I Want Revenge - The truth comes out in law suit!

[Wrongly]

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/51684/ieah-says-i-want-revenge-injury-not-disclosed

\"I Want Revenge was diagnosed as being lame and had filling in his right front fetlock April 10.\"
\"Additional treatments for the filling took place from April 11-13 and on April 14 an ultrasound was conducted on the injury, the filing states. The colt was injected in the right front fetlock April 15 and was administered antibiotics for the next five days, according to the counterclaim, with IEAH not being informed of any of those actions. IEAH claims further that the colt was injected in both front fetlocks April 28.\"

Oh and left out of the story is that trainers were informed on April 30th that Churchill was going to preform \"super testing\" on all horses May 1st.

[richiebee]

You\'ve got Mullins on one side and IEAH on the other.

Where\'s the good guys in this story?

[sighthound]

I doubt the supertesting has anything to do with this.  It was known April 10th, the latest April 14th, that the horse wouldn\'t be in the Derby, and that information was kept from IEAH, while the horse was injected to try and get him there anyway.

[Silver Charm]

Anybody who thinks this horse ran clean in the Gotham believes in the tooth fairy.

[sighthound]

He (apparently) tested clean.  What do you think was used?

[Silver Charm]

Air Power at a minimum

Anything else in Mullins Vet bag that he thought he could get away with at a maximum

This horse sold for Big Bucks after that win.

[basket777]

what did he use?

[sighthound]

Air Power isn\'t illegal.

Isn\'t anybody wondering about the insight this gives to horses, pre-Derby, being watched like hawks by morning men reporting back to their employers, trainers and horses observed and smothered by the press  - isn\'t anybody fascinated at the glimpse this gives anybody \"not of the backside\" into what people do not know about the horses they gamble upon?  Into the \"usual life of the racehorse\"?

This horse wasn\'t hopped - it was being treated like racehorses you guys bet upon every day are.  Sometimes a big moveup isn\'t illegal, or magic.  It\'s just a common, legal, joint injection.

Anybody put a future bet down on this horse, the third or fourth week of April?

IEAH obviously did (in the sale of part ownership, in the money spent to get owners to the Derby, etc).

We certainly may hear another side or sides to this story before it\'s all done.

Edit:  PS - knowing what is listed in the lawsuit regarding dates the horse was treated, go back in Bloodhorse or DRF, and read the \"daily pre-Derby reports\" on this horses works, etc.

[Wrongly]

Sight

What are you talking about, who knew the horse wasn\'t going to run in the Derby on April 10th or 14th?  The horse worked April 14th, again on the 21st and turned in a bullet 47 1/5 on April 28th!

[sighthound]

The horse was allegedly lame on the RF ankle on the 10th, and an ultrasound was done on the 14th, with ongoing non-specified treatments in between and afterwards  - no mention is made of radiographs, and why antibiotics were given is ?

If I had a horse that came up with ankle filling and lameness (let alone with the above ongoing medical stuff between April 10th and 14th and beyond) no way would I expect that horse could be running in a race - even for $5K claimers - three weeks later.

That is entirely the IEAH basis for the lawsuit, apparently - the ongoing medical concerns that were withheld from them, that they were allowed to go on thinking the horse was running in the Derby, that the horse was not scratched at the time frame April 10-14th when the alleged injury was apparent, and it appears that ongoing measures were used to attempt to keep training the horse and get the horse in the Derby starting gate rather than take the horse out of training and rest and fix the horse.

I\'ll look forward to the medical details of exactly what was going on when the suit plays out publically (if it does), of course.

[sighthound]

The horse worked April 14th, again on the 21st and turned in a bullet 47 1/5 on April 28th!

The magic of medicine.  That (most obviously) doesn\'t mean the horse was in good or sound physical shape.

And that may be the greatest travesty of all, if one\'s concern is for the welfare of the horse.

But one also has to realize that horses have ongoing aches and pains, certainly, and injecting hocks and ankles and knees to decrease pain and swelling is common.  

Not all of doing that is \"bad\", or unfair to the horse, by any stretch.  Some is required maintenance of an athlete, a good thing; some less is over the top attempting to get a horse that shouldn\'t run, to run.

Alot of the \"move ups\" you guys see are not necessarily illegal, it\'s just trainers doing this sort of stuff - getting them on clenbuterol daily, injecting sore hocks, deworming them and getting some good food into them, floating their teeth, changing a terrible exercise person causing a sore back, etc.  

Not all \"move up trainers\" moveups are illegal - some are just good horsemen.  Yeah, really.

We will have to know the medical details in this case.  But IEAH is apparently convinced the horse shouldn\'t have been run or worked after April 10-14th, and are sueing because of it.

[TGJB]

I won\'t comment on the suit, both because I don\'t know the facts and because it\'s a separate question. But

1-- According to several people,the horse was not off while jogging for the state vet Derby morning, or show any filling to the naked eye. I have no direct way of knowing whether this information is true, but I have heard it several places, from some pretty solid people.

2-- I\'m sure he was dealing with an ankle, like lots of other race horses. But if the above is true, many Derby starters have gone out there with worse problems. That doesn\'t mean doing it is a good idea or even acceptable behavior-- just that there\'s a real question as to whether that\'s why they scratched.

3-- If what you are saying is true, the horse\'s problem would be getting worse at the same time he is getting 10 lengths better. Literally.

4-- There are extreme differences in testing (and amount of dramatic jump-ups) between Cal and NY, where this guy exploded.

5-- From several sources, when they called all the Derby trainers in on Friday and explained the testing to them, Mullins got extremely agitated and asked a lot of questions.

Draw your own conclusions.

[sighthound]

We all know Mullins freaked out.  That was reported in the press at the time.

So you are saying the state vet literally lied about the lameness the morning of the Derby?  That reporting the horse was 1-2/5 lame was an overt lie, that Dr. Bramlage concurred with?  

That\'s a pretty big accusation.

Comparing all \"ankles\" (ankle problems) one to another is silly and cannot be done.

The assumption that the horse should be worsening (physically) instead of getting better isn\'t true.  In fact, it\'s the opposite.  Especially if the injections are true.

[TGJB]

What I was told originally was that their own vet claimed to see things that no-one else could see. I have no idea how that squares with the public story and am offering no opinion on anyone\'s veracity. But it should be obvious there is an awful lot of public relations and politics involved in a situation like this. Do you think CD or anyone else is going to say that someone should be running a horse that the trainer claims has a problem?

By definition the ankle would have been getting worse if their story is true, otherwise there would have been no reason to scratch. Now, do I think the big efforts made the problem worse? Yes, it\'s basically (though obviously not specifically) what I predicted after the first big effort, and in the Derby seminar. But I don\'t think the ankle was worse Saturday than Friday-- personally I think something else changed.

[sighthound]

I hope this isn\'t settled, and the details of the horses medical care and findings are eventually made public.

Edit:  and I\'m going to add this:

Why speculate on conspiracy theories or \"something else\", when everything fits easily with the common and obvious, with what was alleged in the lawsuit?
 
The horse got an injury three weeks out, yet they were trying to carry the horse through the Derby, without telling the partnership and trying to keep it secret.

As you say, nothing new (that the public doesn\'t know the true health of the equine athletes they bet upon) - especially when big bucks, partnerships, future stallion shares, etc. are involved.

Mullins gets upset learning about \"supertesting\" at the last minute, simply because both front ankles were injected April 28th, four days before the Derby, as alleged in the lawsuit.

That\'s cutting it close with more sophisticated testing, if mepivicaine were used (and we don\'t know what was used)  

What\'s the withdrawal time for mepivicaine in Louisville, Kentucky?  It\'s 96 hours - 4 days.  

So if the ankles were injected LEGALLY 4 days before the Derby with mepivicaine, with supertesting, there could absolutely be the risk of a low positive.

And the horse could still certainly have a subtle grade 1-2 lameness to the vet\'s eye (exactly as reported), at the vetcheck Derby morning, that \"people watching\" didn\'t appreciate.

The horse could have been being injected with mepivicaine all along, enabling the continued workouts.
 
That horses that work fast or have supreme efforts are at greater risk of subsequently developing injury as a result of that exceptional effort isn\'t really news, not in any horse sport (or human sport, for that matter).