Asmussen gets 6 months

[Delmar Deb]

Has anyone considered that Asmussen may have been set up at the bush league tracks where the violations occurred?

Afterall, Pletcher and Dutrow got their\'s at NYRA tracks, and Cole Norman at Santa Anita.  Seems to me that a small track in a singular jurisdiction would be an easier place to pull something of this nature off than at a large facility like CA, NY, FL, etc.  

As an example, has anybody noticed where Baffert is winning the \"big\" races these days?  Sunland Park, Lone Star, Aqueduct in the winter, maybe a Grade 2 or 3 in the big leagues...but not like the old days.  Consider this, he makes public his plans to take Wanna Runner to Canada and arranges for transportation 2 days before the race.  Then Woodbine comes out with its new policy where every horse has to be on track and under surveillance 48 hours before the race, and subject to blood testing at will.

So Baffert says \"I\'m going early\".  Did he have a choice?  Sure, he could have said the horse was sick or off, but he would have had to take the horse out of the barn area in the middle of the night like Wygod and hid him away from all the clockers and other trainers to sustain that belief.  And the cynicism still would have been there about his reasons.  He goes to Canada, runs a non-race near the back of the pack and both the jock and trainer are at a loss for an explanation.

Baffert is a big draw in New Mexico and Texas, and they will continue to treat him like Kentucky treats Dale Romans as long as he wants to race there.  Churchill used to love him too...until Congaree.  After that he was shut out on big days for at least 3 years.

My point is that as long as drugs in racing are handled on a location by location basis, it will still come down to who you know and who you are - not what you are using.  And if Brass Hat actually wins that hearing in Dubai, then you can forget any reform ever coming about because the bottom line of trainer accountability for the actual test result (not who said what you could give the horse and when) will have been breached beyond repair.

[manning]

marcus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the ruling should be contested , the penalties
> seem out of balance with recent rulings handed
> down for comprable drug violations . i don\'t
> understand how the drug would be useful for
> players and horsemen - wouldn\'t that type of
> medication have it\'s best value when a horse is
> shipping and not when racing ? .
>
>  basically the ruling artificially boosts public
> relations and profile for an already troubled and
> beleaugered racing industry , and thats about all
> -  as was the case w/ the ny trainer who just got
> nailed for pain killers that he had borrowed for a
> back problem ...
>
> i don\'t want come off as one of these \" jerimiah \"
> or \" jesse jackson \" types but , the level
> arrogence and complacentcy involved in the
> asmussen ruling is not only failing to serve
> racing\'s ( or anyones ) best interest - it\'s
> counter productive  ...        
>

It\'s not up to any of us to worry about whether or not this kind of suspension and the resulting media coverage is \"just another black-eye for racing\".  Racing has plenty of troubles, most of them of the industry\'s own making.  The bottom line is this trainer has had plenty of run-ins with the testing labs and now is being made to pay up-I think rightly so.  Maybe the 2 cases pending now are the result of honest mix-ups and/or bad luck, but there could be far more troubling things associated with both cases.  The head of the La. state testing lab had this to say re: the Mepivacaine positive:

--Dr. Steven Barker, head of the state testing laboratory at LSU, said the level of the drug in No End in Sight was \"quite high.\"

\"It was consistent with a race-day administration of a therapeutic dose,\" Barker said. He also said that mepivacaine \"is used diagnostically and also used therapeutically. The reason it\'s Category II is it can be used as a nerve block.\"--

That\'s not good for racing. And if they currently don\'t have the testing capability to find the \"magic bullet\" (thanks Miff) the least they can do is stop these guys from abusing the stuff they can test for.

[Michael D.]

deb,

bafferts biggest \'06 wins have been on the biggest days of the year at major circuits. sin min on blue grass day at kee, and b&j and bling on wood day at aqu. and BTW, the sin min and bling races were two of the fastest ever by three year olds (i think PD also won a graded race at Hol last w/e).

[Delmar Deb]

During the Keeneland meet, Kentucky was still operating without the full complement of state vets and it never did come out whether they had them in place by the Derby.  

But he didn\'t stay at SA for the Derby, or go back to Lousiana where they did find what he was using.

The drugs - whatever they are - are not the issue to me as much as the lack of standardization in detection and enforcement throughout the industry.

[miff]

Deb,

Those bush league tracks would give their right arms to have guys like Asmussen  regularly filling their entry boxes. I doubt he was set up. He was caught, again, regardless of how innocent the offenses seem to be.Nobody wins 500 races in a year with hay and oats only, not even Stevie Wonder.

National uniform med rules are highly unlikely given the strain on racetracks to provide full fields.

Mike

[marcus]

i understand what you are saying and i certainly don\'t want to 2nd guess dr barker from lsu , he\'s practically doing gods work .  i guess what sets me off is the lack of coherent , consise policy and procedure\'s for drug testing / prevention on a state to state basis or national level that address\'s and embrace\'s the genuine needs of this era of racing .  

[BitPlayer]

Miff -

I think the conspiracy theory would be that Asmussen was set up, not by the track, but by another horseman who would prefer not to lose horses via claim to Asmussen and not to have him sharing in purses.  As you suggest, such a theory would seem particularly attractive in racino states, where handle is less critical to purse funding.

[asfufh]

This is hardly a earth shaking revelation on my part, but it strikes me how difficult it is for horseplayers to get relevant racing information from the various tracks.
Whether it\'s each track\'s policies/practices on use and detection of drugs, acceptance of robotic/batch betting, timing of pari-mutuel pool closings, time related to beaten lengths in the official charts, vet scratch procedures, etc., etc., the lack of official and public information from the tracks makes one wonder if there is a conspiracy to keep horseplayers in the dark.
You would think the NTRA would be the repository for such information on a track by track basis but they appear to be basically powerless in their dealings with the tracks.....i.e.,their task force report recommendations from 2 or 3 years ago are largely unacted upon by the tracks.

Why are we horseplayers putting up with this?

It is time! Horse Players Unite Now!!!!

Where do I pay my dues!!!

Asfufh