11/30 AQU

[Frank]

Silver Charm,

Your memory for detail is astounding. After wracking my brain for days, and enlisting the help of a friend, we came up with the name of the horse. Nani Rose. She was a Stonerside filly trained by Pat Byrne. She won first out on the grass by 17.5 lengths, followed that with a win in the G3 Regret at CD and a win in the G3 Lake George at SAR. Then came the \'incident\'. She had only one more race in her career, an eighth place finish in a G1 at BEL.

I was in Saratoga when Byrne got busted. His claim was that his vet, Dr. Fox, has mistakenly injected the wrong horse. Dr. Fox had arrived on the shedrow at the exact moment that both Byrne and the groom had left to go the washroom. Interestingly, there was only one bathroom at the barn leading to a whole other set of questions that I too much gentleman to ask here.

Frank

[cheapclaimer]

If memory serves, Byrne was busted for leaving his horse unattended not for the injection itself. There was a stink involving the vet, but don\'t recall the details.

[Frank]

Jurmala,

I remember it the same way. Byrne let the vet fall on his sword, or his needle as the case may be. Great guy.

Frank

[Silver Charm]

Frank M. wrote

\"Byrne let the vet fall on his sword, or his needle as the case may be\".

 Does\'nt it always work this way. Byrne after a brief appeal was given a six month suspension, which he served the following spring, while his assistant Kevin Wiley handled his horses. The incident was so damaging to his career that he subsquently added Mike Tabor and Bob and Beverly Lewis to his list of clients.

This got me thinking, TGJB since you are always on the cutting edge, and to divert your attention away from all the Ragozin idiots who are going to be bombarding this BB with their childish blather. Have you ever thought about posting vet statistics like the trainer stats? I mean whats more important, a hot trainer or a hot vet over the last 90 days. How about trainer/vet combination statistics. Steve Crist, Editor in Chief of the Daily Racing Form, could also publish statistics such as leading vets by earnings, number of wins. There could even be an Eclipse award for the nations leading Vet and Bob Baffert could present the award.

Here is a scenario:

Horse A is receiving first time lasix from a trainer who is 10% FTL but the Vet is 30% FTL.
Horse B is receiving FTL from a trainer who is 30% FTL but the Vet is 10% FTL.

Both horses are 4-1. Which one do you bet?

[TGJB]

I (and others) have advocated listing vets on the program, which would be a start. Problem is, one vet could be the vet of record, and another could be coming around to treat the horse. Trainers have what I think is called the \"ultimate insurer\" rule, or something like that-- they are responsible if there is a positive, not the vet. So if a trainer is listed on the program, he\'s training the horse-- not true of vets.