Click on link below to read today\'s colunm.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/sports/othersports/24derby.html?ref=sports
NTRA\'s Alex Waldrop wrote a letter to the editors at:
http://www.ntra.com/blog.aspx?blogid=15.
Comments.
By coincidence, I finally got around to reading the NTRA Alliance accreditation document yesterday.
From Waldrop\'s letter today: \"Steroids have been effectively banned...\"
Effectively banned and banned effectively are two different things. Churchill banned milkshakes six years before they started testing for them. After that
a) sometimes they tested, sometimes they didn\'t (they weren\'t testing for most of the fall meet in 2006, when they only had the BC),
b) after we pressed a Freedom Of Information request to the state of Kentucky, they gave us some TCO2 test results, though they messed us around (meaning, for BS reasons, they gave us the numerical readings, but not the names of the horses, trainers, or dates. I could have forced them to give them up, but enough was happening on other fronts with this that I left it alone, for now). But here\'s the thing-- there was a 41 in the results (37 is a violation), and it wasn\'t the Dutrow positive, that came later. Anybody hear of anyone else getting a TCO2 positive in Ky? Right.
So-- banning something, even TESTING for something, is completely meaningless if you don\'t do something about it when you catch somebody.
c) if the whole thing isn\'t transparent, if the test results aren\'t being made public, there is no way to know what is really going on.
There is plenty of stuff going on right now behind the scenes (the Jockey Club blood freezing program is a big step), enough so that I\'m not calling for bettors to rain down on racetracks heads right now. But if what is being done does not turn out to be effective-- and we will be able to tell by the figures the horses are running-- that could still be the only practical solution.
Legend has it that they froze Oscars samples and they still glow in the dark.
Read the book Freakonomics by Steven Leavitt. Steve claims that racing is corrupt yet he developed a system that is successful, but isn\'t disclosing it. I would like to know in what way does he think racing is corrupt?
Drape\'s article seizes on the hot button issues-- drugs and high profile
fatalities-- in describing the dismal state of NY and US racing, and how much
healthier the sport seems to be in Europe, where racing is conducted without
medication.
Some other contrasts between US and European racing, only briefly mentioned, or
inferred, in Mr Drape\'s article--
1) Horses in Europe are trained in an entirely different manner and most racing
is conducted on grass.
2) Someone named \"HRH The Queen\" is still very actively involved in English
racing, but in the US what passed for royalty in racing---Mellon, Vanderbilt,
Whitney is pretty much gone.
In his anxiousness to blame \"drugs\" for a lot of racing\'s problems, Mr. Drape
basically ignores some of racing\'s other problems, like an overexposed product
(too much racing, not enough quality racing) and deteriorating facilities which
are not fan friendly, especially here in NY.
Mr. Drape\'s contention is that the public will not support a sport weighted down
by drugs and corruption, which doesn\'t explain the wild popularity of
professional baseball,basketball and football, and the greatest sham of all,
NCAA Division I football and basketball.
Speaking of basketball, Micheal Ray Richardson, at the end of a particularly
dreadful Knicks season in the 80s, was asked by a sportswriter for a prognosis
on the Knicks chances. MRR replied \"The ship be sinking.\" When the sportswriter
asked the follow up question \"How far can the ship sink?\", Richardson replied
\"The skys the limit.\"
Without quick action, MRR\'s analysis might pertain to racing.
From the article, I would put Joe Drape\'s current knowledge of racing at a level slightly below that of the Rastafarian brothers hanging on the first floor of the grandstand.He has hardly acknowledged the ongoing attempts in many quarters to address racing\'s problems.
Horse racing,the NY Times????
Mike