Allday Music

[TGJB]

I have made the offer directly to Rick Arthur (in fact he brought it up first). I have since been told by the powers that be that they are not legally allowed to releas the CO2 data publicly in California. It\'s either true or it\'s not. And I\'m ready to do it with any other venue that wants to.

[BitPlayer]

Socal -

Here\'s a bit from the Australian article that Sighthound linked to eariler, discussing the reasons for implementing the rule there:

In the early 1990's, the practice of 'milkshaking' came to the notice of racing authorities. The milkshake consisted of sodium bicarbonate, glucose and a number of other substances and was given to the horse via a stomach tube. Trainers believed that this practice improved the athletic endurance of the horse. In some cases, the 'milkshake' could cause colic, dehydration and diarrhoea and therefore be detrimental to the horse's performance.

There was some concern that 'milkshaking' could change the pH of the urine and either inhibit or increase the excretion of certain drugs, reducing the chance of detection in a post race urine sample.

In an attempt to control this practice, a TCO2 threshold was set by the Australian Harness Racing Council. Horses with a TCO2 concentration above this threshold were considered to have received an excess of alkalising agent, whether as a milkshake or by another method, for the purpose of affecting the performance of the horse.

[TGJB]

Sight-- Did you say \"the most egregious trainers could ONLY be identified 19 out of 20 times\"?

If that is true, and you put other safeguards in place (quarantine and retesting), it seems you have proved my point that a) it has an identifiable performance enhancing effect, and b) there is a way to deal with the problem.

Yes, California has done much more with the problem than anyone else. This is because they have Rick Arthur, Ron Charles, and used to have Shapiro (recently quit), all of whom care a lot about this. Also possibly because I personally put a lot of pressure on them, and/or made them understand the issue from the bettors point of view, which previously had not come up in discussion at a single CHRB meeting.

The situation appears to have improved, though I\'m not convinced it has completely stopped.

By contrast, Churchill, as previously stated, did not test for 6 years after they made milkshakes illegal, and was not testing last fall coming up to the BC. And IF they tested at the BC at all (highly questionable) only did so because when I found out the tester had quit and they had not replaced him, I got the press involved.

[TGJB]

SoCal-- so I guess you would have no problem with ballplayers and track and field athletes using any drug they wanted, as long as it\'s not harmful?

I don\'t think we want to make this a game of who has the netter druggist (although to some degree that already has happened). Aside from which, there is the question of the bettor getting a fair shake (so to speak).

[sighthound]

TGJB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sight-- Did you say \"the most egregious trainers
> could ONLY be identified 19 out of 20 times\"?
>
> If that is true, and you put other safeguards in
> place (quarantine and retesting), it seems you
> have proved my point that a) it has an
> identifiable performance enhancing effect, and b)
> there is a way to deal with the problem.

That was referring to the accuracy of the testing - that the margin of error  (within the testing and due to outside influences) is such that even the worse offenders (with the highest TCO2, over allowable limit) could only be accurately identified 19 of 20 times.

CA won\'t release data to you with names of trainers associated with TCO2 levels.  I think you should approach attainment through Freedom of Information as someone else suggested.  This is a public gambling sport, I see a strong argument being made for public accessibility.

If that is still a stonewall, a reasonable compromise would be to release the data, \"blinding\" trainer and horse names by replacing them with other identifiers (numbers, etc).  

You could still look for patterns (you should get the track/date/number of a race and the TCO2 results for horses A through K for that race, for example), identification via subsequent backtracing off your data could be accomplished.

[sighthound]

>In some cases, the 'milkshake' could
> cause colic, dehydration and diarrhoea and
> therefore be detrimental to the horse's
> performance.

Two horses dropped dead on the track at Maywood, Sportsman\'s (can\'t remember) during the late 1980\'s or early 1990\'s.  Autopsies done, both their stomachs were filled with baking soda.

[TGJB]

What I\'m trying to do is to get All tracks to release ALL CO2 test data publicly. And what I\'m trying to do here is get the discussion focused in the right direction. Positives and other illegal drugs are irrelevant when we have made a performance enhancing drug de facto legal.

Rick Arthur has already done the kind of studies you refer to, just without speed figures.

There is some movement going on behind the scenes, mostly because one very important and influential industry player has gotten fed up. I\'ve got some input there, but in general I\'m going to wait to see what happens with that before getting involved further.

It turns out Freedom of Information requests apply to Federal entities. Some states have similar laws, I\'m working on it, at the least it might prove to be a valuable lever.

[miff]

JB,

Certain racetracks are private property and therefore the information is unavailable.In such instances the State Racing Wagering Board of the particular Racing State could be pressured into forcing tracks in it\'s jurisdiction to publish the data you seek.That assumes enough public pressure could be brought to bear.

Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- some states have the equivalent of Freedom of Information laws. That\'s what I\'m trying to find out about. The work required to organize enough public pressure would be enormous, and I\'m real busy.

[BitPlayer]

TGJB -

The California equivalent is the Public Records Act.  Here\'s a link to the CHRB\'s Public Records Act guidelines.  They include a phone number you can call for more information.

http://chrb.ca.gov/CHRB%20PRA%20GUIDELINES.pdf

The New York equivalent is the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).  The e-mail address for requests to the Racing and Wagering Board is:

Foil-Request@racing.state.ny.us

Good luck.

[TGJB]

I gave them a call for starters, got an answering machine (with a classic Valley Girl voice), and left a message. We\'ll see where it goes.

I\'m interested in info about similar laws in Kentucky and New York.

[SoCalMan2]

My preference would be to have zero tolerance and absolutely transparent access to information.  However, as Austin Powers said -- Well I want a toilet made of solid gold, but that\'s just not in the cards now is it.

Given that I am never going to get what I want, I would at least like something that is palatable, achievable, and an improvement over the status quo. Right now, it sounds like people break the rules and the community isn\'t even told about it.  That is terrible. My suggestion of making milkshaking legal was combined with a requirement that trainers reveal whether or not they had milkshaked a horse, so that everybody knows what is going on.

This is what is done with lasix and bute which are drugs that some powers that be decided to be permissible.  It seemed to me we are in the realm of line drawing deciding what goes on the legal side of the ledger and what goes on the illegal side.

Now that I have learned that milkshaking can be harmful, I think my idea would not work. However, I was not trying to be a wise-guy in suggesting it but only trying to find a solution that might work for all involved.

[TGJB]

Nobody suggested you were a wise guy. But I think that it is possible to get things straightened out-- it\'s a matter of hacking through the beaurocracy, not physical limitations of testing. At least it looks that way-- we may hit that wall, but until we pry the the door open, we won\'t know.

[BitPlayer]

You\'re too quick.  I edited my earlier post to include info on New York.

Here\'s a link to a list of all the state laws:

http://web.missouri.edu/~umcjourfoiwww/citelist.html

I couldn\'t find anything on the website of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority about who to contact there with Open Records Act requests.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Miff, you obviously put a great deal of emphasis upon how much is paid for a horse. There\'s a large percentage of multi million dollar horses that never win or never start. Conceding that if one buys enough of the more expensive auction horses you\'re gonna come up with a few that will run on. The problem is those that don\'t pan out far outnumber the few that do. Why do you think TGraph advises re purchases post early career races?

In other words, I have never bought the argument that Plech\'s strike rate was high because his stock is so vastly superior to the other trainers. They make the same argument regarding his help and his ability. It sounds good, until you realize not only that there is a complete absence of proof but also that logic argues against the contention.

Plech is obviously not a whiz kid at picking unraced yearlings out at the sales. Its a tough gig, not many are. However, there are a number of trainers that have remarkable sales results at a fraction of what Plech and his clients pay.

Plech is a natural 15% trainer with the horses he has. Some good, some so bad they race once if at all. But he has enough and pays enough for the probabilities of getting a good one to come up in his favor. But what has carried him over the top in the past is being able to get away with substance aiding those good ones. That window is closing however.

 miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> \"With his quality of stock he is a legitimate 15%
> trainer, but then almost anyone else would be too
> and many would exceed that\"
>
>
> Chuck,
>
> Do a little more research on the roster of runners
> trained by TAP.Chuck, you could get 15% winners
> training that stable and any capable trainer
> should get 20-25%, imo.The guy is really not
> overachieving with that stable which leads me to
> \"What could he possibly be doing ILLEGALLY to
> achieve such ordinary results?
>
> Don\'t you think he would \"help\" the despicable
> gutless Green Monkey if he had the magic bullet?
> Chuck, you are smart to not look at the common
> sense side of conspiracy idiots arguments re
> TAP/ALLDAY.
>
> Mike