New Juice?

[miff]

Bergstein, a conspiracy theorist from wayyyyy back, just don\'t get it either. This stuff is probably one of many many designer drugs for which there is no test yet developed. As long as there are chemists out there designing new performance enhancers,someone will use them.The Clueless Clowns running the game will never admit there is really no totally comprehensive way to stop ALL of this,except maybe by an enormous  monetary investment by the game.They ain\'t doin it!!


\"A little money would go long way toward catching those using illegal drugs\"
By Stan Bergstein
 

The story should have driven racing's Richter scale past the 9.0 mark.

It was an earthquake, but it didn't move the needle.

It was a short column written by a man who writes very little on Thoroughbred racing, but who shakes up harness racing with his offerings from time to time in a rising newsletter called Harness Racing Update and another in Australia called Harness Link.

His name is Andrew Cohen, and although he owns pacers he is far too smart to rely on race horses to make a living. He works for CBS, as chief legal analyst and legal editor of CBS News. And he also writes on national issues for the intellectually challenging Atlantic Monthly.

His job is interesting in the context of this column, for a lesser man might not walk where angels fear to tread. Cohen walks confidently, knowing the soft spots but the hard ground as well.

About a year ago, he came as close as one safely could on suggesting that one of the sport's leading trainers was using illegal juice.

In an Atlantic Monthly article written about 10 months ago he named the performance enhancing substance being imported from France, with a long technical name but more commonly referred to as NormOxys or ITPP. He thinks it could be the rocket fuel skewing the sport's results in some cases. Cohen wants authorities in harness racing to put up the $100,000 needed by noted toxicologist Dr. Larry Soma of the New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues at the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratory, to finish work that could produce a reliable test for the illegal substance. There currently is none for it, and it reportedly stimulates faster blood release into oxygen.

One would have to be naïve to think that something that makes stars out of claimers – and could help make literally millions for some owners and trainers who win slot-infused major purses – would escape the notice of Thoroughbred trainers looking for an edge. Like their small group of despicable counterparts in harness racing, they will use the stuff as long as they aren't being caught.

Cohen suggested that Standardbred Canada and the United States Trotting Association, the record-keeping and registry bodies of harness racing in Canada and the U.S. – put up the money. That drew silence.

He also thinks the leading racing states and provinces – Ontario, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Kentucky, and soon Ohio when the slot money begins flowing to Buckeye purses – could get together and fund Soma's work.

No one has publicly contradicted Cohen's statements, and you would think the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, based in Lexington, Ky., knows about the stuff. The RMTC, like other racing groups, is starved for funds, and it appears financial help will have to come from elsewhere.

Cohen wrote recently, "It should not have taken this long to respond to Dr. Soma's call. And it shouldn't take another six months, either. This is precisely the sort of thing our industry should be rushing to do if we are to be serious about racing integrity. Yes, I know, it's bad publicity for the sport to be seen as scrambling to stem a new drug problem. But you know what's worse? Bad publicity and fleeing bettors sick of what they are seeing these days. Besides, a good marketing campaign could easily make a donation for such a cause an asset."

Cohen was speaking to a harness racing audience, but I will speak to the runners.

ITPP, which was compounded in France only six years ago, can be a scourge. And like other scourges, most recently rinderpest in cattle, it can be caught and tamed.

The Jockey Club, which has used Ogden Mills Phipps's determination, power, wealth, and leadership as chairman for so many worthwhile issues on medication, should interest itself on this one. Jim Gagliano, its young, resourceful, and highly motivated president and COO, can move and guide the effort. And Alex Waldrop, the president and CEO of the NTRA, speaks eloquently for Thoroughbred tracks on the medication issue. That's a formidable trifecta to open a campaign, and there are scores of effective racing leaders to back them.

Dr. Soma is ready and waiting. Now is one of those critical moments for racing. Let's grab this opportunity to get the bad apples out of the barrel. They will sicken us all if we don't.

[TGJB]

A few things.

1-- I know from someone who was present at the conversation that Charlie Hayward told Dr. Maylin a few years ago people were cheating, and that the testing procedures had to be changed because they weren\'t working. Maylin told him nobody was cheating, if they were he would have caught them, no reason to change anything.

2-- Believe it or not, NYRA does not have access to the drug test results. Those belong to the State Racing and Wagering Board.

3-- No idea about the specifics of this drug, but Bergstein is dead on the money in principle. The biggest problem is not that people cheat-- that happens in every sport. The problem is that the industry makes no serious effort to protect their customers and honest horsemen from cheaters, in part because they don\'t want to spend the money. As I have recounted here before, I know personally and specifically of tests that were supposed to be done not being done, of tests being done anti-protocol in a way that makes it almost impossible to get a positive, and of positives being buried.

4-- AGAIN-- until all drug test results are made public, all other conversation on this subject is a waste of time. This goes for all the conversation right now about banning more drugs. Banning things doesn\'t solve the problem-- the move-up drugs being used right now are banned, big deal. Testing and enforcement solve the problem. For starters, the resultsof all tests MUST be made public-- who was tested, for what, using what test, and the actual result (numerical reading, not pass/fail). Until we have that we will have no idea whether the TRACKS are doing their duty, let alone who is cheating and what to do about it.

5-- Re the Jockey Club and NTRA-- I\'ve worked with the Jockey Club and am working with them now. They care about the drug problem, but have no power to force change. The NTRA is effectively the Chamber of Commerce-- agents for a special interest group. And the interests are not those of the horseplayer.

[Boscar Obarra]

Item 3.

 Would be nice, if this could be proved, for charges to be brought for aiding and abetting. No pun intended.

[sighthound]

Regular legal drug development.  Normoxys is the company, ITPP is a drug in clinical trials that helps hemoglobin release about 1/3 more oxygen than usual into tissues.  Intended for heart attack victims, etc.  Reported that it would be easy to detect.  

Scientists just need the $$ to develop the test.  Not all this stuff is hard to do, it does take money.