So, I attended both the LA Derby and Risen Star. I saw two different horses on those days but they were both named Vicars In Trouble. Looked completely different and better yesterday and showed it on the track. Now, I know it could be because of his pattern - a huge number knocked him back a bit - coat was dull - didn\'t look good. Yesterday looked grand. So far so good. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But wait there is more. After his Risen Star race - which wasn\'t that bad - they shipped him to Florida to Mike Maker. Wait What? They shipped a horse that had wintered for 4 months or more at FG to Gulf. WHY? To run in Fla Derby? He had 2 works over the GP strip and then they shipped back to Louisiana. Now, I\'m not suggesting anything nefarious here but can someone in the press please ask the question - (and if it has been asked and answered well - nevermind)EDIT - just read Privman\'s article in DRF and mentioned foot abcess> why did you ship to Florida? I heard - again unsubstantiated - that horse had a foot abcess and Maker wanted him in his barn in Florida to treat directly.
But, really as a player I think we should know this information. Maybe they wanted to train him over GP to see if he liked it to consider the Fla Derby? I don\'t know and apparently neither does anyone else. This is not sour grapes. I would never have played Vicar at that price. I just want to know and I think everyone should too.
michael
Well said. He burned me too but after the PETA stuff would anyone expected to reading about a horse with maybe a Bad Foot running in a $Money$ race? And Maker is a bit of a miracle worker nowadays. Expect to see multiple TV commercials announcing the once-in-lifetime Sire Offer opportunities for this Louisiana Derby romping winner in around 10 months. That\'s what is all come down to anymore....
Mike,
Agree,his Risen Star was not nearly as good as the fig he earned but the formula required adj for ground and he got saved, figuratively speaking.
For one thing, s--t eating grin or not,that owner is treacherous, that\'s documented.Florida very very liberal and has weak testing.Almost no OOC testing,lots of horse \"spas\" there also with many \"aides\".Weather is New Orleans not as reliable as south fl for training and that ship not real bad,a factor maybe.Foot problems can be devastating(see Shared Belief) and maybe connections called in one of the specialists to deal with it.Could also be all bull and they \'helped\' VIT with stuff, perhaps legal, or not.
Re the mystery of injuries, a players group that I speak for asked NY racing officials why ALL substantial health issues on racehorses are not disclosed to the public(most owners/trainers diabolically opposed to that disclosure)....no real answer to the request ever given.
Tell Pete Sr, I am writing to Esquire to nominate him for an emmy!
Mike
I\'m all for much greater disclosure for more medication and treatment information, hopefully that goes without saying.
But would it be that unusual for a horse to have an off race due to a foot abscess (and by off, it certainly fit his pattern fine, it was just uncharacteristic for him to not try to go to the front)... and then that same horse show up a month later with a foot in better shape and more able to run his race?
seems to me, the only way to stop ramsey/maker is breeders cup style testing/monitoring. Ramsay 0-7 last year with 1 third. Pretty sure had no entries 2012.
I want to be clear. I am not accusing anyone of drugging etc. What I\'m concerned about is at the sport\'s biggest under the magnifying glass moment in recent history - we allow this to go on without putting it under the microscope and just ask a simple question - Why? Why did he go to florida? simple.
michael
well, I am just saying for someone who has been over 30% in kentucky/lousiana/florida, and probably 50% in the money, when horses are under 24 hour watch, he shoots a blank. 7 horses not a large sampling, I understand, but the last few years, his results have been pretty amazing
I can think of a dozen reasons why the horse was shipped to Florida, but cannot fathom any rational why the owner/trainer need to disclose that information to anyone.
bbb
AT BEST his fig yesterday was the same as his last.
Did the show cover the HPWS?
Bell,
Would agree with the shipping thing,however it should be mandatory to report substantial injuries to the racing authorities.That info should then be published.
Mike
Agree. And they do it in Hong Kong and Australia.
NO the show didn\'t cover the HPWS. Too bad. They were there shooting some pick up stuff on Wednesday but basically finished all episodes.
Seriously Bellesbendboy? We legally wager billions on horse racing and you don\'t think the owners need to disclose treatment or injuries. We illegally bet billions on football and the NFL requires disclosure of injuries AND the press asks penetrating questions about the treatment and the progress of injuries.
Who does it the right way?
I was bugging a ton of people on all week (and thanks to Steve byk for asking Priv about it on Friday\'s show) trying to find any info about how Vic was doing.(and yes this sort of thing should absolutely be mandated to be in the form). Knew about the abscess but obviously greatly concerned because he\'d missed a work and his last work, as same day as ARod\'s last, was 2 full seconds slower than Arod\'s. It really struck as odd how both Maker and Ramsey were talking non stop the last 10 days or so about ARod and WeMArit/Bkitten but literally hardly a word (Ramsey mentioned the abcess briefly in an h.r.r.n. interview two weeks back) about Vic.
Obviously the concern was a horse with, as the ROTW points out, a great pattern and fast, but who was pushed into the race not really ready for it.
Thought (mild red board here, prepare yourselves) that if he ran great and won would set him up perfectly with fast, paired top for big day. He won alright but did he actually regress even with the reasonable margin of victory. That\'s why we come here, of course.
Which just proves the old adage, you can get what you want (he won), and still not be very happy (possible regression).
5 weeks to go.
Mike:
The comparison between the NFL and Racing is an interesting one.
For years, NFL teams have used secrecy and deception about the physical
condition of their players to gain or maintain a competitive edge. Even now,
a large number of doubtful and questionable players listed during the week on
the injury reports end up playing in the games.
The NHL has an interesting approach, classifying all injuries into two types:
upper body injuries and lower body injuries.
For as long as claiming races (still the majority of the races run in the US)
have been run, the true condition of the runners has been concealed for the
purpose of gaining an advantage. I have seen trainers bandage horses in a way
which makes those horses look like they were a little off, or that made them
seem like they might have tendon or ankle problems. Once the time for
entering a claim for a horse has passed, the bandages are removed and all of
a sudden the horse is sound. I have seen trainers put vaseline on the knees
of horses to give the appearance that they were standing in an ice tub when
the fact is that they were not. I have seen trainers put flecks of mud or
poultice on a horse\'s legs to give the appearance that the horse spent its
non racing time in mud or poultice up to its ears when this was not the case.
These are just the ways I have seen sound horses seem dinged up (and I must
disclose that I spent a good deal of my time on the backstretch down on
Gentilly Blvd.) Of course there are even more ways to make a sore horse look
sound enough to be claimed, and this is where medication (legal, illegal,
grey area, whatever), fits in.
As has been said here many times, the full disclosure most horseplayers want
directly conflicts with the way the claiming game is played. I guess the
compromise would be to establish a separate protocol for horses nominated for
stakes.
As to Maker/Vicar, I can think of as many legitimate reasons that Maker would
want the horse in Florida as evil ones. If Maker or Ramsay answered the
question, to what extent would we go to affirm the veracity of the response?
What would be the penalty for lying?
The world of racing seems to be pulling ahead of the NFL in terms of
insuring the health and happiness of retired participants, thanks to the
appreciated efforts of folks such as yourself. The NFL and its players\' union
have a pretty miserable record with regards to retired players who have lived
with pain, dementia and the kind of desperation which in some cases has lead
to suicide, after their NFL years.
I believe that racing should take the next step: Two year old in training
sales held before May or June, and especially the sale and resale of
pinhooked horses, should be heavily surcharged, with the receipts going to
a) research into thoroughbred injuries; b) new testing protocols to level the
playing field; and c) thoroughbred retirement programs, because the whole
microindustry of 2YO in training sales and pinhooking produces large numbers
of early retirees.
I don\'t care if they tell me what they had for breakfast.
At a 20% rake, the game is still a tough beat. If everyone knows everything, it wont help you at the windows.
Brooklyn Backstretch:
As was likely the case at backstretches across the country last week, conversations at Florida's tracks and training centers continued to focus on the New York Times' story on PETA's undercover investigation at Steve Asmussen's Churchill Downs and Saratoga barns last year.
Public commentary has been plentiful, abundant in insight, in stridency, in commitment, in sanctimony, in determination, in anger, in defensiveness, in desperation. It's been written by fans, journalists, executives, and observers. People have talked about what needs to be learned from the incident, what needs to be done next.
In conversations last week, both on and off the record, trainers acknowledged the need to both enact reform and educate the public. They expressed dismay about the possibility of being recorded in both private and public moments, at having one's worst moments broadcast out of context, at what they saw as both sensational and misleading in the video and the coverage, pointing specifically to the comment about the lack of a pulse in Nehro's feet being portrayed as a sign of poor condition, when in fact it is, according to multiple commenters, a sign of health.
Five trainers agreed to speak on the record, offering their reactions to what they saw and their hopes for the good to come out of it. Trainers' comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Mark Hennig
The video is a simple invasion of life that you hope isn't happening at any point in your life, whether it's at work or at home. You like to think you have a certain amount of privacy in your life. But I understand investigative journalism and that's the way it goes. It's probably a good wake-up call for people, not only in our business but in our private lives.
I think we've all been in those positions where you've been frustrated with a horse that has continual issues. You really aren't trying to abuse them; you're trying to help them through those issues. Whether it's here at the track or somebody that has a pleasure horse that they want to ride on Saturdays, and they go out to the barn and he's lame every Saturday, they work all week to get him sound and then he's sore again the next Saturday. They're livestock and they have issues and just like people, they have things that nag at them. Obviously [Nehro] had his feet. I think it's a jump to call it animal cruelty from what I've seen.
I don't know who could argue with having [more consistent regulations]. It would be much easier if we had some rules that cross the lines of states. I think the medications are definitely abused—[there\'s a] "if it works, I should give more of it" kind of mentality, and that's not the right way to think.
I've talked to vets that have said that some people think that if 5cc of Lasix is good, which is the normal dose, then 10 cc must be better. You have to think about what it's doing to the horse when you do something like that.
It's sad that we didn't have a central voice to speak for our game, because there are so many good people in it and so many well-cared-for horses.
I don't know how you go about instituting [a commissioner]. I was talking to one of my clients the other day, and it's a little different, a commissioner representing 32 teams and a commissioner representing 48,000 owners. I don't know if we need to appoint a commissioner as much as a ruling body that we all need to get licensed under, and abide by the rules and the disciplinary actions and what the courts say for owners, trainers, whoever.
In the last 10 or 15 years, it has been blatantly obvious that some owners are drawn to people that they perceive are doing the wrong things, which is sad. Some of them are the same people who get up and clamor for change.
Jimmy Toner
I think there's got to be more clarification than what was in that video. A lot of that stuff was taken out of context. As they said, eight months wound up with eight minutes.
I think we have to have people understand that what we do is medication; it's therapy. We're doing it to help horses run at the best of their abilities, but the way it looked is like we just randomly drug horses and shock them and do this and do that and we don't.
If any good can come of this, it's clarifying the message, and if there's any wrong doing, then people have to be punished more severely than what they've been.
The comments about Nehro and about losing a horse when you know he was bad—you just can't have a mindset like that about what you're doing. I know it's a business, but we still have a responsibility. We have to be responsible for their well-being. You can't just lead one over there and hope someone takes them and they break down and you go, 'That's great.'" I think that's got to change.
And unfortunately, you can go through any barn and you would hear people say things. You're back and forth for different things, you're not aware what they're doing if you see a horse being worked on, not aware that the horse isn't running the next day.
You just never know. I think you're supposed to be able to trust people. They're having dinner, you've got Gary Stevens and Wayne Lukas sitting there talking about the old days, and right away your ears go up. "Wow, they said this," but that was the old days.
Maybe now there will be more regulation, and maybe people will start worrying more about some of these designer drugs as opposed to worrying about stopping Lasix. It takes something like this to make everyone aware of what's going on. They've had years to try to clamp down on things, and what have they done? I think absolutely we should have one national governing body, but it's all political—no state wants to give up their own authority.
Hopefully this will get something done to clamp down on the abusers. We're just always behind the curve with testing.
Most of the things shown were legal. We do inject horses' hocks. But there's a time frame, and the bottom line is that some horses need that kind of work. But if you're showing those kind of things and people aren't aware of it, aren't aware that it's a legal, proper treatment, they're going to say, '"Oh my God, look what they're doing, they're sticking a needle in." Those things have to be clarified.
It's about trying to get people educated. You're watching a football game, a guy walks off the field and goes to get a shot of lidocaine in his knee. Lidocaine? We can't do that. You get ruled off for life for doing something like that.
I know that the horses can't speak for themselves. But that's our judgment: we're supposed to be able to help them.
Hopefully, something positive comes out of this because it was really nasty. It's a nightmare.
Francis "Tres" Abbott III
Good had better come out of this, though the only people that really did anything against the rules of racing were Wayne Lukas and Gary Stevens, and that's all seemed to kind of blow over.
You take your horses away from Steve Asmussen and send them to Lukas, who was in the video? It just doesn't make any sense.
I think we need one single governing body. I mean, you could literally spend months writing down what people do. I went into the tack shop down here, where jockeys shop, and I was looking at a pair of rain pants for a jockey, and there were zippers on them.
I was with a jockey, and she asked, "What's that for?" They said, "They're pockets. She said, "What do you need pockets for?" You don't need a pocket when you're race riding in the afternoon.
The Jockey Club needs to step forward, things like the NTRA needs to be absorbed into The Jockey Club. It's so fragmented, and no one really does anything. Let's be honest.
It's great for Barry Irwin and Barry Weisbord to write things about what needs to be done, but no one's said, "Hey, let's do something."
There are a whole lot of people saying, "This is the way it needs to be," but they're not in the barns every morning. It's not as straightforward [as people think].
Ken McPeek
If people could access the sport and had a better understanding of it, then things like the Asmussen scandal or whatever you want it call it would be easier for them to understand. The sport's got to change the way that fans access the video.
I'm concerned about it. We got to do something, do something big-time.
I think Lasix lowers the starts per horse per year. The Triple Crown hasn't been won since the addition of Lasix to the sport because it dehydrates horses. You can't run them back as quickly, and when you can't run them back as quickly, it affects the racing office, and it affects the owners because the owners can't run for purse money as much.
I'm not opposed to a sport without Lasix whatsoever.
As far as some of the other tools, as far as the injections and stuff like that, a lot of that's positive. You inject a horse's ankles, you're trying to slow down degenerative join disease, which is a good thing.
If you're not going to do it for therapeutic reasons, don't do it at all. The AAEP [American Association of Equine Practitioners] could probably jump in on that one. They'd still get the work, but they'd be doing more for helping joints.
Terri Pompay
They were scoping horses to see if they had mucus, if they were sick. They were having horses in whirlpool tubs. They were injecting stifle joints and shoulder joints, and sometimes you need to do some of those things to help an athlete. You're trying to help the horse. Gastrogard is an ulcer medication.
Where is the point of abuse? What do you consider abuse? What about putting a tongue tie on? If the horse doesn't like it until he gets used to it, is that abusive?
We put glue-on shoes if a horse has a little bit of sore feet. Is that abuse, or is that trying to help the horse? It's a fine line.
Obviously there are people who abuse in the business; they do inject illegal drugs. But what about all the good things? I've never been in Asmussen's barn, but I've people say they do massages on horses, and they do acupuncture. There are so many things we do to try to help a horse, and none of that was on the video.
When you have a vet working over a period of time on many different horses and then you combine them all together, it just looks really bad.
Look at these horses. Look at the feed programs we have them on. You go out in the field and look at horses that sit in people's backyard. They don't look like these horses look.
I think we need to educate people. I just don't know how we go about doing it.
Bloodhorse:
The outgoing chairman of the Association of Racing Commissioners International said it is \"vitally important\" racing jurisdictions adopt the National Uniform Medication Program as soon as possible.
Duncan Patterson, chairman of the Delaware Thoroughbred Racing Commission, outlined the program April 1 during the Racing Officials Accreditation Program conference in Delaware. RCI president Ed Martin also addressed the group via video.
Patterson said the medication program, which includes a penalty system designed to weed out repeat offenders, should be looked at by regulators as an equine health and welfare issue. He mentioned the video recently released by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the group\'s related allegations of mistreatment and abuse of Thoroughbreds.
\"What it has done in my opinion has pushed us as commissions and you as stewards to do something,\" Patterson said. \"There is more pressure now to make things better. Most of us know 99% of horses are better taken care of than we take care of ourselves. But the perception is that horses are mistreated and abused with drugs. It\'s why the National Uniform Medication Program is vitally important.\"
Patterson also commented on a lengthy statement issued March 28 by Ogden \"Dinny\" Phipps, chairman of The Jockey Club, in response to the PETA allegations currently under investigation by three states.
\"Dinny Phipps\' response to the (PETA) video basically said if the industry doesn\'t get its act together The Jockey Club will push for federal intervention,\" Patterson said. \"I can\'t blame Mr. Phipps for advocating that. We have got to get together and work to make sure the sport is cleaned up in the eyes of the public.\"
Patterson believes progress has been made on the uniform medication front. He said of 35 jurisdictions in the United States, a survey by RCI shows 27 of them have approved the program, are in the process of doing so, or have indicated they plan to move forward with it.
Martin, who was in Ohio attending the United States Trotting Association meetings, on his video questioned attacks on horse racing in regard to its alleged widespread corruption. He used statistics from the United States Anti-Doping Agency—the organization that would take over medication in racing should a federal bill pass—as an example.
Martin said that during the 2014 winter Olympics, 2,061 drug tests produced six violations for prohibited substances, meaning 99.7% were clean. He said a survey performed by RCI on 320,000 samples taken from racehorses found 99.59% not in violation.
\"It\'s very much in the same ballpark,\" Martin said. \"It doesn\'t mean you catch everyone trying to cheat, but the real challenge for us is getting a handle on substances we don\'t know about or can\'t test for.\"
Martin said the Olympics allow therapeutic medication exemptions—or \"doctors\' notes,\" he called them—that allow athletes to compete under the influence of performance-enhancing substances.
\"Consider this issue: Can you imagine if we did that in racing?\" Martin said. \"Can you imagine the number of applications for exemptions you would get? We\'re no better or worse than any other sport. The perception in racing is everybody is cheating. We often get that bum rap—especially from people inside of racing. And it doesn\'t happen the way some politicians would have you believe.\"
Martin said Thoroughbred racing addressed the issue of repeat offenders in the sport by incorporating the multiple medication violation penalty system in the National Uniform Medication Program. He said the MMV penalty system is patterned after federal sentencing guidelines.
\"There is widespread belief we don\'t adequately punish repeat violators,\" Martin said. \"We took those criticisms to heart to create this points system (for violations).\"
RCI will hold its 2014 convention April 7-9 in Lexington. Uniform medication and penalties are expected to be discussed during the meetings.
Martin has been running out that 99% nonsense for years. Someday someone will ask him for the underlying data. Since test results are not published, that will start an interesting conversation.
In 2013, California did 24,000+ TCO2 tests. Pennsylvania did around 110, racing year round. What does \"no positives\" mean in Pennsylvania?
The horse population in HK is extremely tightly controlled and very small compared to every other jurisdiction on earth.
If you believe they are reporting everything in Australia-I have a bridge to sell.
oh it is laughable.
Look at Lake, guy stole and lost millions from him,
everyone around him virtually dead broke
and here a guy where obviously inside injury information should obviously give them an edge and yet it obviously didn\'t.
the prices are the form objectified to the nth degree-if inside injuries etc were so crucial-the form aka Zjelko, Dana et al could not use computer programs to make millions.
the whole tenor of \"them\" getting over with inside information injury or otherwise is laughable and if one approaches the odds board with the oh they must know something hence the animal being 2/1 and not 6/1-one has less than zero chance at this game.