One of the most successful ad campaigns, maybe ever, was the Miller
Lite \"tastes great/less filling\" beer ads. There was even a horse racing
themed ad shot in Leroy Jolley\'s barn where Jolley talked about the three
pleasures in life... Foolish Pleasure, Honest Pleasure and Lite Beer from
Miller.
One of the most memorable of the Lite Beer commercials featured two men at a
table in a heated argument over whether Miller tasted great or was less
filling. They turn to a third man at the table, hoping to settle the argument.
The third man is of course the bombastic five times fired manager of the
Yankees, Billy Martin. Martin sheepishly and almost apologetically replies \"I
feel strongly both ways. I never argue.\"
Here then, and not that anyone should care or be offended, are some thoughts
on the hot issue of the last few days:
1) Horsemanship/Horse Husbandry v PEDs: Simply, its a combination of both.
If you are administering a powerful, undetectable pre race cocktail to a horse,
but haven\'t kept up with the horse\'s hooves or floated its teeth regularly, or
kept the horse happy in general, or employ heavy handed exercise riders who
dont allow the horse to get the most out of its training, the desired result
will not be achieved. So yes, a lot of the usual suspects are also good
horsemen who spend many hours at the barn, are able to gallop their own
horses, have their own blacksmith, etc.
2) TAP/PEDs: This where I feel like Billy Martin: So many allegations and
accusations and very little of what I would consider hard evidence of using
undetectable PEDs. As I have stated many times, given the number of runners
TAP saddles and his winning percentage, his runners are tested as much as any
trainer\'s. As has been pointed out by others, it is hard to characterize him
as a move up trainer because he rarely claims and seldom gets stock from other
trainers.
TAP\'s affiliation with serial tweeter Doc Allday is at this point guilt by
association; his lack of success at CD in general and in the Derby in
particular, and his decision not to stable a string at CD after the Derby is,
to me, circumstantial at best. Perhaps the strongest evidence might be
the \"Dead Pletchers\" of 2001, but racing\'s powers that be apparently chose not
to pursue this.
3) PEDs and the TG Board: I started participating in 2004. The drug debate was
raging then, it is still raging, which reflects the absolute failure of Racing
with a capital \"R\" to come to grips with the reality and, possibly just as
damaging, the perception, that the playing field is far from level. Back in
2004, the lightning rod was one R. Tricky Dutrow; it took until 2012 for
what amounts to a lifetime ban to be imposed, but only after Tricky amassed a
mind boggling accumulation of violations and a continued arrogance which made the ban inevitable.
4) JB and PEDs: The man does not need me to support or defend him, and we
certainly do not always agree on Racing issues and/or politics, but JB has
more \"skin in the game\" than 99% of us -- he is a horseplayer, the publisher/
creator/ maintainer of a sophisticated database, and also is involved in the
purchase and sale of horses. Most of the posters here seem to want the game
\"cleaned up\", and JB has done quite a bit towards that end. The personal
attacks on JB are uncalled for given his investment in the game, and the
retribution for some of these attacks is unfortunate but understandable.
I hope between Triple Crown season and the Spa we can take a close objective
look at Michael Maker\'s recent run; my visual impression of his Keeneland
runners were that they were \"re-breaking\" in the stretch, much the way the
runners of NY\'s \"Holy Trinity\" did back in the 1980s. The scary thing to me is
that Maker\'s primary owner is a big gambler, and if positives ever come back
and the purse money must be returned, the owner still gets to keep his pari-
mutuel profits and would still get to campaign his string of horses, albeit
with another trainer, which seriously reduces the sting of a post race
disqualification.
I wonder whatever happened to the marshmellow salesman?
FranK:
Golden gloves?