Category Archives: Opinions

Opinions and editorials

Opinions, Stories and Reporting

At Penn National, There They Go Again

The headline was definitely eye-catching

Penn National Race Track official pleads guilty in race rigging scheme

Sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it? Like someone was race fixing for the purposes of a betting coup.

Unfortunately, it was hardly that insidious. This comes from the Fox 43 web site.

Craig Lytel, 60, of Hershey, was an employee of Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Track (Penn National) who served as a racing official at the track. Lytel is charged with wire fraud. The United States Attorney alleges that Lytel was the recipient of an interstate wire transfer of $1,000 from a bank in Kentucky to his bank allegedly in exchange for providing inside information on the makeup of horse races at Penn National so that the trainers would know the composition of the race and enter their horses in races in which they have a better opportunity to win. It is alleged that Lytel deprived his employer of his honest service by accepting cash, dinners, gift cards and golf outings in exchange for the insider information. Lytel is licensed as a racing official at Penn National and falls under the rules and regulations that govern licensees with the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission. He was privy to information concerning the horses entered in a race while the race entries are being filled by the racing office. This information gives a horse owner/trainer an advantage as to which race to enter their eligible horse in that it would give the horse a better chance of success. Such information, coupled with the knowledge of what other horses are in a given race, could also provide an opportunity for collusion on the behalf of owner/trainers or even determine if a race will be filled enough to run.

So the first thing that strikes me is, if the money transfer hadn’t come from out of state there was no federal crime committed. This Lytle guy should get a nickel in the pen for sheer stupidity. Plus, wire transfer? What they hell ever happened to cash in an envelope passed surreptitiously in a folded newspaper? Last I heard, there are hard records for wire transfers, while cash is, let’s say, not so traceable. The second thing that strikes me is that the FBI must have been hard pressed to pad the crime statistics that month. J. Edgar Hoover, who was well known for going to the races and getting “tips” on which horse to bet, must have been posthumously proud. Of course, that was in the good old days of racing when drug testing and wire transfers were in the stone age.

In fact, the $1,000 payoff was a clear indication that this was not solid gold information. More like copper. C’mon. Really big insider data had to be worth more than a yard.

I loved the last sentence in the Fox story. “Such information…could also provide an opportunity for collusion… [to] determine if a race will be filled enough to run.” It could probably give Putin propaganda to criticize the integrity of America too. In fact, by using the word “could” reporters could conjure up all sorts of heinous connections (you saw what I did there, didn’t you?).

Trainer A: I’ve got inside information. The race doesn’t look like it’s going to fill.

Trainer B: This is bad news indeed. Only one thing to do. Get the racing secretary to ask some trainers to help out.

Trainer A:  Right. That was $1,000 well spent. 

I shouldn’t be so tough on the FBI or Penn National. Usually the track is getting criticized for uglier transgressions, like trainers winning at 45% after a claim and everyone standing around shrugging their shoulders. But, if I was the decision-maker at Penn National, I’d simply have fired the guy quietly and made sure he never got a job in racing again. I mean, we have to keep the jails less crowded so the feds can put serious criminals away like the nefarious Martha Stewart. If nothing else, the amount of butter she uses in some of those recipes is definitely a crime.

Frankly, I never realized (1) telling someone which horses were entered in a race was a crime and (2) that information was actually worth money. I’ve heard every trainer tell me the racing secretary has called him in an effort to fill a race, sometimes even promising they will write a race for the trainer in return. This kind of informal bartering has been going on everywhere for ages. Perhaps the crime was taking money, dinner and golf instead of buying bagels or donuts for the racing office. It’s always a crime not to share the wealth with the rest of the staff so to speak.

My favorite story came from a trainer who was going to be suspended at a hearing scheduled a few days away. The racing secretary calls the trainer and asks him to enter some horses so some races would fill. The trainer tells the racing secretary he’s taking a forced vacation and the horses will have to be scratched. The racing secretary tells him he knows, but more important to get the races to go. And that apparently wasn’t a crime.

Racing has myriad problems, not the least of which is the perception that cheating of all sorts is rampant. Many tracks and racing commissions have adopted a policy of making sure they trumpet punishing any scofflaw in an effort to show the public they are serious about cleaning up the game. I’m not sure how much they deal with some issues quietly, but in this case the publicity was probably more harmful than good, especially when the news organizations resort to speculation and hyperbole. There are far more pressing issues into which racing should place greater enforcement effort.

As for Craig Lytel, perhaps he should have thought about whether racing would miss him more than he would miss racing.

Opinions

Goodbye Joe Gorajec

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Joe Gorajec was somewhat unceremoniously fired last Saturday by the Indiana Horse Racing Commission. The reason was ostensibly that he spent too much time on enforcement and too little time on marketing the sport. Although under Gorajec Indiana racing had been suffering decreases in handle, some racing fans asked if it was really Gorajec’s job to be the marketing center for the sport, much less his fault that things were not booming.

I don’t know how much responsibility Gorajec should have been assigned for marketing, but I know he was responsible for making a lot of horsemen unhappy. I’ve had more than one trainer tell me they are scared to death about racing in Indiana, and one of the more prominent owners, Maggie Moss, swore off Indiana racing while Gorajec was at the helm. If you want to argue Gorajec’s job often put him at odds with the horsemen, well sure. You can’t fine and suspend people without occasionally creating a little animosity. But it is also the case that most horsemen would have been fine with Gorajec doing his job as long as they believed he was fair and honest. We understand that cops have a tough job, but we draw the line at shooting first and asking questions later. The depth and breadth of the animus toward Gorajec was too great to pass it off simply as sour grapes from people who deserved what they got.

Frankly, I think the reason given by the IHRC had the ring of a politician who says he is resigning to spend more time with his family. Clearly, Gorejec engendered reactions on the opposite ends of the spectrum. People seemed to support him or revile him, but rarely was someone apathetic about him. To many horseplayers Gorajec’s enthusiasm for enforcement was a model for all other jurisdictions. Gorajec almost always made sure Indiana was on the leading edge of drug and medication standards. His recommended punishments were rarely just slaps on the wrist.

I will admit my bias against Goraject. I had simply heard too many stories of Gorajec being arbitrary, vindictive, and making up his mind before all the evidence was in. Gorajec made myriad enemies, especially among the harness racing crowd, Having worked for high-level politicians most of my working career, I can tell you there are three critical rules.

  • Make sure the politician gets the credit when the news is good, and doesn’t look bad when the news is bad, followed closely by rule two;
  • You aren’t the star so don’t act like you are;
  • Remember if the politician’s friends and supporters are pissed off at you, it may be the politician who pays. In other words, if the gang says you are a problem for them and they will make the politician the target of their ire, you become completely expendable.

Gorajec violated at least two the the three. More than that, it seemed like perhaps Gorajec’s prime objective was making sure Joe Gorajec got star billing in Indiana.

Whichever politicians may or may not have been getting gored, someone sent the word down to ex-state senator Thomas Weatherwax, chairman of the IHRC, that Joe had to go.

And it doesn’t matter how pure Joe’s motives might have been. If you want to survive, remember there are people from whom you need unqualified support. Gorajec made two classic mistakes. First, he asked for absolute power and control over all aspects of racing and breeding. Great when everything is going great. But much like football coaches who do the same thing, when things go badly there is only one place to point the finger. For example, Indiana breeders believed Gorajec and his policies led to significant economic loss and they made sure anyone who asked knew that. Second, he thought his righteous reputation as one of racing’s toughest regulators would insulate him against all attacks. He had assumed his record of executing scofflaws and upgrading the integrity of racing would be the single most important consideration when he was attacked. After all, what do racing fans constantly complain about? Serial violators who never get more than a slap on the wrist.  Business as usual at the track. That wasn’t going to happen on Joe Gorajec’s watch.

The Gorajec supporters will see this as a clear message that the people who control racing don’t have the stomach to enforce the standards and punish the wrongdoers. It will be seen by supporters as a message to other zealous regulators that they better think twice about taking a Gorajec-like approach to enforcement. The Gorajec acolytes will not be convinced that this was anything more than horsemen who got caught blaming the cop who caught them.

I think the truth is that this was nothing less than a repudiation of Gorajec. Much like Torquemada, whose name has become synonymous with over-zealous enforcement and ignoring rights, Gorajec believed his crusade justified causing those people who may have deserved a tempered justice to lose their livelihoods and have their careers maimed right along with the clear felons. He could not, or would not, differentiate between the fool and the heretic, and so a very narrow range of harsh sentences could fit far too many crimes.

The only people who escaped were the ones that turned snitch. Many horsemen saw this as Gorajec being arbitrary, but perhaps worse than that, the culture of turning horsemen, vets, grooms, and jockeys against each other made the backside a poisonous place.

Arguments between the Gorajec supporters and the Gorajec haters are of little use. One side is unlikely to convince the other. Whether his dismissal is good for Indiana racing will be learned soon enough. What may be clearer is that for whatever reason, his firing was necessary.

Great judges understand when to dispense harsh justice and when to temper their judgment. Without knowing anything more than Joe Gorajec got fired I would question his skills as an administrator. He misunderstood the politics, he did not recognize his true friends and his enemies, but most of all he forgot the original Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or as was said in James 2

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Opinions

Crime of the Century

The news lately has been full of stories about the “insider trading” scandal in the fantasy sports business. The New York Times blared,

Scandal Erupts in Unregulated World of Fantasy Sports

The key word there is “unregulated.” So what’s a country to do about it? Obviously, have a Congressional hearing. I mean, what else do those guys have to do?

I’ve been on the record previously saying that Congress should keep itself focused on the things they are good at – and once I figure that out, I’ll let you know. But the one thing I know they are not good at is regulating gambling or games of chance. No gaming activity has ever come out ahead once the feds wormed their way in.

The issue with fantasy sports was a couple of employees using information not generally available to the public to hit jackpots on fantasy sites where they were not employed. Yeah, it sort of sucks, but is it a federal case? Well, some would cite the Interstate Wire Act of 1961. That’s right. 1961. Even for those of you who don’t remember 1961, that was the era of three television stations and a rotary telephone (ask your grandparents to describe one). The law was the brainchild of Robert Kennedy who saw himself as the wall against the spread of organized crime. One of the main revenue sources for organized crime was gambling, especially on sporting events, and Kennedy figured that with the new law he had one more tool in the toolbox to bust up the syndicate. It read

Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Good thing my departed father, God rest his soul, didn’t know the phone call to Paulie the Bookie could have landed him in Leavenworth for a deuce.

Of course, the irony today is that in 1961 everything moved on wires, while today it’s a little more complex. No matter. Wire is the modern euphemism for transmission regardless of technology.

One of the things the old syndicate bosses knew is that they were all vulnerable if someone with more muscle moved in. That’s exactly what happened, except it wasn’t a more powerful crime organization, it was the government. Remember the daily number? It used to pay 640-1 when bookmakers were running it. The state took over and the payoff dropped to 500-1. Let me ask you, would Powerball fall into the category of “a transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers…” Sure it would, had the government not given itself an exemption. It is the hypocrisy of government involvement that it is only a crime if we don’t want the revenues from it.

One of the main questions Congress would have to answer is, are fantasy sports games of chance or skill? I think horseracing is a game of skill in which there is wagering, and by the same logic so are fantasy sports. For me, any game that is not purely fixed odds, and where the participants have the ultimate power of selection, can be argued to be a game of skill. For goodness sake, everything has an element of chance, and if you don’t believe me ask Derek Jeter what a celestial break it was to have Jeffrey Maier attending an ALCS game one night.

There’s a pretty simple solution in the interim. You know how certain companies offer raffles or contests and the entries say clearly on the bottom “employees or their families are not eligible?” It would be just as easy for fantasy companies to ban their employees from playing a fantasy game on any site (and most have already adopted that rule). So we don’t need Congress to handle that issue.

The larger issue may be that of insider trading. The New York Times article said

The episode has raised questions about who at daily fantasy companies has access to valuable data, such as which players a majority of the money is being bet on; how it is protected; and whether the industry can — or wants — to police itself.

I thought about this with regard to horseracing. Which horse the majority of the money is bet on – yep, we all know that. Of course, the rumors of inside information in horseracing are widespread, and if you’ve gone to the track regularly you have inevitably heard talk of some secret workout, or a budding superstar, or a trainer coup. Apparently not all inside information is created equally (although the next blog will get into a case in Pennsylvania), or at least it’s not all equally illegal.

The question of how information is protected begs a different question. Why shouldn’t the betting public have access to that information? If some sharpie can figure out where there might be value in the system, more power to him. In other words, what makes it necessary to protect certain information? Because if we don’t have to keep some performance data secret, that becomes a moot issue.

The final point is perhaps the most important and fantasy sports can learn a good lesson from horseracing. If you don’t take the steps to regulate yourself, you can be sure some governmental entity will happily step in. Whether or not they can do a better job may be a matter of opinion, but as I started this opinion piece with, my confidence in the ability of Congress to come up with something that protects the public may wind up taking a back seat to issues of morality and economics. There are plenty in Congress who oppose gambling on moral grounds and there are plenty who see fantasy sports as another opportunity to impose stiff “sin” taxes on a gambling enterprise.

Apparently fantasy sports are not illegal, or they are apparently not covered by the Interstate Wire Act. That being the case, it also seems to be the case that the “insider trading” element was not a violation of federal law, and if it was, the proper agency to deal with it would be the FBI, who has been mute on the matter.

If you favor Congressional intervention, I assume you believe fantasy sports have the potential to become an out of control, possibly criminal enterprise. I would suggest that a corrupt enterprise will eventually collapse under the weight of its own lack of integrity or greed. Yes, fantasy sports need to have the intelligence to find the holes in the system and close them. But Congressional hearings? I think we are a long way from needing a hearing, especially considering all the important issues such hearings would pull valuable time from.

This wasn’t the crime of the century, the decade and perhaps not even the year. If you play fantasy sports you deserve a level playing field. I don’t think that is so tough the bright minds who figured out how to turn an office distraction into a multi-billion dollar business can’t figure it out. If they don’t fix it, they may not like the solution of the government agency that does. Just ask horseracing.

Opinions

Some Thoughts on the NYS Gaming Commission Meeting on Lasix

I’m a little late with this, but a week ago the New York State Gaming Commission met in Saratoga to discuss rules on the raceday medication, furosemide, often referred to by its trade name Lasix. Teresa Genaro’s article in the Blood Horse had this disturbing paragraph.

The Gaming Commmission is staffed by members who requested the forum be held, admitting they have no background in horseracing and little to no knowledge about the anti-bleeder medication furosemide — also known as Salix or Lasix. 

I know. Stunning, isn’t it.

Commissioner Peter J. Moschetti, Jr. was quoted as saying, “You consistently hear from casual fans that racing has a drug problem. There’s a concern, and when there’s a concern it should be addressed.”

Of course, apparently all the panels were comprised of veterinarians, trainers, owners and racing executives. Not a horseplayer who could confirm or deny the betting public’s collective belief that racing has a drug problem. Typical.

Two big names in racing, Arthur Hancock III and Mark Casse had differing opinions on how racing fans view Lasix. Hancock was certain Lasix was the cause of racing losing 4% of its fan base each year. Casse countered that the big money players aren’t concerned about Lasix in the least, stating they are concerned about the unknown drugs, the substances apparently not being detected by million dollar mass spectrometers.

I’ve asked this question before and I’ll ask it again. Give me an idea of what kind of substance would be undetectable given current technology.

I’m going to agree with Casse, who I think represents the position of most of the horsemen. Racing is spending far too much money on testing that primarily results in insignificant violations of allowable therapeutics and not nearly enough money on finding the real performance enhancing drugs. They spend not nearly enough money on getting to the bottom of serious violations.

The racing executive panel included most of the usual suspects. Ed Martin from the Association of Racing Commissioners International, Bill Nader, executive director of racing for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Alan Foreman, CEO of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and Alex Waldrop, CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

Waldrop suggested New York should fully adopt the National Uniform Medication Program. Martin suggested the Lasix rules were fine as currently written. Nader, unsurprisingly, said most racing jurisdictions in the world conduct successful racing meets without Lasix. Of course, he probably didn’t tell you why it is possible to do that in Hong Kong, but implausible in North America. Finally, Foreman pushed for finding an acceptable alternative for Lasix, using money that is currently being used to fight the medication to do the research. I expect he didn’t mention that kind of research doesn’t come cheap.

In other words, the same old, same old, with a promise that people who apparently knew nothing about Lasix, aka the Gaming Commission, will figure out what to do next. Moschetti said he was confused by the variety of information, adding, “I was hearing things that I had no idea even existed.”

And you wonder why the problem never gets solved. First, we can’t even definitively define the problem. Second, we’ve entrusted figuring it all out to people who are confused and ignorant about Lasix. How do you know you are on the right track when you aren’t even sure where the train is you are supposed to get on?

Somehow I’ve managed to become known as the defender of drugs, a title I surely dispute. I’ve been called a shill for the HBPA, mostly because I’ve defended trainers I believed were treated unfairly by racing commissions.This may come as a shock to some, but not everyone who has been convicted of a crime is equally guilty, as the Innocence Project has proven in multiple cases.

I’ve said on many occasions, I believe real performance enhancing drugs must be eradicated from racing and the trainers who use them severely punished. I also believe that picogram overages of therapeutics and environmental contaminations do not deserve some of the harsh punishments meted out by the same racing commissions that are lacking in substantive drug knowledge. The two positions are not in opposition, and they are not equivalent. When Mr. Moschetti suggests fans believe racing has a drug problem, from my perspective it is the same sorts of PED’s other professional sports worry about, not Lasix or Banamine.

In my next blog I’m going to go into detail about Dr. Steven Barker’s view on drugs in racing. I’m sure you’ll find it as illuminating as I did.

Opinions

The Defeat of American Pharoah

Saturday’s Travers Stakes at Saratoga was supposed to be another checkmark win in the stunning three year old season of American Pharoah. Unfortunately, Keen Ice and Frosted had the temerity to think they could beat the undoubted three year old champion. It turns out one of them actually did it.

The race did not unfold exactly as the handicappers predicted. Here is the description of American Pharoah’s race from the NYRA chart:

AMERICAN PHAROAH came away in good order, went straight to the front, set the pace inside through the opening quarter-mile, moved off the rail onto the backstretch, came under increased pressure by FROSTED with six furlongs to run, was coaxed along now on even terms passing the half-mile pole, raced a touch off the rail while urged along inside of FROSTED on the far turn, entered the stretch against the rail and head to head with the aforementioned rival, fought on when put to a right-handed whip inside the three-sixteenths, shook off FROSTED inside the furlong marker but was quickly challenged by KEEN ICE, led until near the sixteenth-pole, switched to a left-handed whip while being overtaken and missed. 

The chart, like the race, was anticlimactic. “American Pharoah missed,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, promptly sticking his nose in the racing form in the hope of actually figuring out what the hell happened.

The public was for the most part unhappy with the outcome, never considering their king was, after all, not invincible. It’s never pretty to watch your heroes turn ordinary.

But what did happen? Did American Pharoah’s breeding finally catch up with him? After all, he was not supposed to be a mile and a quarter horse, much less a Triple Crown winner. I suspect if the Lords of Racing had their way, they wouldn’t have been that upset if someone to ran out on the track and Tonya Harding’d Keen Ice at the eighth pole. (Save your comments. It was meant as humor.)

Was it all the plane rides between California and the east coast? He had actually put on a little weight between the Haskell and the Travers, and the uncanny Maggie Wolfendale pronounced him better looking than she remembered from the Belmont. His Saratoga gallop had people glowing about his gorgeous stride, as usual.

Was it the unexpected pressure from Frosted, a horse he had already bested twice? American Pharoah had already shown his versatility and proven he was not a need to lead type. Respected handicappers stated that Frosted did what he had to do if he wanted to win the race. With all due respect, there was no strategy Frosted could have employed to beat American Pharoah, but I will grant you that Frosted did not take the easy way out by trying to sew up second place money. Like Rocky Balboa, he went toe to toe with the champ and lost the decision. No shame in that. Whether his strategy cost Pharoah the Travers, it almost certainly cost Frosted the place.

Was it the rail that did the champ in? I had one handicapper state with religious conviction that being pinned on the rail was the reason Pharoah’s tank was empty by the eighth pole, blaming the suddenly $15,000 poorer Victor Espinoza for a bad ride. I’m not buying the bad ride explanation. I didn’t think Pharoah ever looked like he was slogging down low, for quite a bit of the race he was off the rail, and the one thing that caught my eye was that he contnually held a straight running line, not weaving like a tired horse might. I read later that NYRA appeared to even groom the track to favor the inside speed.

I don’t think it was any one thing. I especially don’t think it was the “graveyard of champions” explanation. Yes, Man O’War and Secretariat fell to lesser horses at the Spa, but for every “upset” I can counter with 20 champions that did exactly what they were supposed to do. When you see 20% winning favorites instead of 35% at Saratoga, I’ll give the graveyard hypothesis more weight.

I never really knew how good Pharoah was before the Triple Crown. I smugly expected him to hit the wall in the last eighth of a mile in the Derby. Instead, he freaked and overpowered the field. Even after he marched home triumphant in the Belmont, I found it hard to embrace he was just that good. Don’t get me wrong. The Triple Crown was and is a grand achievement, and Pharoah clearly proved he was the best of this spring’s three year olds.

It is the fate of racing fans to look for the explanation. One guy found it in Espinoza, another with the short time between the Haskell and the Travers. I’m happy thinking, he didn’t have it that day, but unlike my thoughts on California Chrome (he beat nothing in the Derby, was far more physically mature in May than his competition, was simply one of a few good three year olds by the fall, and was no way, no how horse of the year) I’m not going to have a problem seeing Pharoah get the horse of the year. All in all, I’m not sure the Travers meant anything more than it was just not his day. He was not, in automative parlance, firing on all cylinders. I’m not sure I need to know more than that. He got beat plain and simple. He is still a great horse, never the equal for me of the other Triple Crown winners I’ve witnessed, but a Hall of Fame horse nonetheless. At his best, I wonder if he has an equal in 2015. If he runs in the Classic, he’d likely be favored on my line.

Many racing pundits believe that having a superstar horse is essential to revive racing. They are, of course, wrong. The chance there will be a Triple Crown winner will bring people to their TV sets to watch the race, much like the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team got big ratings when they clobbered Japan in the World Cup final. Since that day I’m pretty sure I’d be safe in saying women’s soccer hasn’t gotten scads more exposure on ESPN or Fox. Although I suppose 15 minutes of national fame is better than regular folks wondering, American who? The reality is that TV will cover an event, but the Belmont didn’t permanently turn thousands of new fans toward the sport.

After the race Ahmed Zayat sounded like an owner panicked about seeing some of the potential $40 million in annual breeding fees evaporate, swearing that if there was a hair out of place on Pharoah’s mane, the horse would not run again. This would be the real travesty for racing. To be a champion, regardless of the sport, you take on all comers until there is no one left to challenge your claim to the title. For Pharoah to be the true champion he needs to defeat the best horses racing in the Breeder’s Cup Classic. I believe he still has something left to prove and unless he really is physically unable to perform, I believe the Zayat’s owe us the opportunity to find out for sure if he is the undisputed champion.

Opinions, Stories and Reporting

HBPA Meeting August 8

I had the unique privilege of being the first horseplayer ever invited to be on a panel at the national HBPA meeting held this year in Denver August 7-9.

The medication and drug panel was chaired by Kent Stirling, executive director of the Florida HBPA, who spoke about the potential federal legislation. The HBPA’s general opposition to Federal drug legislation is not an opposition to drug testing, which HBPA fully supports. The issue mainly revolves around trying to use federal legislation to ban the use of Lasix on raceday.

There is a vocal group of horsemen, including the well known manager of Team Valor, Barry Irwin, who are convinced that the use of Lasix gives racing a black eye. As I have mentioned before, drug use or the perception of drug use is often cited as a prime reason why the sport is in continual decline, despite RCI statistics that show less than one half of one percent all post race tests return a positive, and that the vast majority of those positives are for approved therapeutics. Less than 50 positives out of over 324,000 tests are for Class 1 or 2 substances.

The unmistakeable conclusion is that horseracing does not have an out of control drug problem nor is the existing system breaking down. Given the statistics, how can the federal legislation be about anything other than banning raceday Lasix?

Stirling cited a survey that has been conducted in Florida in which 90% of the horsemen (owners and trainers) favor the use of Lasix. The point is that there is a chasm between the anti and pro Lasix crowds, and trying to force a solution through federal legislation is only going to reinforce the divisions. There is a right way to do this, and it involves the industry working toward consensus.

The Lasix issue must be resolved soon. First, it is a boogeyman that keeps racing from addressing the real issues of why fans are abandoning the game. It is not as simple as no Lasix on raceday, and I guarantee that if Lasix was banned tomorrow racing problems would at the least continue, and most likely intensify. There are alternatives to Lasix, some of which are very much worse. It’s not about the Lasix.

The other panel members were Dr. Thomas Tobin, from the Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Clara Fenger, head of the North American Association of Racetrack Veterinarians, and Dr. Steven Barker, recently retired from Louisiana State University. All three are highly respected within the industry, and their knowledge and expertise on drug and medication issues is unquestionably superb. It was humbling to be mentioned in the same breath as these industry giants.

I’ll be writing in more detail about the presentations from the other three panelists in a future blog, but I wanted to relate two important points that Dr. Barker made.

  • Of the 26 standards for approved medication, 19 are NOT based on scientific study. This is, in my opinion, a horrifying bit of information.
  • The emergence of technology that can measure picograms (trillionths of a gram) and femtograms (quadrillionths of a gram) render the adoption of zero tolerance standards ridiculous.

I’ve talked about how a picogram can be viewed for perspective. Imagine a trainer receiving a positive at 49 picograms and relating that to time. 49 seconds is the amount of time that has elapsed since I began writing this paragraph. A trillion seconds is over 31,000 years, a time when man’s ancestors were scribbling on cave walls. If you related it to weight, a trillion pounds would be (about) the combined weight of every person on the face of the earth, and 49 pounds would be the equivalent of finding one four year old boy somewhere in that mass of humanity.

The point Dr. Barker was making was that trainers are receiving punishment for levels that cannot possibly have any impact on performance. Moreover, such miniscule levels are often more representative of environmental contamination rather than drug administration.

The scarier point is, how can racing tolerate standards that are what those in the standard setting business call “WAGs” (wild ass guesses).

My presentation focused on four topics.

  • knowledge of and perspective on drug issues on the part of horseplayers;
  • setting standards to ban therapeutics;
  • absence of thorough investigations;
  • punishment out of proportion to violations.

With regard to knowledge and perspective on drug issues, in my experience, most horseplayers have limited familiarity and knowledge of the 26 allowable medications, with the exception of Lasix and some of the NSAIDs (bute and banamine). This often translates into equating violations of therapeutic standards with violations of performance enhancing drugs. This generally leads to the reaction, another trainer trying to gain an advantage got caught.

This lack of understanding also leads to some apathy about the actual details of violations. Horseplayers don’t see the violation in relation to the measurement unit – picograms. It’s a violation regardless of the mount, and often the attitude is, you knew the rules, you broke them, pay the penalty.

I also pointed out that groups like WHOA (water, hay, oats alliance) have made significant inroads, and many players believe Lasix is performance enhancing beyond improvement of EIPH. The problem, of course, is that there have not been specific studies done to quantify any improvement associated with Lasix.

I also suggested that many players cannot always attribute substantial improvement associated with a trainer change with differences in the horsemanship of the respective trainers. It is not uncommon for horseplayers to suspect trainers that improve a horse significantly after a claim of something more magical.

Finally, I pointed out that many players believe there are substances that are undetectable by current technology and that there are trainers not unwilling to use them.

On the other topics I referenced articles I have already published. Setting standards to ban therapeutics was part of the Bill Brashears article. (halveyonhorseracing/?p=1351). Absence of thorough investigations referenced the articles on Kellyn Gorder (halveyonhorseracing/?p=1587) and Chris Grove (halveyonhorseracing/?p=1742). Finally, for punishments out of proportion to the violation, I discussed the case of Mike Norris in Indiana (halveyonhorseracing/?p=1842)

I finished with a series of recommendations:

  • Horsemen need to approach state legislatures to provide racing commissions with greater guidance. Right now the commissions have total discretion over the adoption of racing rules, and this has led to many of the problems I cited. They do not often do investigations, and if they do they are often poorly done. In the case of Chris Grove, shouldn’t the most important question to answer have been, where did the nikethamide come from? Shouldn’t the tracks think it important to know who might be a meth user having contact with the horses? Did state legislatures mean to give racing commissions the power to treat felonies like misdemeanors and vice versa?
  • Given the poor timing of lab results from some of the testing facilities, shouldn’t some violations that occur for the same substance but before the trainer is notified of the first positive be automatically combined into one violation? This might not apply to Class 1 or 2 substances, but certainly for Class 4 or 5 substances.
  • There should be de minimis levels for substances where environmental contamination is the most likely explanation for a positive. ARCI is already looking at this issue. You simply cannot have zero tolerance standards when such contaminations are not that uncommon.
  • There should be an absolute right to be represented by counsel and the HBPA rep in any meeting with regulators. I have heard a number of stories where trainers were required to attend a meeting regarding a violation but were not allowed to bring counsel.
  • Records should be expunged after five years for minor and administrative violations. When New York decided to suspend Dick Dutrow for 10 years, the press release made him sound like a serial abuser, except almost all of the 80 violations that were cited were for things like “failure to have foal papers on file,” “late to the paddock,” and “failure to have the proper colors.” These are really the equivalent of parking tickets and overstate the serial nature of a trainer’s transgressions.
  • There should be standards that include both threshold levels AND withdrawal times for certain Class 3. 4. and 5 approved therapeutic substances.

I will continue my work to make racing fairer AND cleaner through this blog. For now, I want to thank the HBPA for the opportunity to provide my insight into medication standards.

Opinions

Medication and Drugs in Race Horses

I’ve been doing my blog for a little over a year now. When I originally started the blog I thought I would mostly focus on selections, handicapping and betting articles, and opinions, of which I have plenty, some good, some not so good.

One of those opinion pieces was about Doug O’Neill’s conviction for oxazepam in NY (halveyonhorseracing.com/?p=517). It was my opinion then, and it is still my opinion that O’Neill was convicted because the absolute insurers rule presumes guilt when a horse tests positive for a banned substance. The likelihood that he had anything to do with giving the horse oxazepam was very small. On the other hand, the likelihood that it is was environmental contamination that caused the positive is very high.

In this case and in other cases I’ve investigated, the competence of the adjudicating bodies is at the very least suspect. 

I had no idea that my opinion piece would generate the response it did, especially within the horsemen’s community. Trainer inquiries became a regular occurrence for me, and  a number of them told me that no one pushes back when trainers are cited for violations. An avocation was born.

Racing Commissions are set up as the enforcement, adjudicatory, and appeals branches for horseracing. It is a system that no industry interested in the full story would have designed. It is a system that is ripe for long time Executive Directors of racing commissions to exercise their power harshly and abusively. It is a system that does not fully investigate violations, instead relying on a rule that absolves commissions of all need to dig for the truth. It is a system that uses its power to set standards designed to ban good, legal therapeutic drugs because commissions can get away with it.

I’ve taken a lot of criticism for my stories. I’ve been accused of being pro-drug by some fairly heavy hitters, including Barry Irwin from Team Valor. I have tried to be clear that I firmly believe real performance enhancing drugs should be punished harshly, but that the unchecked power exhibited by the Racing Commissions is at least as serious an issue.

I’ve also gone on record that therapeutic medications are in a different category than performance enhancing drugs, and should be dealt with differently. I will not be convinced that suspension, loss of purse and a fine are all three warranted for a picogram overage of drugs like phenylbutazone or banamine.

I’ve written about the following trainer violations:

  • Doug O’Neill for oxazepam in NY. Almost certainly an environmental contamination case.
  • Ferris Allen for Stanozolol in MD. This was a case where absurd zero tolerance standards resulted in a picogram positive for a long-time and successfully used therapeutic medication in a horse that had a level that could not have had any real impact on performance.
  • Bill Brashears for Banamine in CO. This was a case where the commission adopted a standard that essentially rendered use of the drug moot for therapeutic purposes.
  • Chris Grove for Nikethamide in WV. This was a case where the investigation was incompetent, the commission essentially agreed that Grove had nothing to do with the positive, but he was given days and a fine anyway.
  • Kellyn Gorder for metamphetamine in KY. This was also almost certainly a case of environmental contamination.

These are egregious cases where commissions showed poor judgement, bad investigatory practices, and unfair punishments. It’s not 100% of the cases, but ask each of these trainers if the fact that commissions get it right most of the time is enough to make up for their pain.

As it turns out, I was likely right about Kellyn Gorder’s violation. Somebody who had recently used meth had contact with the horses that tested positive.

Recently, esteemed midwestern trainer McLean Robertson was convicted of a methamphetamine violation. He was handed a 90 day suspension and fined $2,000. This is in opposition to Gorder’s year suspension imposed by Kentucky.

So one obvious issue is that punishments in jurisdictions can vary widely for the same violation. Gorder’s violation was for 48 picograms, Robertson’s for 74 picograms. Both are considered de minimis when it comes to any performance enhancing effect, and almost any respectable pharmacologist will tell you that the probability was for an environmental contamination. Robertson is so well respected that even Canterbury Park threw their support behind him.

“Canterbury Park supports and funds drug testing as a deterrent to the use of performance-enhancing substances in horse racing,” track officials said in a July 26 statement. “However, Canterbury Park management does not believe Mr. Robertson, an upstanding and respected member of Canterbury Park’s racing program for many years, administered a performance-enhancing or prohibited substance to the horse referenced in this case but is a victim of environmental contamination.”

“We realize the board of stewards, under direction of the Minnesota Racing Commission, was in a difficult position in this matter based on zero-tolerance and trainer responsibility rules. The integrity of the sport is of utmost importance, but scientific advances in drug testing have made zero-tolerance rules for contaminants impractical.”

“When the stewards’ ruling is appealed to the MRC, we hope they take into consideration the mitigating circumstances in this case.”

Unfortunately, the commissions and their imperial executive directors have painted themselves into a corner. Even if you believe Gorder and Robertson were the victims of environmental contamination, by what part of racing rules do they get to excuse them from punishment?  After all, nobody proved anything other than a horse had meth in its system, including environmental contamination, and the absolute insurers rule is, well absolute. And if they do, don’t they set a precedent that causes them far more headaches than convicting them would?

Whether or not ARCI will do something remains to be seen, but at least one member of the drug testing committee has seen the light. Constantin Rieger, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Racing Commission sent this to the Scientific Advisory Committee members:

RCI Scientific Advisory Committee Members, I am a member of the RCI DTSP committee and would like to request that the Advisory Committee consider establishing a contaminant level for the drug Methamphetamine. As you know, Meth has become a popular drug in human use and equine testing may be affected by such use. We have several drugs/compounds which are considered contaminants and I believe Meth could fit into that category. There have been several low level positive confirmations nationally of late and I believe it’s time to give this drug a contaminant distinction. We have a protocol in place that addresses any findings of the drug, although possibly not confirmable (human drug testing), which the lab would report to the Commission. I appreciate your consideration of this matter.

Perhaps they will change the standard to allow for a contamination level, but the question is whether it will be too late to help Robertson and Gorder. Still, I’d like to think my practice has helped stimulate some hard thinking on the part of horsemen and racing commissions when it comes to some violations.

Opinions

Ending Horseracing

Believe this fervently. There is a significant movement to end horseracing primarily based on a perception it is cruel. The case for cruelty is often made by people who know very little about the sport itself, or by people within horseracing with a specific axe to grind, like the anti-medication crowd. The folks who care about horses and horseracing but believe it should all be natural may unwittingly be helping to fuel the movement to end horseracing. As you’ll see, even a completely drug free sport won’t keep a certain group from working to end racing thoroughbreds.

A Bloomberg View sports writer named Kavitha Davidson recently did an opinion piece calling for the end of horseracing.    Davidson article

According to Ms. Davidson

Frankly, it’s a wonder that horse racing has lasted this long. Idealists would point to the sport’s long history in this country and to the unique place horses occupy in the American consciousness. But save for a few big races each year that are ultimately more cultural events and excuses to drink than marquee athletic showcases, the sport has been on a steady decline. And despite its blue-blood reputation, the “sport of kings” is really just the sport of vice, kept afloat by a system of gambling and doping that amounts to institutionalized animal abuse.

Idealists? You mean people who see horseracing as a legitimate sport and an enjoyable form of entertainment? And what is wrong with a few cultural events like the Kentucky Derby or the Breeders Cup to help define and popularize the sport? Only someone completely ignorant of the sport would argue these races are not marquee athletic events. If you watched American Pharoah in full flight in any of the Triple Crown races and concluded he is not an athlete of the highest order, you have no clue what a world class athlete looks like.

I suppose it would be hard to deny that the betting aspect is crucial to the sport’s survival. Of course, we’d never say that betting on games has something to do with the popularity of football. Everybody just tunes in to root on their favorite teams and give sports talk radio and ESPN something to rant about most of the day.

On the other hand suggesting the sport is kept afloat by “doping that amounts to institutionalized animal abuse” misrepresents the fact that most athletes need therapy to be able to play. Every sport, human or equine is to some degree dependent on doctors and pharmacists to keep the participants in the game. It is simply not abuse to treat minor inflammation or a sore muscle with a NSAID, human or equine. Neither should it be illegal in either case.

Eventually though we have to get to Lasix. Davisdon says

The main controversy today is over an anti-bleeding drug known as Lasix. In the U.S., it’s often administered on the day of the race, along with up to 26 other permitted substances; race-day medications are banned in almost every other country. Several top trainers have banded together to push for a plan to ban race-day medications in the U.S., citing the negative effects on the health of the animal and the reputation of the sport. Those resistant to change, including the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, claim that injecting drugs is actually good for a horse’s health.

How does someone get the allowances for raceday medication so wrong? Yes, Lasix is administered the day of a race, but none of the other 25 therapeutics is allowed. There are established levels above which trainers receive violations. But this is what racing is up against. People who don’t know enough about the sport to speak knowledgeably, but who have a national platform, proffering plainly wrong information.  If someone unfamiliar with the sport reads that paragraph, it sounds like horses are getting 27 drugs before they go out on a racetrack. If that were the case then a lot of us who love racing would abandon the sport.

And one of the biggest problems is that the sport is not make up of all “top trainers” who have nothing but top stock. For every Pletcher or Graham Motion there are a hundred small time trainers training horses few people will ever remember.

The anti-racing crowd says that nothing can fix horseracing, including a Lasix ban, because it is inherently cruel. Davidson writes

Horse racing is inherently cruel, and the problems start, literally, from birth: As the Indianapolis Star’s Gregg Doyel notes, we should expect nothing less than physical breakdown from an animal bred to sustain an abnormally muscular carriage on skinnier-than-usually legs. What you don’t see behind the veil of seersucker and mint juleps are the thousands of horses that collapse under the weight of their science-project bodies. This weekend at Belmont, all eyes on American Pharoah meant nobody was paying attention to Helwan, the 4-year-old French colt who had to be euthanized on the track after breaking his left-front cannon bone. It was Helwan’s first time racing on Lasix.

An abnormally muscular carriage on skinner-than-usually [sic] legs? So does that mean we should be breeding horses with smaller muscles and fatter legs and everything will be fine? Of course not. Ms. Davidson is simply attempting to amplify the idea that racing is broken beyond repair. Between the drugs, the gambling (the horror of it), and the “science-project bodies” there is no rehabilitation for the sport.

Then she plasters on the coup-de-grace. A horse racing on Lasix for the first time breaks down. She doesn’t say that the Lasix caused the breakdown, but that was the implication. Lasix makes horses break down because it allows them to run too fast. Try telling that to a mustang looking to escape from a mountain lion.

She concludes by noting how well other sports have responded to their own drug scourges.

It’s true that abuses and safety concerns exist to varying degrees across all sports. But the more we have learned about health risks in football and hockey, and of performance-enhancing drug use in baseball and cycling, the more we stepped up our efforts to rectify the problems. As football players learn of the game’s long-term health dangers, many rethink their participation. But this exposes racing’s fundamental ill: A horse can’t consent.

So the story is that racing has done nothing to deal with health risks? Racing surfaces today are far more safe than they may have been years ago. Racing jurisdictions have passed limiting rules relating to whipping a horse and have required far more humane riding crops. And I’m not going into detail again about the drug rules in football or baseball as opposed to horse racing. Racing’s rules are draconian compared to these other sports. It’s often pointed out that few football players on a Sunday could pass the same drug test that a thoroughbred has to pass.

Let’s be realistic. No animal can consent to treatment, including your housepet. If that is racing’s fundamental ill, it is humanity’s fundamental ill because we insist on raising animals for food or keeping them as pets. That leaves the humans with some additional responsibility to treat the animal with the right dose of the right drug when that is what is called for. Your infant child can’t consent to treatment either, so we make the decision to medicate for them in their best interest. If that is the standard for horses, and perhaps Lasix aside that is the standard for racing’s therapeutic medications, what more can  racing do for the participants? The consent argument is a diversion because humane treatment can ensure animals are not being abused.

Racing has a myriad of problems without adding in the crowd that would go everywhere between truth-stretching and out and out story-telling to kill the sport. If these kind of editorials on the heels of one of the greatest feats a racehorse can achieve gain traction, the sport we love is in more trouble than we believed. We must do three things. First, we must stop airing our dirty laundry in a way that arms the people outside the sport to fight us. We must come to an agreement about how therapeutics, including Lasix, should be used (or not used)  in the sport. Second, we have to fight back with our own statistics. Statistics that show horses are not overmedicated, or at the very least that breakdowns are not correlated to the use of therapeutic medications. Third, we must police the people who would use real performance enhancing drugs (not therapeutics, the same way football and baseball do) in a meaningful way. I have written about trainers who have been abused by the system and I will continue to do so, but we must be able to discern between the real cheats and the trainers with picogram positives of therapeutics and treat those real cheats with harsh justice.

We cannot allow the ignorant and those with an anti-horseracing agenda to control the dialogue. Let’s face it – the loss of horseracing would hardly make a ripple with the great majority of Americans, and that means we have to work extra hard to convince the negative and the apathetic to let us solve our problems and make the sport viable in the long term. As the saying goes, if you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

 

Opinions

Getting the Story Right

Trainer Karl Broberg is having a fantastic year. 31% winners, 60% in the money. No doubt, the first thing that happens when a trainer achieves numbers like that is to ask, what undetectable elixir has he found?

I don’t know Broberg. He seems to be mostly a Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana guy. But the reaction to his numbers underscores the fact that few horseplayers buy the idea that percentages over 30 occur simply through great horsemanship.

Two great debates that horseplayers have are around the benefits of giving horses cobalt and milkshakes (bicarbonate loading). The research on cobalt seems to point toward the likelihood of it having limited performance enhancing powers, but having great potential for causing serious harm to a horse. The value of milkshakes is also ambiguous. However, both these items are extemely easy to detect, and trainers would either have to be very uninformed or self-destructive to use either as a performance enhancer.

Broberg just had two violations for TCO2 thrown out and in writing the story, the Paulick Report said this:

Both of the alleged violations were dismissed because the method of collection and handling of blood samples was not compatible with the type of equipment being used to measure total carbon dioxide (TCO2, commonly referred to as milkshaking a horse through bicarbonate loading that reduces fatigue-causing lactic acid buildup).

If you’re going to write stories about drug/medication violations, do your homework. An elevated TCO2 level may be due to milkshaking, but it can also be a result of diet (especially one high in alfalfa or soybean products), dehydration, supplements, medications (e.g., certain anti-ulcer medications), electrolytic drinks (pedialyte), or a Lasix bump. It is very easy to determine if the high TCO2 level is potentially related to milkshaking – sodium levels will be very high. If they aren’t, the cause of the elevated TCO2 is one of the other things.

So it is accurate to say that a high TCO2 level may be associated with milkshaking if there are sufficiently high sodium levels accompanying the positive, but it is inaccurate to make a TCO2 level over the standard and milkshaking synonymous. Let’s not convict a trainer of milkshaking by proxy, or lead horseplayers to believe all TCO2 violations are a result of bicarbonate loading.

Horseplayers are cynical enough about the presence of drugs in racing, and every time a trainer gets a positive the sport suffers both with bad publicity and loss of public confidence. But let’s be accurate here. There were 14 TCO2 overages in 2014 according to RCI statistics, and of those, most had nothing to do with milkshaking.

As for Broberg, he does seem to have found the winning formula. I believe it is incumbent upon track officials to reassure the public through investigation that it is good horsemanship or find out what it is if not that. This is an area where horseplayers should be more active. Instead of tracks spending precious resources battling trainers with picogram level therapeutic violations, let’s make an effort to prove or put to rest the rumors and innuendo associated with every trainer (except the mega guys like Baffert, Pletcher or Asmussen) that has an eye-catching winning percentage. If I was Broberg and I knew I was clean, I would demand an investigation to clear me. Tracks do themselves no service when they let such rumors hang there unaddressed.

As for Paulick, a lot a people depend on him for horseracing news. Getting the story right is not just a good idea. It’s an obligation.

Opinions

Lasix: Fact and Myth

I’m not sure what compromise solves the Lasix issue for horseracing. The pro-Lasix side is mostly horsemen and vets who believe it is a necessary part of allowing a horse to run to the best of his ability. The Water, Hay, Oats Alliance is in the forefront of the effort to ban the use of Lasix, and performance enhancing drugs by appointing an independent anti-doping program run by the U.S.  Anti-Doping Agency. The motives of the WHOA are to

  • solve the problem of widespread drug use in American racing;
  • put the U.S. in step with international standards.

According to the WHOA, doping destroys public confidence in racing, defrauds the betting fan, weakens the genetic pool and, most importantly, puts the life and limb of horses and their jockeys at risk. They also insist that the various jurisdictions cannot police themselves. The are careful not to call out Lasix by name, but considering it is the only allowable raceday medication…..well, you figure it out.

If you search the WHOA website, you might expect that they would be documenting their position with statistics. But you’d be wrong. Instead, theirs is a populist movement, and the lineup of folks on the WHOA team is pretty impressive.  Instead of dull statistics, their argument is, all these people must have a point. For example, John Koenig, Two Rivers Racing Stable, Owner/Farm Owner says

I think we are at a tipping point. The time for arguing “therapeutic” medications and permissible drugs is over. Regardless of our opinions, the public will never believe running horses on drugs is humane. Further, as we all know, it truly is “chemical warfare” at the racetrack. This has created a crazy arms race that no one can win – expensive in both owners dollars and horses health. At the same time, the industry is dying. This is due to many reasons, but a drug-riddled image is certainly among them. We currently use many legal medications in our stable. Real change would effect us and the way we operate, forcing us to possibly retire or rest horses more frequently. I say good. If outfits like ours are forced to change or disappear because they cannot, so be it. I believe it is the only way racing will survive.

I picked this one because it had some of the common “evidence” for why we need to ban medications and drugs.

  • the public will never believe running horses on drugs is humane. Notice the carefully constructed language. It does not say running horses on drugs is inhumane. It says the public doesn’t believe it is humane. Remember last week’s blog, Opinion and Fact? What is the fact? Drugs are not humane or drugs are humane and we just can’t find a way for the public to believe it?
  • As we all know, it is truly chemical warfare at the track. As we all know? Chemical warfare? The language is inflammatory and pejortive, but certainly not instructional. As they say on law dramas, assumes facts not in evidence. But it does fit nicely with the WHOA agenda where we need an independent and universal drug testing agency.

Here’s another good one from Andrew Kessler, Slingshot Solutions LLC, Substance Abuse Expert

As an advocate working in Washington, D.C. on the subject of substance abuse treatment and prevention, I see every day the damage that drugs can do to a life, to a family, and to a business. As a lifelong racing fan, I am witnessing a collision of my professional expertise and one of my greatest passions. While the policy I work on pertains to human health, I have developed an expertise on what damage unregulated drugs can to do a body. Whether we are human or equine, we deserve to live a life that is free from the destruction caused by illegal drugs, or even legal drugs administered in unsafe dosages. Substance abuse does not damage only those who ingest drugs and narcotics. Amongst people, drug use causes severe economic damage, stemming from increased health care costs, lost economic productivity, and a plethora of other problems. The difference between humans and equines in this regard is negligible. Drugging of horses leads not only to bodily damage, but to economic damage as well, in the form of increased medical costs, and shortened careers. Nothing should be more paramount to the Sport of Kings than the safety of its participants. Every other sport- football, hockey, baseball, etc- are taking part in a movement to place participant safety at a level never before seen. Thoroughbred racing must join in this movement.

I’m going to ask a general question. What the hell does most of this have to do with drugs in horseracing? The damage drugs do to a life, a family, and to a business? Try not to forget there is exactly ONE drug allowed on raceday and that’s Lasix. I don’t know – are horses spending all their pocket money on drugs, keeping their families from having an idyllic life? And then he has the audacity to mention football, hockey, baseball, and leaders in limiting drug use. Are you kidding me? Here are some of baseball’s enlightened standards

Drug Initial Test Level (ng/mL)              Confirmation Test Level (ng/mL)

Cocaine Metabolites                           300                                                 150
Opiates/Metabolites                        2000                                               2000
Phencyclicdine (PCP)                             25                                                     25
Cannabinoids                                             50                                                      15

You know what the standards are for these substances in horseracing? Zero. The presence of a stimulant in baseball is considered a positive only if the level exceeds 250 ng/ml. That would be 250,000 picograms/mL. Remember Kellen Gorder was nailed with a 49 picogram positive for meth. I wonder how many baseball, football or basketball players could pass post-race testing after a game?

Here’s another part of the baseball drug policy. If a doctor says a drug is a medical necessity (say testosterone for all you A-Rod fans) it is allowable. Does that policy sound like anything in racing? I’ll give you a clue. Lasix. And let’s not even get into football. Anyone remember Tony Romo getting painkiller injections in his ribs in four straight games? Anyone remember the outcry from fans of the game? Me neither.

Now before you say Romo could consent, but a horse can’t, sure that’s a legitimate point. But that totally understates the issue that comes up in horseracing – that performance enhancing substances are affecting the outcomes of events. Did the fact that Romo was able to play instead of some backup affect the outcome of the event? I’m sure we all have an opinion on that.

I’ve had the WHOA and HANA people take shots at me, saying things like horseracing is more “wholesome” without Lasix, or why do horses need drugs for something they were bred to do? Honestly, if wholesomeness is your best argument, you really aren’t making a positive case. As for breeding, as we’ll see in a moment 300 years of breeding has left the breed with an undeniable defect. They bleed under racing stress. Somehow it is supposed to be a truism that withdrawal of Lasix will be in the best interest of the horse, and although WHOA is a little thin with the details, this really translates as no horse in less than perfect health gets to run. Sort of the Olympic equivalent of asthmatics should stay home. And what this really translates to is there may not be nearly enough horses to run at the hundred or so race tracks operating in North America. Smaller tracks will be driven out of business, and whether WHOA is on board with this, there are organizations that think this can fix one of racings really big problems – too many tracks and too many marginal tracks running marginal racehorses. I didn’t make this up – horsemen who have talked with me all believe this is an agenda.

Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage (EIPH) refers to the rupturing of blood vessels in the lungs during racing or training. EIPH is measured numerically on a scale from 0 to 4, where 4 represents a horse with blood covering the entire trachea.

Let’s talk Myths and Facts.

Myth: The only bleeders of concern are those that show epistaxis, or discharge of blood from the nostrils.

Fact: Prior to the perfection of the fiberoptic endoscope, the only visible symptom of bleeding was epitaxis. However the endoscope proved that the bleeding starts in the lungs. The great majority of racehorses will show some level of bleeding in their careers. Dr. Ken Hinchcliff, a major force in EIPH research, proved EIPH affects the majority of racehorses, with 50-70% confirmed bleeders. If you scope a horse after three successive strenuous workouts, nearly 100% will show signs of EIPH. And as a horse ages, the potential for bleeding increases. In essence, if a horse races long enough he’ll probably bleed at some point.

Myth: Lasix is a performance enhancing drug and as such should be banned on raceday.

Fact: Horses that suffer bleeding cannot breathe properly and most certainly performance will suffer. In fact, even a grade 2 EIPH is likely to affect performance. If the inferrence is that Lasix is performance enhancing in the same way say amphetamines would be, it doesn’t really make physiological sense. Lasix allows a horse to run to the level of his ability because their breathing is not going to be impaired. If a study shows a horse runs faster on Lasix than without, I believe the scientific explanation is, DUH! Lasix does lead to the elimination of excess fluids, which once again allows the horse to run to the peak of his own ability. Lasix is not like Popeye’s spinach, where gulping a can turned him into a super sailor. It is not a stimulant. The alternative to Lasix is denying food and water for 48 hours. That has the same effect as using a diuretic – weight loss due to the elimination of water weight. If you think some trainers won’t deny food and water if Lasix is banned. you’re dead wrong. And if you think PETA won’t replace WHOA as the voice of cruelty to race horses (HEADLINE: TRAINERS STARVE RACEHORSES), well you don’t know PETA either,

Myth: If Hong Kong, Europe, Japan and Dubai can race without Lasix, so can we.

Fact: I’ve been through the explanation of why we aren’t Hong Kong (860 races a year) or Dubai (23 racing days per year) numerous times. North America runs more races in a month than those jurisdictions run in a year. Some jurisdictions will allow Lasix but only after evidence of epistaxis, which is evidence of serious crisis. Trainers in both Australia and Europe will use Lasix during training regularly. Do I need to repeat that?  Lasix is not banned in Europe for training. If you think European horses don’t bleed, think again. They do, pretty much at the same rate as the breed in general. And lest you think the Euros are above racing on Lasix, plenty of them show up in the U.S. and race on Lasix when they do.

Myth: Racing is underfunded to test for drugs and medications, unlike the Anti-Doping Agency.

Fact: According to RCI’s own statistics, over 324,000 blood and urine tests are done each year on racehorses. Racing jurisdictions spend $35 million a year on testing. The Anti-Doping Agency spends $1.6 million on testing. So the WHOA idea is to pass $35 or so million dollars to an agency completely ill-equiped at the moment to take on something of the maginitude of racehorse testing in 38 jurisdictions. And where does WHOA think all the testing is going on? At a lab far superior some of the high level testing labs (like LSU or UC Davis)? Like most of the WHOA plan, we’ll worry about the details later. RCI statistics show almost 99.6% of the horses test clean. Out of the 324,000 plus tests, 47 revealed a positive for a Class 1 or 2 substance. In 2014 the current heinous drug, cobalt, showed up positive in only six tests. TCO2, the standard for milkshaking, showed positive in 14 cases in 2014, and most of them were not milkshaking but, feed, dehydration or a Lasix bump. The only explanations are that either compliance is high and the testing program is having a discouraging effect on illegal drug use, or horsemen are pulling a fast one on testers. I’ve had people insist the trainers are drugging away, and the reason they are getting away with it is that labs aren’t testing for those substances. As I’ve noted, it’s a small community and it would be hard to keep that secret from the authorities for long. Under any definition of the term “chemical warfare” those statistics are not supportive.

Myth: Lasix masks other medications.

Fact: Rick Sams, who directs HFL Sport Science Inc. in Lexington, KY said, “That concern is largely eliminatied when [Lasix] is administered in a tightly controlled environment, as it is in the United States. It’s impact on past-race testing is not very significant.” In other words, Lasix given four hours before a race at 10cc or less isn’t a masking agent, especially considering the sensitivity of modern tesing equipment.

Myth: Lasix weakens the breed.

Fact: I believe this is in part the epigenetic argument, which I wrote about in this blog http://halveyonhorseracing.com/?p=1219  The other part has to do with the average number of starts per horse per year. The argument goes something like, since Lasix has been an approved drug, starts have decreased. This may be a spurious correlation. It could be specifically related to changes in trainer behavior. Not that long ago, trainers raced their horses into condition, and now they put them on the track race ready. Many owners select trainers based on win percentage, and if you are giving your horse two or three races to get in shape, your percentage is not looking good. However, if the presence of Lasix has created a situation where horses are not strong enough to start less, then we should see horses in Europe or Australia averaging more starts per year than the U.S., but it’s not the case. Average number of starts per year per horse in the U.S. is slightly over 6. That compares to 3.77 in Ireland, 4.82 in Germany, 5.01 in France, 5.33 in England, and 5.64 in New Zealand. Only Australia is comparable to the U.S. with 6.14. If absence of Lasix made the breed stronger, wouldn’t this show up in the statistics for places that ban raceday Lasix? The point is that the average number of starts is more likely correlated to trainer behavior and the significant drop in foals born than Lasix. It’s misdirection.

Myth: The public is anti-Lasix.

Fact: A lot of people believe exactly that, although I don’t know how many of them are die-hard horseplayers. But Lasix is not steroids and it is not amphetamines and it is not a Class 1 controlled substance. It is a therapeutic medication given to horses with a condition called EIPH. If it is a performance enhancing drug, it is only in the sense that a horse runs better when it isn’t suffering through pulmonary bleeding. It does not cause a horse to run beyond its natural ability.

I’d like to think that the vast majority of horseplayers see Lasix for what it is, and considering 98% of horses are on it, which horse is gaining an advantage? In my opinion, only the one who would be without a job if it couldn’t have its EIPH controlled. I’d ask some different questions before deciding what to do with Lasix.

  • What impact will it have on the treatment of horses to ban Lasix? Is Lasix actually more humane than the alternatives?
  • Will racing suffer with even smaller fields?
  • Will the number of available race horses decrease to the point where many smaller tracks are run out of business?
  • Is there not room for compromise as I proposed in my blog, To Lasix or Not to Lasix? http://halveyonhorseracing.com/?p=327