Derby Trail Forums - Chuck offers rational response to invitation for Federal intervention

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulo537 (Post 781269)

I read the article and while I thought it was good, I don't share the same level of enthusiasm as others. I do agree the problem is a lack of consistent medication policy across the sport but I would ask these questions:

1. How much longer should fans and gamblers be asked to wait until the sport starts to manage the issue itself?

2. What makes US horse racing so very different than racing in other countries with much stricter medication rules?

3. Why don't we have penalties on owners for medication violations? If trainers are held strictly liable, why not owners?

I also found the paragraph where he asked why "these well-heeled people don't ... just prove the theory yourself without dragging the rest of the racing industry down with you?" to be rather odd.

4. Who are these people? And, why should anyone who doesn't want to invest in the negative expectation business of horse ownership be expected to prove anything to anyone?

#1. The sport has been 'managing itself' and if you're talking about medication issues, there's been more progress in the last 5 years than in the prior 30 in terms of model rule adoption and testing. See the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium website for details as opposed to taking the word of people who have no idea of what actually is happening on these fronts.

#2 The differences between US and Intl racing are so vast and complete that it isn't even possible to fully explain. Let's just leave it at dirt v. grass; year round v. 6-7 months seasons.

#3/#4 The 'rather odd' portion that you seem confused by relates to the fact that the breeders signing on for Federal involvement are most singularly responsible for any alleged 'weakening of the breed' through their own selection processes and the promolgation of phony graded stakes via their control of the American Graded Stakes Committee (Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Asdsociation).

And further to your Seinfeld-esque 'who are these people', they're the ones who ARE ALREADY invested in the business as referenced above, looking to shirk their own responsibility in these matters on to the training community. (Of course the training community has only been operating at THEIR behest the whole time.) The core issue here is an at hand opportunity of the owner-breeder-track management overseers to emasculate the training community so they can forward their agenda of foisting trainer power in the division of handle.