosed as clinincally depressed and after she started taking powerful presciption drugs. There has never been any suggestion of prosecution, never any suggestion that her decision was a crime, & never any suggestion that what she did violated the Rules of Racing. The discussion raises a straightforward question which calls for a straightforward answer, so stop beating around the bush and disclose your position on the merits: In light of the circumstances, do you agree or disagree with her decision to continue riding?
I\'m less concerned about jockeys riding stoned on various drugs than I am about jockeys hallucinating and seeing spots during the race or so weak they\'re about to fall off because they heave and purge, and skip breakfast and lunch and eat a single pea for dinner so they can make weight.
Point well taken. Although I have never seen any stats on the question, my assumption would be that there are many more jockeys engaged in the practice which concerns you than there are taking illegal drugs, in which case the problem is of a much greater magnitude. My guess is that condemnation in this forum is not going to change that, and that unless the reg authorities decide to do something, which seems highly unlikely, it\'s going to continue to be a matter between the individual jockey and his or her conscience. Jockeys claim to be and want to be treated as professionals, but the hallmark of a professional is someone who is able to put the interests of others ahead of his or her personal interests. Nor is there anything that I know of which is preventing the Jockey Guild and/or similar orgs from addressing the problem.
The Jockey Guild wants to deal with that like the tracks wanted to deal with past posting, and continue to want to deal with EPO etc., and for the same reasons. They won\'t deal with it until it blows up in their faces.
Mall wrote:
\"The idea that one cannot offer an opinion on the judgment of a woman jockey without 1st, or at the same time, also condemning male jockeys makes even less sense...\"
The idea that you would bash a depressed girl while refusing to criticize the countless riders who did essentially the same thing, and in effect established the precedent for keeping quiet about such things, strikes me as odd. Since we lack statutes, think of this as common law. Julie\'s conduct can\'t be judged properly without examining the precedents.
\"makes even less sense than the implication that I am a sexist.\"
To conclude this, you would have to put emphasis on a word I avoided emphasizing. Read the sentence again, this time putting the emphasis on \"find.\" I do NOT think you are a sexist, but I can understand how you read it that way.
\"And while we\'re on the subject of sexism, which has nothing to do with the question on the table, isn\'t one of the basic tenets of feminist ideology that men demean women when they are presented as passive objects in male fantasies?\"
This is such a preposterous joke that I can only respond in kind. In my best fantasy, Halle Berry is not even remotely passive. (Be sure to see the cover of \"Cosmopolitan\" before it gets yanked.)
\"Again, the question you still haven\'t addressed\"
Bob Barry handled this beautifully. I would like to associate myself with his remarks. Be fair, Mall.
\"I am not in a position to address your comment that I am \"skipping history as tragedy and heading straight to history as farce\" because I have no idea what you are talking about.\"
That\'s a famous line from Karl Marx. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. You are skipping over all the precedents and attacking only Julie, and it\'s farcical.
\"This started out with me expressing my disapproval, for safety reasons, of Miss Krone\'s decision to continue riding, without telling anyone, after she was diagnosed as clinincally depressed and after she started taking powerful presciption drugs.\"
You did more than that, Mall. You didn\'t care for her Hall of Fame speech, either. Don\'t pretend this is only about safety.
\"There has never been any suggestion of prosecution, never any suggestion that her decision was a crime\"
It\'s pretty obvious that we\'re not in court. \"Selective prosecution\" was a metaphor. I have a hard time believing that you didn\'t know that.
\"In light of the circumstances, do you agree or disagree with her decision to continue riding?\"
If riding makes Julie feel better, I want her to ride. Now give me your lengthy condemnations of the other sinners, starting at the top.
Mall wrote:
\"Everyone is tripping over themselves gushing about her grit, determination,
and courage, pretty much the way they did when she went public with her
battle against depression. What I don\'t understand is why no one was or is
concerned about her admission that she spent the last 3 yrs before she
retired riding under the influence of powerful psychotropic drugs. Forget if
you can about the bettors who didn\'t know, and even the owners and trainers
whose work and property were placed at risk. What about the safety of the
other jockeys? I\'m happy she\'s back doing what she wants to do, but her
willingness to risk the property and safety of others, as well as her
disgraceful acceptance speech when she was inducted into the Hall of Fame,
has me thinking that most of the current praise is a bit overdone, to put it
mildly.\"
I would if I could but the old memory bank is not downloadable. I didn\'t hear it live. They played it on the weekly dark-day recap show.
It was a hoot mainly because Julie showed just how difficult it is to call a race, even when it\'s a three-horse slopfest with lengths between each one. But she was game. She was also cute and horses ran for her. What\'s not to like?
You did show me yours, but why didn\'t they show us Debby lacing up her skates?
Bob Barry wrote: \"why didn\'t they show us Debby lacing up her skates?\"
I\'m not going to sugarcoat it. The photographer is an incompetent bastard who deserves to rot in hell. He was surely the inspiration for Gore Vidal\'s line about photography being \"art for the untalented.\"
JB wrote: \"Speaking of the 98 Belmont, Bob Barry wrote a terrific piece for the Observer before that race,\"
I read it. This qualifies as an understatement.
This started when you invited me to express my views, which you thought you could change. I understand that I am in the minority, but the only substantive arguments I have heard from anyone all deal with how things looked from Ms Krone\'s perspective. The fact that the sacrifice would have been a major one has not convinced me that it shouldn\'t have been made.
Ironically, your comments re Ms Barry illustrate the debating tactic I was using quite nicely, as what feminists mean by \"passive\" is very different than whatever it is you are imagining doing with Ms Barry. Allow me to illustrate with an example from everyday life. Suppose someone accused me of violating the Tower of Death ritual of Zoroastrianism. Is that person not holding himself out as an expert on the subject? And if it turns out that the person in question is not familiar with the principles contained in the Avesta, does that not reflect on the credibility of the charge in the 1st place?
As for Julie\'s acceptance speech, I did say & do believe it was disgraceful, but am not convinced that it is matter which can be debated. What most people think she said is based on reports in the racing press, which did not include her bizarre disclosure of sexual fanatsies involving Steve Cauthen. The looks on the faces of a number of those in attendance convinced me that I was not the only one who did not think that it was the time or place to make such comments, especially in light of the fact that Mrs Cauthen was in attendance. One person did \"defend\" what she did on the ground that it was nothing more than Julie being Julie. Perhaps he has a point.
Mall wrote: \"This started when you invited me to express my views, which you thought you could change.\"
Wrong. This started when you invited yourself to express your views somewhere else. Since I\'m not signed up at the Derby List, I wanted you to express them here.
\"the only substantive arguments I have heard from anyone all deal with how things looked from Ms Krone\'s perspective.\"
Wrong. I have been begging you to give me your lengthy condemnations of the other riders and trainers who have withheld information from owners, riders, and trainers. From the perspective of these owners, riders, and trainers, they deserve this, don\'t they?
\"The fact that the sacrifice would have been a major one has not convinced me that it shouldn\'t have been made.\"
That JULIE\'S sacrifice would have been a major one has not convinced you that JULIE shouldn\'t have made it. Thus spake Mall, prescribing sacrifices to Julie, and ignoring everyone else.
\"your comments re Ms Barry illustrate the debating tactic I was using quite nicely, as what feminists mean by \"passive\" is very different than whatever it is you are imagining doing with Ms Barry.\"
Wrong. Laughably wrong. Wrong in two ways. 1: You have misjudged me. I consider 99 percent of identity politics to be BS that distracts attention from more important matters. Give me chivalry any day. 2: In feminist ideology, inactive or submissive roles apply to sex, too. Feminists have been known to complain mightily that men like women to be aggressive in one place and one place only.
\"Allow me to illustrate with an example from everyday life. Suppose someone accused me of violating the Tower of Death ritual of Zoroastrianism. Is that person not holding himself out as an expert on the subject? And if it turns out that the person in question is not familiar with the principles contained in the Avesta, does that not reflect on the credibility of the charge in the 1st place?\"
Wrong and silly, unless you would prefer an insane, Malladroit country in which cops make arrests, prosecute cases, issue verdicts, and issue sentences.
\"As for Julie\'s acceptance speech, I did say & do believe it was disgraceful, but am not convinced that it is matter which can be debated.\"
This is what some people say before they go on to debate something. Please tell me you\'re not one of those people.
\"What most people think she said is based on reports in the racing press, which did not include her bizarre disclosure of sexual fanatsies involving Steve Cauthen.\"
I guess you are. Anyway, I thought Cauthen was kind of cute once he adopted that English accent.
\"One person did \"defend\" what she did on the ground that it was nothing more than Julie being Julie. Perhaps he has a point.\"
How do you know it was a he? That was an anonymous post. Are you assuming that since that person obviously knew a lot about racing, that person had to be a man? Le traçage, il s\'épaissit (je badine seulement).
Here are two paragraphs about Julie that I read in an article in Salon:
\"In 1982, Yves Turcotte smacked her horse with his whip during a race and, when the race was over, Krone shoved him off the weigh-out scales. Jockey Jake Nied wrestled with her after a match until others pulled them apart. In 1986, Miguel Rujano hit her in the ear with his whip and she punched him in the face. He pushed her into the jockeys\' swimming pool and she hit him with a lawn chair. In 1989, she exchanged blows with jockey Joe Bravo and left him with fewer teeth.\"
\"Previously, she had resisted any type of therapy. \"I\'m a jock,\" she has said. \"I can do anything on my own. I thought it was humiliating to get help. Meanwhile, the only real relief I felt was planning my suicide. I saved sleeping pills, but I was going to drink alcohol, slit my wrists and maybe hang myself, too. I wanted to do one thing right.\"
Which is to say following a recipe which calls for two or three parts invective for every one part discussion. Hence, on what Scott V convincingly pointed out is a relatively minor part of the equation, my arguments have been labeled \"inane\", \"preposterous\", \"farcical\",\"laughably wrong\", and \"wrong and silly.\" It is interesting that your motive was never to convince anyone of the merits of your position, which may explain why the thing I am most convinced of at this point is that civil discourse is not your strongest suit.
I know how you like to have the last word, which I\'m more than willing to give you, although I do have a suggestion or two about possible topics. One is to avoid feminism. Not even the great Daniel Webster could enter a debate in support of a \"girl\" who he described as \"kind of cute\", who used to bounce around, \"short dress flying every which way\", and convince anyone that his motivation for entering the fray was to advance women\'s right to be treated equally.
Since you brought it up, my second suggestion has to do with the Derby List. As you know, my reason for becoming a member was to obtain information relating to the fix six scandal, which those who seem to be in charge were more than willing to provide. The information in question was passed on to reporters, who were advised to also read this Bd for insights into the thinking of serious fans. The impression I was left with when I contacted the individuals you put me in touch with, however, is that instead of saying that you are not a member of the List, it might be more accurate to say that you are no longer a member. If this is true, why wouldn\'t you take it as a sign that it just might be possible that some of the debating tactics you favor are, shall we say, a mite bit out of bounds?
Couldn\'t help but put my two cents worth in here:
Consider this: If men had treated women with respect from the beginning, we wouldn\'t have so many feminst bitches running around today
trying to be like men.
For the feminists: two wrongs don\'t make a right.
MO
Batten the hatches. Incoming...
Mall wrote:
\"which may explain why the thing I am most convinced of at this point is that civil discourse is not your strongest suit.\"
On a good day, on a really good day, I might be as competent at civil discourse as you are. In general, subtlety and irony do not work on racing message boards, but even if they did work, I\'m not sure I\'d bother using them against someone who deploys \"civil discourse\" against a depressed little girl while refusing to criticize any other riders.
\"my arguments have been labeled \"inane\",\"
Wrong. \"Inane\" is too weak. I called your argument \"insane.\"
\"Not even the great Daniel Webster could enter a debate in support of a \"girl\" who he described as \"kind of cute\", who used to bounce around, \"short dress flying every which way\", and convince anyone that his motivation for entering the fray was to advance women\'s right to be treated equally.\"
You persist in trying to kick me out of a feminist sorority that I was never asked to join. My models for ideal female behavior, as far as attitude is concerned, are Sharon Stone in \"Basic Instinct\" and the Italian girl in \"The Last Seduction.\" Like Camille Paglia, I\'d like to see them go back to naming hurricanes exclusively after women.
\"my second suggestion has to do with the Derby List...The impression I was left with when I contacted the individuals you put me in touch with, however, is that instead of saying that you are not a member of the List, it might be more accurate to say that you are no longer a member. If this is true, why wouldn\'t you take it as a sign that it just might be possible that some of the debating tactics you favor are, shall we say, a mite bit out of bounds?\"
Here your discourse is much closer to libelous than civil. I got those email addresses for you because I wanted to help you. I had never seen a message board used better than the way you were using this one. As I told a mutual friend of ours, \"We need more Malls.\" I have NEVER been a member of the Derby List. I have NEVER exchanged a word with any of those three men. I got those email addresses by going to the Derby List archives (escribe.com) and reading countless posts until I found ones in which those men revealed their email addresses. Now you\'re trying to make me wonder which of those three men (whom I have never spoken to) knows me and dislikes me. Apparently, you consider this sort of BS to be civil discourse. Nice work, Mall.
Mark O\'Keeffe wrote:
\"If men had treated women with respect from the beginning, we wouldn\'t have so many feminst bitches running around today
trying to be like men.\"
Since you aren\'t the type to make wild allegations, there must be some truth in this. Perhaps these women really aren\'t that scary once you get to know them. Put your fear aside and engage them in civil discourse.
I kind of fancy Clair Huxtable from the Cosby show.
\"When I became a successful jockey ... there were no female role models to show me how to act. In the beginning I had to be scrappy and aggressive to be taken seriously by trainers, owners and other jockeys. I acted like a typical tough guy, not a girl. When success came, I had to learn that I was finally being afforded the luxury of being a woman.\"
Julie Krone (with Nancy Ann Richardson ghosting), Riding For My Life - 1995
Linda Fiorentino. Yow! She made Sharon Stone look like Betty Rubble. Civil discourse, indeed!
Bob Barry wrote:
\"Linda Fiorentino. Yow! She made Sharon Stone look like Betty Rubble. Civil discourse, indeed!\"
Yes. Thanks. After sleeping with a guy she had known for about 10 seconds, she was concerned that he might be the type who kisses and tells. Hence the subtle warning she gave him the morning after: \"Don\'t (----) with my image.\"
julie\'s cool.
unfortunately, racing is one of the last bastions of misogyny.