See the link below for an article in Bloodhorse about one interim idea about how to deal with the recent EPO positives.
He makes a good point that Racing credibility really suffers when officials say that they have found a bunch of horses that have been using illegal performance enhancing drugs - EPO (e.g., 6 out of 55 tested at Sam Houston came up positive)but they will not disclose the names of the horses or the trainers and owners. I am sure that makes everyone feel a lot better about the racing industry.
http://opinions.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=14776
Chris
The author\'s opinion is a reasonable one, given that it does not make a great deal of sense to keep adopting more & more rules which are rarely, if ever, enforced in any meaningful way. Two other proposals which also make some sense are increasing backstretch security and, for a 48 hr period before each race, keeping all runners in a high security area which is patrolled & has video cameras. The problem is that all of these ideas did not come from industry insiders & therefore have no chance of being adopted in our collective lifetimes. At this pt, about the only thing that would convince me for certain would be if all runners were required to be stabled at a videotaped stall at the track for a min. of 30 days before being permitted to race, and everyone who entered the backstretch was subjected to a strip search.
Mall:
They tried the security barn idea in Illinois some years ago. I don\'t recall if it was 24 or 48 hours before race day, but the windstorm it created was truly unbelievable. If memory serves, after a few weeks, trainers boycotted the entry box and it was ended, but don\'t quote me on it, LOL.
With regards to EPO, it\'s understandable one wouldn\'t want to assume anyone guilty with recently claimed animals, but if ownership/trainer haven\'t changed in 90+ days, as is the case with most allowance/stakes horses, a positive test should be awarded with banishment from the sport, simple. If it be high profile trainers, so be it.
\'sheets
bdsheets,
Your point about those horses owned/trained by the same connections for 3 or more months previous to the tests are right on. My guess is that most, if not all, of those testing positive were non-claimers and probably fit that category.
I think the real issue is that they are not willing to stick their necks out with regards to the testing and that this was more of a \"baseline probe\" rather than a \"catch and shoot\" set of tests.
Still, I think making the results public makes a lot of sense for those horses that had a single owner/trainer. Some may scream and holler but about all they can do is threaten a law suit and I don\'t think it would carry much weight (although Mall may want to comment). If they tried to enforce penalties then such claims might be more potent but simple publication of results seems pretty safe and fair (for everyone including the rule-abiding trainers and owners and the fans).
Chris
P.S. Here is a completely off topic but funny quote from Charles Barkley that I came across yesterday that I think many of you will get a kick out of:
\"You know the world is off tilt, when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest basketball player is Chinese, and Germany doesn\'t want to go to war.\"
No wonder the races at Sam Houston are all but impossible to handicap...
EPO threatens the very foundation of the racing game. This is no ordinary drug that appears in a post race sample at slightly elevated levels, but is otherwise permitted.
Any trainer who administers this drug is clearly willing to engage in a premeditated conspiracy to defraud the wagering public and his/her opponents on the racetrack. To say nothing of the health risks to the horse.
This is exactly why the Europeans do not allow the use of any type of drugs...Give \'em an inch and they take a mile.
Chris:
It scares me when you start quoting Charley Barley. But, I must say, he is a character and one of the best shows on TV is the half-time and wrap-up shows on TNT on Thursday night.
OPM,
What\'s wrong with quoting the future Governor of Alabama?...:-)
Chris
If you can get him off the golf course in Arizona...