Conspiracy Theory

[white lightning]

ever think maybe doug and paul had enough of bandwagon cuomos nonsense? i think they thumbed their nose at nyra and said take the triple crown and stick it where the sun dont shine. this horse could have covered the distance in less than 2 30. i wonder how many hot dogs and ten dollar cans of beer nyra has left over? lol. i love it. could  they have been anymore unaccomidating? instead of embracing this horse they did everything they could to discourage them from running.way to go bandwagon.

[Silver Charm]

They still have over month to sell all that Beer and the Hot Dogs....even the cooked ones

[kekomi]

couldn\'t both scenarios be true? they aren\'t mutually exclusive.

the horse has had issues before the derby and was receiving electric shock therapy--which put me off betting him in the derby, even though he was the horse i liked the best (ggrrrrrr).

and the trainer has a history of playing fast and loose with the rules against doping horses.

couldn\'t the horse be both doped and injured? doesn\'t it kind of make sense that a horse with soundness issues that won two difficult races impressively within a two week span might need to be doped to do so? a horse can be a great talent and still be doped. jan ullrich was arguably the most naturally talented man to ever peddle a bicycle, but he was stilled doped....carl lewis was one of the most naturally talented sprinters ever to run a race, but he was still doped....

my first thought on hearing the announcement was that the detention bar must have succeeded in preventing the pre-race dosing, and they were scratching to avoid being big brown redux.

given that IHA\'s injury is incredibly minor at this point, his retirement seems really over the top and is the biggest red flag of all, to me at least.  plus, any scans of horses that have raced as hard as he had over five weeks would show \"the beginnings of tendinitis.\" most horses in the race yesterday would show the \"beginnings of tendinitis.\" most horses at any track would show the beginnings of tendonitis--i have full blown tendonitis for christ\'s sake, and i\'ve never run farther than the end of my drive way. the whole story just doesn\'t mesh.

so yeah, what i think happened is that the horse failed a test or somebody was caught with something they shouldn\'t have had, and at first the connections thought they could keep it quiet by just scratching, but scratching screwed over the NYRA too, and if the NYRA was going to loose money, they were going to make sure the connections lost a lot of money, and said, \"retire him, or we tell.\"

i used to be an avid fan of cycling--way before lance armstrong. i learned more about human blood chemistry, oxygen transport, and lacate-processing than most doctors. one thing i never got over, and why i finally washed my hands of the sport, is that no matter how clear cut the doping wass, none of them ever really ever admitted it--that seemed to be the worst thing imaginable to them, worse even than the threat of dying, which many cyclists in their late teens and early 20s did when EPO was first introduced in the early 90s.  so yeah--i can totally see o\'neil and especially reddam willing to try to cash in on the horse\'s stud fees, rather then be paraded around as the duo that stole the kentucky derby.  

keep in mind that despite the wide spread belief that racing has a lot of doped horses in it, racing has never had it\'s black sox moment. it never had its BALCO. it never had its festina affair (the first time doping in cycling became incontrovertible). given all that, i can well believe that everyone involved wanted the story to go away, and really, that is the only thing that explains the insant retirement of a horse that is clearly not even lame--algorithms was lame, yet they are still going to try to bring him back; uncle mo was half dead, yet they were intent on racing him.

the one thing i do not believe is that any of this was motivated by considerations for the horse\'s well being, even though i am absolutely willing to believe the horse has soundness issues or even a minor injury

[sighthound]

Sorry.  The only truth is that IHA has a minor tendon strain, and is retired.  Everybody in the detention barn saw Hunt going in to ultrasound the tendon.

Two other comments:  the horse has a known (publicly stated by the trainer) tendency to be shinny (which has been treated and why he doesn\'t get much speed work), and the horse has known (publicly stated by the trainer) back problems for which he has often gotten shockwave therapy (which is like a pain-relieving deep massage therapy)

Listen:  virtually every horse you guys bet, on a daily basis, has stuff wrong with it - some very serious stuff - that is managed and treated.  You guys routinely, on a daily basis, bet horses whose hocks and knees are injected, who have received multiple sports medicine treatments to keep they healthy and running.   Betters in the US are simply unawares of it.  

Except in the runup to big race days, when the trainers try to be more vocal about the routine management things horses require.  

Watching the fancy go ballistic over conspiracy theories and drugging, when it\'s just normal \"horses get hurt when they run and require maintenance\" stuff, is crazy.  

People are completely clueless about horses from an agricultural sense, compared to 50-60 years ago, when most had at least parents that knew about horses.

[miff]

Beth,

You just described every track in the country and a great majority of us gamblers.You will never convince the conspiratorial minded that their perception of the game is about 80% off the mark.

You really should write to the NY Times and set Joe Dope straight!


Mike

[kekomi]

did you even read what i wrote?

i stated clearly that i believe the horse is likely to be actually injured, however, his being injured does not preclude that his scratch and retirement were doping related as well. i also clearly stated that every horse racing is likely suffering some injury.

IHA\'s retirement for a very minor injury is odd, especially given that reddam does not breed--he races his horses only--and he hasn\'t sold the horse yet and there are no plans except to return the horse to o\'neils barn indefinitely.  my point was that the two camps in this thread who say it was one or the other, can both be correct. moreover, for a horse suffering a career injury it seems a little odd too that o\'neil says right after the race that he\'d have won the race easily even though injured.

believe what you want to believe--but don\'t act all holier than thou and like you know more than i do. it\'s clear you don\'t have any inside information, so you are speculating same as me.  if you want to take o\'neil at his word, fine. i choose to be more skeptical and less trusting of those who\'ve proven to be repeatedly unworthy of trust.

i dealt with fans like you for decades in cycling--same hollow arguments, same ad homminem attacks. if doug o\'neil doesn\'t like people assuming the worst, he should run a cleaner stable.  if reddam deosn\'t like people assuming the worst, he should hire a trainer with a cleaner track record. to criticize people for exercising their judgment and refraining from taking a proven cheat at face value is pretty low--it is asking people to be rubes and dupes, and to refuse to exercise discernment. i have a hard time doing that when money isn\'t on the line, but i flatly refuse to do it when it is.


BTW i\'m not clueless about horse-i\'ve been around horses, and riding and owning and competing on them, since i was three years old. if you know so much, then you should know that the portable ultrasound machine is pretty small and most people looking at wouldn\'t be able to understand anything they were seeing--also you should know that know an ultrasound image never clearly shows anything--you can have 10 different experts look the images and have 10 different opinions as to what they are seeing.  my mother had an ultra sound of her liver--one expert though it clearly showed a tumor, one thought is showed nothing, one thought it showed calcification, and one, who turned out to be right, thought it showed an perfectly normal congenital microplasia.

watching someone perform an ultra sound tells the watcher nothing about what the ultra sound shows.

as for the idea that it would take too big a conspiracy--USADA was neck deep in BALCO and the UCI is drwowning in its participation in covering up doping in cycling--it doesn\'t take brains, and it isn\'t hard--conspiracies on much larger scales than what this would have taken happen every day and we non-are the wiser.

[sekrah]

kekomi.

It is hopeless.  These people probably think the Pacquiao-Bradley fight was on the up and up and that the judges were not corrupted, they just were incompetant Clueless Clowns.  Everybody is too dumb to the pull the wool over THEIR eyes.

[P-Dub]

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> kekomi.
>
> It is hopeless.  These people probably think the
> Pacquiao-Bradley fight was on the up and up and
> that the judges were not corrupted, they just were
> incompetant Clueless Clowns.  Everybody is too
> dumb to the pull the wool over THEIR eyes.

Max Kellerman was quoted after the fight that some at ringside scored the fight for Bradley.  People he says opinions he respected.

Most saw a clear Pacquiao victory. That doesn\'t mean that there aren\'t incompetent people that scored the fight poorly.

It also doesn\'t preclude the fact that there might have been a conspiracy.

The problem is that you have no idea, just like you have no idea that IHA failed a drug test.  You\'re certainly entitled to your opinion, but the \"I\'m right, and if you disagree with me you\'re an idiot\" routine is getting tired.

[sekrah]

P-Dub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> sekrah Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > kekomi.
> >
> > It is hopeless.  These people probably think
> the
> > Pacquiao-Bradley fight was on the up and up and
> > that the judges were not corrupted, they just
> were
> > incompetant Clueless Clowns.  Everybody is too
> > dumb to the pull the wool over THEIR eyes.
>
> Max Kellerman was quoted after the fight that some
> at ringside scored the fight for Bradley.  People
> he says opinions he respected.
>
> Most saw a clear Pacquiao victory. That doesn\'t
> mean that there aren\'t incompetent people that
> scored the fight poorly.
>
> It also doesn\'t preclude the fact that there might
> have been a conspiracy.
>
> The problem is that you have no idea, just like
> you have no idea that IHA failed a drug test.
> You\'re certainly entitled to your opinion, but the
> \"I\'m right, and if you disagree with me you\'re an
> idiot\" routine is getting tired.


LOL..  No Boxing analyst worth his salt thought Bradley won that fight.  HBO, ESPN, AP, Yahoo, etc.. boxing experts had Pacquiao 10-2, 11-1.   LOL at the idea that the judges were incompetant and not infiltrated.  You just made my point in the post that you quoted.

\"Outside of a potential rematch with Bradley, (and of course Mayweather), Pacquaio has no fights(paydays) left!  I\'m sure the judges were just bozos and not bought, and Bob Arum (who manages both fighters) lucked into a Pacquaio-Bradley rematch.   Hold on a second, my Kool-Aid glass is empty, would you please fill it back up to the top?  Thank you.\"

[sighthound]

believe what you want to believe--but don\'t act all holier than thou and like you know more than i do. it\'s clear you don\'t have any inside information, so you are speculating same as me. if you want to take o\'neil at his word, fine. i choose to be more skeptical and less trusting of those who\'ve proven to be repeatedly unworthy of trust.

i dealt with fans like you for decades in cycling--same hollow arguments, same ad homminem attacks.

I\'m a veterinarian, I work with TB race horses, one of the Belmont horse assistant trainers who has just spent the week in that detention barn with their horse is a very close friend with whom I talk constantly.

I know what days blood was drawn, and what was tested for. I know tendinitis and how to read an ultrasound.  Your conspiracy theory is nonsense.