http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/sports/othersports/25racing.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=sports&adxnnlx=1214395570-Km2LhGfk8a0AYMUL721skg
\"Sammy The Bull\" strikes again.
Clenbuterol, Steroids, etc. What other qoute \"Legal Stuff\" is this guy pumping into his horses to get these major moveups? His 27% winning percentage?
How much of this latest positve did IEAH know before their recent annoucement to go clean by Oct 1st?
In a perfect world, IEAH calls a press conference and announces they have
severed all ties with trainer Tricky....
...and names Patrick Biancobra their private trainer.
Once again, absolutely astounded that the man will receive a reduced penalty for
admitting guilt, which would be appropriate if this was a first time offender
or an insignificant overage; neither is the case here.
So the trainer is sat down for 15 days and the owners return the purse
winnings. But if Salute the Count had won and Tricky and the owners cash a bet,
Tricky and the owners are \"unjustly enriched\" and horseplayers who bet against
the horse on that day are f-kt, an inequity which Racing has never been able to
address.
richiebee Wrote:
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> In a perfect world, IEAH calls a press conference
> and announces they have
> severed all ties with trainer Tricky....
In the real world Teflon Tricky assembles his Press Corp Team and they start telling everyone he is a refreshing change of pace for racing and a misunderstood guy.
He\'s taken responsability for this bute overage. There is only a 72 hour window for bute in KY, and yet a 96 hour window in NY. He\'s a NY trainer. He works 7 days a week, 365 days a year, probably from 4AM-9PM. It\'s not hard to imagine how a trainer could screw up a bute dosage like this when there are no uniform rules from state to state.
I\'m not defending Rick, he should be more attentive to these things because all it does is blow things out of proportion when he screws up. And he DOES screw up from time to time. Nobody is perfect.
In case you haven\'t noticed, America\'s national pass time is not baseball. It\'s putting people up on a pedestal - usually uneducated athletes - with the sole intention of knocking those people off said pedestals. And the people doing the knocking are often jealous folks with a college degree who put those uneducated people up on a pedestal in the first place........
Now, how many violations does Assmussen have? Jeff Mullins, and on and on and on? Publish their rap sheets. Then compare. Dutrow\'s no angel, but his rap sheet is much shorter than a lot of other trainers.
What would have happened to Assmussen if Curlin won the Triple Crown?
Same thing as Dutrow?
Suggestion: How about race tracks subtracting - let\'s say 5% of each purse for every race run - to be put in an account that would be paid to betters of horses who were moved up via disqualification due to post race positives?
MO Wrote:
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> Now, how many violations does Assmussen have? Jeff
> Mullins, and on and on and on? Publish their rap
> sheets. Then compare. Dutrow\'s no angel, but his
> rap sheet is much shorter than a lot of other
> trainers.
MO-
Good morning.
I am not proficient at \"linking\" material, but please read Michael D\'s post
from June 19 (posted at 1:32 PM) where MD attached an article from the
Baltimore Sun(?) which lists all of Tricky\'s violations.
The man shows a chronic disregard for the rules of Racing, whether they be
procedural or pharmaceutical. If it is his ignorance of the rules of Racing
which is indeed the reason for all of these violations,maybe he needs to re-
take the test they give to all aspiring trainers before licenses are issued.
A few years back I posted form letters which people could use to express their
dissatisfaction with the state of racing. One of them went something like this:
\"Dear [Racing Organization]:
I bet $xxxx each year at your facility.
I am concerned that certain trainers are using performance enhancers which give
their runners an unfair advantage and create an unlevel playing field.
I intend from this point on not to bet on any race which includes entries from
the following trainers: [ ], [ ], [ ]\"
Of course most horseplayers enjoy playing the \"innocent victim\" role and a
letter like the one above will rarely (if ever) be sent.
You really have to wonder how things like this happen so regularly. If I was a trainer hell bent on cheating with drugs etc... I would NEVER get a positive on something I know they test for. I\'d probably eventually get a positive for something they just started testing for that I didn\'t know about.
Dutrow is not a stupid man. When things like this happen, I simply have to believe they are either accidental or the testing is so random and limited that he knows he can get away with 100 before they catch him for 1. So he makes an economic and career calculation that he\'s better off cheating than not because the punishment is not harsh enough to offset the gain of cheating.
Regardless, even if many of his positives are accidental oversights, mixups, etc... it does suggest that the stable is not under control.
Along those lines: horses that get disqualified for drug positives should lose eligibility for that condition. The situation one sometimes sees where a horse wins a maiden, starts running against winners, gets disqualified from its maiden win, then drops back against maidens, (or having one a 1x in the meantime is again eligible for a 1x by virtue of losing its maiden score) just creates a chance for two betting scores for the connections.
And/or: horses that get disqualified for drugs should not only lose the purse for the race in question, but should have an amount equal to the purse money they lost due to the drug positive deducted from their subsequent on-track winnings which would be earmarked for drug testing.
That should get the connections thinking twice.
Another change I would welcome would be if in the Past Performances instead of just saying \'disqualified from purse money,\' they would say \'disqualified for purse money for drug positive.\'
And, of course, instead of just saying \'previously trained by Rick Dutrow,\' the line would read, \'previously trained by Rick Dutrow suspended for drug positive.\" Of course, that would take an editorial committment, the type of spine the Daily Racing Firm has not shown evidence of in the past (or in the present.)
fkach Wrote:
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> Dutrow is not a stupid man. When things like this
> happen, I simply have to believe they are either
> accidental or the testing is so random and limited
> that he knows he can get away with 100 before they
> catch him for 1.
>
> Regardless, even if many of his positives are
> accidental oversights, mixups, etc... it does
> suggest that he stable is not under control.
Fkach:
How come TD has so many more \"accidental oversights, mixups, etc\" than other
trainers who saddle many more horses than Tricky?
I guarantee these \"accidental oversights...etc \" would decrease if a proper
deterrent was applied.
MY OPINION (and I am allowed to have one):
At one point or another Tricky, who is a loose cannon and by his own admission
not the brightest bulb in the chandelier,is going to run his mouth at an
inopportune moment (its just Tricky being Tricky) and a lot of individuals and
Racing as a sport might take a bad hit.
My opinion is that the powers that be in Racing overruled Congress and got
Tricky to stay home.
Tricky will have his moment. He will eventually say the wrong thing to the
wrong person at the wrong time, he will suffer, Racing will suffer, I will shut
up and dig in to a puzzling early double at Bel.
Hi Rich,
Hope all is well with you.
I know of and was referring to Michael D\'s post. I tried an internet search of same for other trainers but came up empty - and not becuse these trainers are innocent.
It just looks to me like there\'s a lot of jealousy associated with Dutrow. He puts his money where his mouth is. And he wins more often than most handicappers do because he\'s got a great eye not only for his horse, but for the competition. He took one look at Casino Drive and laughed. Now his delivery annoyed some people. But he was dead on balls accurate, was he not? When he chose the 20 hole in the Derby, he really didn\'t want it, but brushed it off knowing his horse was 10 lengths better than the competition. His delievery annoyed a few people. But he was dead on balls accurate. Was he not? And let\'s not forget his horse tested clean after the Derby.
I worked for his dad used to run his (Rick\'s) pick 6 bets, so I know what I\'m talking about here. The guy can handicap. He\'s no mathmatician. He probably can\'t tell you the difference between 3/5 of a second and 59/100 seconds, nor tell you what a place payoff will be. But he knows how to interpret the sheets, he has a great eye for horseflesh and he\'s got inside information that we would all like to have. But most of us don\'t work on the backstretch and so we are \"not entitled to\" that inside info. He\'s a keen observer and uses that knowledge to his advantage both placing his horses and in betting them.
There\'s an unwritten rule in racing that if you work on the backstretch, you don\'t share any info gained with handicappers. You keep it for yourself. When I worked for Rick in 1988, there were many times I would handicap and bet a horse I was hotwalking only to have the horse finish up the track and Rick laughing his ass off at me. I\'d say to him \"Why the F*&^ didn\'t you tell me this pig couldn\'t run?\". And Rick would only laugh even harder. Yea, his delivery pissed me off too. But I think I know why he\'s like that and so I don\'t hold it against him.
And so I ask the same question as I did earlier: What if Curlin won the TC? Would Assmussen get the same treatment as Dutrow? After all, he (Assmussen) was suspended for 6 months.
Peace.