Regarding T.A.P.- Jerry after this weekend you\'d better start \"watching\" this guy!
Verranzano ran 116 Beyer(like neg-4 on TG)easily fastest 3yr old performance amongst the colts this year and just about equal to DOJ\'s monstress win at Gulfstream.
TAP has ridiculous stock.
For the conspiracy minded.
Steve Allday:
\"Always a privilege to work on good horses. Racing at Saratoga & Monmouth Park was special this weekend.
Very proud to have helped!\"
Don\'t forget Allday client D.Romans was able to finally get Silver Max to the winners circle.
Guys, at what point do the horses get credit?
I personally do believe there is a serious problem with the overuse/abuse of medications in racing, but raw talent should still be acknowledged and the drugs can only do so much. They do not ultimately overcome genetics. And that does not condone their use/abuse. I think the biggest problem is in the lower classes of racing, but that is beside the point here.
Verazzano is just a fine specimen where no expense is spared, yes. Adjectives aside, the horse deserves some credit.
Shouldn\'t the healthy, \"best\" stock in the country need little \"work\" or \"help\" from the vet? I thought trainers were the geniuses behind these \"great\" animals...Not some guy that wants credit for his involvement in success stories.
Not conspiracy minded here. Just want more info on the vet\'s involvement in all races these days. Thanks to this vet for helping my view there is more info I should know as a bettor.
you\'re so very wrong about drugs not overcoming genetics.
the favorite line back in he 90s by the doping deniers in cycling was, \"you can\'t turn a mule into a thoroughbred.\" but that is exactly what happened--fat cyclists who couldn\'t even finish the tour de france before EPO (like one recently exposed fraud), were flying up mountains, making the tiny columbians--the best climbers in the world before EPO-- look like out of shape non-atheletes trying to get their bikes over speed bumps.
greg lemond, who was probably the most genetically gifted person to ever pedal a bike, couldn\'t even hold the wheels of domestiques in the early 90s; and andy hampsted, the best natural climber america has ever produced (and one of the best climbers of all time, dropped out in the middle of race, walking away from the sport forever in the early 90s, and all he said when asked why, and he only said it once, was\"what\'s the use?\"
just like in cycling, you\'ll never know which horses are the natural talents now. but unlike in cycling, these artificial talents are creating whole generations of untalented horses, who will dominate the sport due to chemists, not genetics.
the thing i\'ve tried to stress in my posts about this here is that doping does not confer its benefits equally. the benefits for the genetically superior are almost non-existent; but for the genetically unfit, the benefits are astronomical, because there is a ceiling to improvement. if you are born near or at that ceiling, you have no where to go, and doping only keeps you in the race, plus the lack of results, reduces the incentive to dope. where as with he mules, the incredible results turns you into a fiend who dopes year long, thus reaping the benefits of doping during training (which are significant).
the belmont woke shug up--he knew what his horse could do against this crop in a field closely monitored for doping, and he saw what his horse couldn\'t do, but almost did, against this crop in field where he was only one of two clean horses in the race. that\'s why orb has been at fairhill all summer--hyperbaric treatments do promote healing, but more than that they increase the body\'s ability to process oxygen--just like EPO. he\'s trying to give his horse a fighting chance.
orb\'s belmont should be heralded as one of, if not the, best perfomances all year--instead he\'s mocked for it. it sickens me--but i applaud shug. he\'s too classy to call out those he knows are cheating, but he\'s trying to level the playing field in the only way he can without actually resorting to doping himself. i don\'t know if it will be enough; after watching the whitney yesterday, i\'ve started to think i have to walk away from this sport too.
make no mistake doping--any kind of doping, no matter how small--is cheating. and like andy said, in sport dominated by cheating, what\'s the use?
These oxygen treatments/chambers---are they being used to provide more oxygen? Or are they being used to lessen the oxygen amounts (similar to training in high altitude) and then returning the horse out of the chamber to the racetrack soon after where they run in increased oxygen amounts?
Kekomi wrote:
\"the thing i\'ve tried to stress in my posts about this here is that doping does not confer its benefits equally. the benefits for the genetically superior are almost non-existent; but for the genetically unfit, the benefits are astronomical, because there is a ceiling to improvement. if you are born near or at that ceiling, you have no where to go, and doping only keeps you in the race, plus the lack of results, reduces the incentive to dope. where as with he mules, the incredible results turns you into a fiend who dopes year long, thus reaping the benefits of doping during training (which are significant).\"
Would you make this statement about strength sports such as weightlifting?
Todays poetry corner, in the 8th
Tevis to Todd and got the nod.
ok, more like 5 lengths. fooled maggie.
I do power lifting and I am a firm believer that genetically gifted people will perform a lot better if they dope (and train hard). Also unfit people who use drugs needs to train a lot to perform, is not just that easy.
I am natural and I would like to compete, but there is no chance for me to win. I see the drug abuse totally unfair and at the end it will degrade the humane race (or the horses) and will make us weaker. The only power-lift contest I can have an succeed is against myself.
\"Would you make this statement about strength sports such as weightlifting\"
Horse racing has strength as a major component.Prior to banning certain steroids,a few years back,you could look at many horses and see that steroid look,thick thru the chest and neck especially. Most of TAP\'s runners and other major outfits,looked that way back then vs what they look like now.
Miff,
You are right about the horses, of course, and Jose is right about powerlifting (a sport I was immersed in).
Anybody who would take the quoted comments of Kekomi\'s and claim they apply to sports like weightlifting is, to put it simply, a charlatan who would be laughed out of any weightlifting gym in the US.
Rich,
Dont know the science but muscle mass x velocity x blah blah blah equals speed. Its pretty much common sense that if you can increase muscle,you increase strength and in the case of a horse,speed.
Many of the supplements around the backside allege to revolve around just that and joint health,very liberally used.
Mike
don\'t you think after 50 years these trainers got it figured out? im sure they have tried numerous muscle building techniques by now. the only way you can make a horse run 5 seconds faster in 2 weeks is drugs, or pull the thorn out of his hoof.
hyberbaric treatment is the exact opposite of altitude training (which could be called hypobaric treatment), but they have similar results (except that hyperbaric treatment has far more beneficial side-effects, for lack of a better word, and hypobaric treatment, has far more negative side effects).
hyperbaric treatment saturates the body in oxygen, where as altitude training, like you said, deprives the body of oxygen (for anyone who is unfamiliar with this, think of climbing mount everest, the higher you go, the less oxygen there is).
the stress of lower oxygen levels at higher altitudes forces the body to produce more red blood cells to try to take in as much oxygen as possible in the hypobaric environment. so when you return to sea level, you have a short lived, temporary advantage over those who trained at sea level, because you have more red blood cells then they do in a more oxygen rich environment. mechanics-wise it works the same a EPO. both work by delivering more oxygen to the body via increasing the number of red blood cells (but EPO lasts longer--it might also create more red blood cells then altitude training, but i\'m not sure about this).
hyperbaric treatment, doesn\'t increase the number of red blood cells, it saturates the body in oxygen, delivering high concentrations of oxygen directly to the tissues/organs/muscles, which is more efficient than trying to increase the concentrations of oxygen in the tissues/organs/muscles just through blood delivery alone.
but all three methods increase performance by increasing the amount of oxygen available to the body.
i don\'t know enough about genetically gifted weight lifters vs chemically created weight lifters, too be honest...i was kind of under the impression they were all chemically created. weight lifting, i believe, is mostly anaerobic, not aerobic--but it would still have a performance ceiling too--you run out of fuel pretty quickly in anaerobic activities and risk tearing your muscles if you push it, which is why steroids would be so helpful, they speed up muscle recovery and repair, which would allow them to keep building on the size of their muscles...but this is all a guess...i really have no idea how weight lifting works =)
aerobic performance is capped by red blood cell count, it can\'t go much over 50% without stopping your heart; and by the ability buffer lactic acid and process glucose efficiently--there are drugs that increase these last two capabilities, but even so if you go to far, you\'ll end up tearing your muscles. pain and fatigue are the body\'s way of stopping you before this happens.this is why more efficient oxygen metabolism is such a game changer--you can go a lot farther before you have to switch over to glycolosis and before lactic acid starts eating away at your muscles.
genetically gifted human athletes are born with naturally high red blood cell counts, usually around 46-48%--compare this to lance armstrong, who was tested at just 39%. naturally gifted athletes also have higher lactic acid thresholds and can go farther aerobically before they have switch to anaerobic glycolosis to fuel their muscles--once that happens they have something like 10 seconds more of energy before they are kaput. and for whatever reason, people with naturally high blood cells counts just don\'t seem don\'t respond as well to EPO.
with race horses, the difference between front runners and closers,is that front runners exhaust their oxygen early and have to hope they have gotten far enough to make it across the line before their glycoloic fuel runs out. closers conserve their oxygen early, and hope that they have enough speed to use that saved oxygen to catch and pass the front runners before they switch over to glycolosis and hit the wall. the truth is the speed always collapses, but if they have a big enough lead, it doesn\'t matter. this is why i have never understood the obsession with rating. front runners are never going to switch over to closers, so all you do is take away their advantage.
disclosure: i\'m not a dr or a vet =)
bigger muscles work against stamina--this is a well established fact.
sprinting is almost purely anerobic, and sprinters have huge thigh muscles because they need power, not endurance. distance runners are always lean--huge muscles waste energy.
i could be rude too, but i won\'t be--i\'ll just say that just because horses were huge in the 80\'s and 90\'s doesn\'t mean that they were more efficient at the classic distances. dr. fager was a classically lean horse. i doubt any of themuscle bound horses of the steroid age could have beaten him, except in sprints.
my failure to respond to you guys sooner was only because this has been about the crappiest weak of my life--first i got the word i have cancer, then i got the word i\'ve got 60 days till i\'m out of job...i\'m 41 years...
anywho--accept or don\'t accept what i post, i\'m really okay with either
Very sorry to hear that, Kekomi. Good luck.