Pletcher....keeneland

[Lost Cause]

sighthound Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BTW - EPO won\'t make a horse run faster.  It
> possibly could make them run longer.


Hey Sight I understand what you\'re trying to say but it is actually making them run faster in those last few furlongs or else they would cave..

[kekomi]

i don\'t claim to have any knowledge about what goes on doping-wise in horse racing.

but it is indisputable that doping occurs regularly and that trainers don\'t scruple as to what they are willing to pump into a horse, as the whole frog juice thing demonstrates.

but one thing that i feel pretty confident in asserting is that premising clean racing on the fact that a given trainer has say 100 horse of whom 75 are mediocre,  inconsistent also rans is naive, because it assumes  that all 100 horses are on the same \"program.\"

doping success often depends on two things--the doctor and the particular doping program. the best (i.e. most successful) doping doctors don\'t come cheap, nor do many of the most successful meds and procedures. extrapolating from what humans dosages for given substances cost to dosages that would work on 1200 lb animals--i can only assume that the costs for keeping top elite horses on level doping programs are only available to the wealthiest owners (esp. when you factor in the normal costs of just owning an elite race horse).

the other factor involved with which horses on the program and which aren\'t is the trust that the trainer and owner have in each other--all owners may want to win, but not only can\'t all afford the best programs, not all will be comfortable with more exotic doping programs--make no mistake, the owners foot the bill and they know what is going on with their horses. if the trainer isn\'t sure that a given owner will be 100% on board with the less than scrupulous \"training plus\" methods, it is doubtful he will put that owner\'s horse on a program--at least not until the owner gets fed up with being an also ran, and starts the conversation about what can be done to \"tighten the screws\" and \"squeeze a little more from the lemon.\"

what kills me is the these phrases are exactly the same ones that phil ligett and paul sherwin and everyone in cycling used for years to describe cyclists moving up performance-wise to the next level. what also kills me is hearing all the same excuses from the fans about why it\'s not happening at the elite level, or with a given elite horse, or a given elite trainer--it\'s only the bush league no-hopers...i\'m doubt it will ever blow up like cycling did though; there\'s a lot more powerful people involved in thoroughbred doping, and a lot more money at stake...people shelling out $200,000 for a horse, not to mention all the costs of just straight up training, feeding, housing a race horse etc...demand a return on their investment and do not believe the rules apply to them...rules are for the little people...

[dannyboy135]

kekomi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i don\'t claim to have any knowledge about what
> goes on doping-wise in horse racing.
>
> but it is indisputable that doping occurs
> regularly and that trainers don\'t scruple as to
> what they are willing to pump into a horse, as the
> whole frog juice thing demonstrates.
>
> but one thing that i feel pretty confident in
> asserting is that premising clean racing on the
> fact that a given trainer has say 100 horse of
> whom 75 are mediocre,  inconsistent also rans is
> naive, because it assumes  that all 100 horses are
> on the same \"program.\"
>
> doping success often depends on two things--the
> doctor and the particular doping program. the best
> (i.e. most successful) doping doctors don\'t come
> cheap, nor do many of the most successful meds and
> procedures. extrapolating from what humans dosages
> for given substances cost to dosages that would
> work on 1200 lb animals--i can only assume that
> the costs for keeping top elite horses on level
> doping programs are only available to the
> wealthiest owners (esp. when you factor in the
> normal costs of just owning an elite race horse).
>
>
> the other factor involved with which horses on the
> program and which aren\'t is the trust that the
> trainer and owner have in each other--all owners
> may want to win, but not only can\'t all afford the
> best programs, not all will be comfortable with
> more exotic doping programs--make no mistake, the
> owners foot the bill and they know what is going
> on with their horses. if the trainer isn\'t sure
> that a given owner will be 100% on board with the
> less than scrupulous \"training plus\" methods, it
> is doubtful he will put that owner\'s horse on a
> program--at least not until the owner gets fed up
> with being an also ran, and starts the
> conversation about what can be done to \"tighten
> the screws\" and \"squeeze a little more from the
> lemon.\"
>
> what kills me is the these phrases are exactly the
> same ones that phil ligett and paul sherwin and
> everyone in cycling used for years to describe
> cyclists moving up performance-wise to the next
> level. what also kills me is hearing all the same
> excuses from the fans about why it\'s not happening
> at the elite level, or with a given elite horse,
> or a given elite trainer--it\'s only the bush
> league no-hopers...i\'m doubt it will ever blow up
> like cycling did though; there\'s a lot more
> powerful people involved in thoroughbred doping,
> and a lot more money at stake...people shelling
> out $200,000 for a horse, not to mention all the
> costs of just straight up training, feeding,
> housing a race horse etc...demand a return on
> their investment and do not believe the rules
> apply to them...rules are for the little people...


UNBELIEVABLE!  The vast majority on this board don\'t have a clue.  U included. This witch hunt B S is getting old

[sighthound]

The amount of horse deaths?  Sure.  Go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ and search on thoroughbred race horse deaths

[sighthound]

Sigh ... one reason why \"the trainer gave the horse some magical secret dope we can\'t find that killed it\" is rarely #1 on a pathologists cause of death list - but is on the \"I don\'t know anything about medicine, horses, or doping, but ... \" group list

Cardiopathology of sudden cardiac death in the race horse.
Kiryu K, Nakamura T, Kaneko M, Oikawa M, Yoshihara T.
Source

Department of Veterinary Pathology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan.
Abstract

Twenty thoroughbred race horses were selected for postmortem cardiopathological study of sudden cardiac death; ten of the twenty horses died suddenly. In order to define accurately the morphological changes observed in these ten hearts, ten other thoroughbred race horses considered to have normal hearts were selected as a control group and studied by postmortem coronary angiography. Of the ten horses that died suddenly, eight were witnessed to have died either during or shortly after training or racing. The death was instantaneous except in one horse, which showed ventricular tachycardia and died 4.5 h after a race. The other two died unexpectedly in the stable at night. Pathologically, the horses that died suddenly generally showed multifocal myocardial lesions that were ischemic and fibrotic. These lesions were found in the atrial tissue close to the sinoatrial (SA) node and in the atrioventricular (AV) junction, including the upper portion of the interventricular septum. Such myocardial lesions were often associated with vascular changes including arterio- and/or arteriolosclerosis. Angiographically, the SA node appeared to be perfused by atrial branches of the left and right coronary arteries. One branch originating from the left coronary artery gave off a few branches into the AV junction. These pathological findings, mainly consisting of both atrial lesions and lesions in the AV junction, were similar to those observed in horses with either atrial fibrillation, SA block, or paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia. A finding of particular interest was the angiographic demonstration that the blood supply to the AV junction partly came from the SA node artery.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
---------------
Risk factors for race-associated sudden death in Thoroughbred racehorses in the UK (2000-2007).
Lyle CH, Blissitt KJ, Kennedy RN, Mc Gorum BC, Newton JR, Parkin TD, Stirk A, Boden LA.
Source

Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Veterinary Centre, Roslin, Midlothian, UK. Catriona.Lyle@up.ac.za

Abstract
REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY:

Sudden death adversely affects racehorse welfare, jockey safety and the public perception of horseracing.

POTENTIAL RELEVANCE:

The identification of risk factors allows speculation on the underlying mechanisms of sudden death in racing. This may stimulate hypothesis-led investigations into the pathogenesis of exercise-related arrhythmias, exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage and blood vessel rupture.
-------------------------

[sighthound]

Seems you are completely ignoring the Baffert horses that \"fell over dead\" for perfectly explainable medical reasons noted on pathology at autopsy - EIPH, infection, etc -  as noted in the article I posted that you obviously failed to read.

You surely are not blaming Baffert for doping when that wasn\'t found at autopsy, and another reason for sudden death was?

Oh, wait.  Yes.  You are.  And you\'re not the only one doing it.

Do some trainers dope horses?  Yes, they do.  Are they usually caught?  Yes, they are.  Do some dope and escape capture?  Yes, they do.  Is it a majority?  No, it\'s a very few.  Are the big trainers all doping with magical secret undetectable move up juice whose chemical composition is unknown to mankind and science?  Only in conspiracy land.

[Fairmount1]

You act like I\'m a conspiracy minded idiot for having questions.  Also, that silly Rat Poison stuff is just nonsense too right?  One horse in Mitchell\'s care and one in Baffert\'s care right?  Silly anticoagulant stuff, no big deal.

How about this?  Are Dick Mandella and Jim Cassidy conspiracy minded idiots too?  Go ahead and tell me how they haven\'t read your bloodhorse article that says other trainers have had deaths too.  Go ahead and tell me they don\'t understand either.....
____________________________________________________

Jim Cassidy, president of the California Thoroughbred Trainers, said in over 30 years as a trainer he has only lost one horse to sudden death, and that was after the horse had surgery.

"It makes us all look like a bunch of idiots around here," Cassidy said of the recent reports. "When I hear from the (CHRB's Medication and Track Safety) meeting yesterday that they had everything under control, how can they possibly have everything under control if you have seven or eight horses die like that in one barn."

Richard Mandella, a fellow Hall of Fame trainer like Baffert, said he was just learning the news on Baffert's horses.

"Heart attacks are not common place," Mandella said. "It's a rare thing, and I'm sure no one is trying to give these horses heart attacks. I had a horse have one about 15 years ago, and one more before that, maybe."

Mandella was concerned about traces of rat poison being found in two of the deceased horses, including one of them, reportedly, from Baffert's barn. Dr. Uzal said there were no findings to indicate the rat poison caused the deaths.

[TGJB]

Sight-- You have absolutely no idea whether dopers are usually caught or not. You know that there are tests that can catch some drugs and assume, incorrectly, that people who are supposed to be testing a) are doing so, b) for enough horses, c) the right way, d) announcing positives when they catch someone, and e) can test for all the drugs being used.

You would have said the same thing in the 90\'s and early 2000\'s when Allday was doing his crap for all the top guys he later admitted cheating for. You would have said (and did here, I believe) that Kentucky was doing its job during a time it turned out they were not. You might have said it about testing in Pennsykvania in 2009-- but it turned out they weren\'t doing TCO2 tests until 2010, which we know because they announced then they were starting. What was a clean test result there in 2009 worth?

As of spring 2008 Maryland was testing TWO (2) horses per entire race card, and taking the blood for the TCO2 tests post-race. You know enough to know what coming in under the limit in those cicumstances means-- zip. And on that subject Kentucky outlawed alkalyzing agents around 1999 after a friend of mine, the late Charlie Harris, wrote a piece in Bloodhorse about them. They announced 6 years later they were going to START testing for them. What was having a clean test worth in Kentucky in 2003? Would you have assumed solid testing was going on then too? And after they started testing, the guy who took the samples quit on opening day of the fall Churchill meet in 2006, and was not replaced. No TCO2 testing at a meet where they hosted the BC. Would you have said the same thing back then? If not, why not?

I also have personal knowledge of a TCO2 positive (over 40, by the way) that was not announced or prosecuted in Kentucky in 2007-- I know because I made a Freedom Of Information Act request for the test results, and got a redacted version of them after a fight.

So you have no basis for that statement.

There are those who DO have an informed opinion on this question. Among them are serious handicappers using serious data and NOT JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS, which some horseplayers do in one direction, and you in another. If you looked at and understood the data I posted about Moya as an example you would understand this.

[gohorse]

I have to agree with sighthound. The cheating is not being done with undetectable drugs. What the top trainers have is good stock and top vets that are making a lot of money pushing the envelope as far as they can in the treatment of the horses.

I do not think there is any breed of race horses that race that do not have something wrong with them.  like arthritis,tendinitis,Strains,sprain, acute joint injury and maybe even a cold. The good trainers and top vets are very good at getting these race horses to run to the best of there ability. Do I condone all of the therapeutic practices that are being used on some horses to get them to race no.

I know of a vet that worked at the race tracks and had to give it up because they could not keep treating the horses the way the trainers want them to anymore. They push the envelope to the point of it being cruelty to the animals. I am not accusing any particular trainer of this but you have owners that spend large sums of money and the trainers have get results.  I am not going to say what some of the things that are being done to some of the horses are but I am sure sighthound  knows of a few things that are being done that have nothing to do with being illegal.

Here is a link to very long report from April 2011 on the chemical horse Drugs in Horse Racing.

http://www.horsefund.org/the-chemical-horse-part-1.php

I have two things I would like done in all breeds of racing.
1.All horses should be weighed from race to race and be published.
2.A published vet list on each horse racing. With the vets name and what was done to the horse between starts. Like joint injections and therapeutic drugs that were administered.

[alm]

Don\'t overlook what passes for \'testing\' in Florida.  It\'s so ridiculous that a certain NY based trainer cleaned up in the past couple of years with horses that couldn\'t run there, in so much pain, but came to Calder and ran new tops first out.  Killed the local horses.

[TGJB]

Yeah, Flodida\'s another one. I don\'t have time to look it up but what came out this winter in the Jamie Ness deal about their (lack of) regulation of alkalyzing agents was mind boggling.

[miff]

Ok, so I got the bums rush from Maylin\'s office but was sent info on lectures by Dr.Maylin, whom they claim is world renounded on the subject of EPO and many areas of drug testing for over 40 years.My contact info was left, so if/when I get a call back,will ask about administering EPO(or anything in the interval JB said its being done)It seems that question is addressed in here.More than one vet I know for a long time said anything outside of an 8 hour window has substantially less potency, if any at all, as it relates to enhancing performance.

From the session,said to be more than 5years ago:

Question:
Can you tell us briefly in laymans terms about your test for EPO?

Dr. Maylin:  

EPO has been with us since 1985. That is when I first heard about it. It is a very difficult drug to do, as you know, it�s a normal hormone produced by the kidney for hypoxia or lack of oxygen. For whatever reason, the kidney gets a signal to send out a hormone to the bone marrow that will make red blood cells.  This was really going to be the savior for things like sickle cell anemia and kidney disease in human medicine. Of course, it looked so good it became an equine drug.  Even though there is absolutely no reason to think that it is going to do a racehorse any good, because horses dump their spleen and have all the red blood cells they need. If you inject EPO, which is a recombinant human protein, into a horse, it thinks it is a foreign protein or a virus and it develops an antibody. The antibody reacts against the foreign invader, recombinant human EPO, and it also takes out the horses own EPO.  So an antibody is developed.

You can get very severe anemia as a result of it and horses can�t race, don�t race well, or die. We knew there was an antibody being produced and it was a very simple solution of doing the conventional antigen/antibody test, just like the coggins test. The coggins test picks up a virus, while ours picks up the so-called drug EPO. We reasoned that if a horse has an EPO antibody, it�s a sick horse. It may not look sick on its face, but it is taking out its own red blood cells. We, with the help of the Racing and Wagering Board in New York, decided that we would put these horses with a high antibody count on the vet�s list and they would not be allowed to race until such time that they were back to soundness again.

We had, at one track, an incidence of three percent reactivity on this test, and when the test was announced it disappeared. Those horses did not race. We virtually have no EPO responders now in New York. We have a couple of horses, I�d say of fifteen thousand tests since the test went into effect, we have had three horses, one was the same horse twice. So it has been a very effective, very inexpensive test and I recognize that it not a gold standard of identification.  It�s an antibody/antigen test, but I reason that if it is good enough for a coggins test, the same technology is good enough for an EPO test.

The antibody can last as much as three or four months, so it is quite conceivable that when a horse tests positive there have been two or three trainers involved before the guy who actually did it. So this way the current trainer is not hung out to dry.

[TGJB]

Mike-- there is zero chance that Maylin will say in a public forum or to you that there is something they can\'t catch.

When I was dealing with the JC committee I was pushing for publishing of test results, to deal with some of the issues I have mentioned here (testers not doing their jobs). I got into a heated exchange with Scott Waterman (now gone), whose position was not that drugging wasn\'t going on (every single person in the room agreed it was, on a large scale), but that publishing results would indicate the holes in the testing, and \"create a roadmap\" (Waterman and others have used this term) for cheaters. The Maylin situation is the same-- they\'re not going to tell you something can get past them.

When I was told about the 4 and 14 day EPO protocols I sent an email to Rick Arthur askling him about it. From his email response of 3/19/13:

\"This is why we have to have out of competition testing. This is a difficult issue. There are dosing regimens for EPO and similar ESA\'s that can make testing very difficult in human and equine testing. Our targeting strategies for OOC testing for EPO recognize the dosing regimen you describe\". So California is on it, at least for that.

After you posted that NYRA was doing OOC testing I inquired about it from someone at the very top of the industry who is working on the drug issue. After he checked it out he sent me an email saying that what they were doing was \"totally insufficient\". And unless they actually institute OOC testing here they won\'t be able to stop it.

[miff]

JB,

Dont know if you have followed Dr.Maylin but he is diabolically opposed to doping racehorses and has dedicated his working life to that end. His work with EPO, Cobra Venom and other real bad shit is lauded in the testing community.

He is opposed to lasix,over use of in between permitted stuff, supports detention barns,OOC,informants, camera security and whatever else is being done to rid NY Racing of any doping problem and the negative perception.Thats his job.

In my opinion, I do not think he would be involved in any type of covering up of what he is finding.In no uncertain terms he has stated that it is virtually impossible to confirm that testing alone ensures integrity.This guy is curt and to the point, he\'s not a politically appointed stooge and regularly criticizes all factions of racing for not doing enough to rid the game of illegal stuff.

What he will or wont tell me or the public, I cant answer, but if you\'ve followed him, as I have, you in particular would count him to be of your persuasion, not mine.


Mike

[TGJB]

Whoa. I\'m not suggesting Maylin is covering up anything, neither was Waterman, whose whole job was to stop drug cheating. They withhold info in an effort to STOP more cheating. But that approach assumes that everyone involved is as serious about it and competent as they are, and it\'s not true.

I will bet anything that if the opportunity comes to do OOC testing Maylin jumps at it.