Yeah, but when you think of the amount of horses that some of these guys have and with them being spread out around the country isn't it possible to believe that sometimes accidents/mixups happen? Now, I'm not talking about cobra venom in a cabinet somewhere, but just general human error.

Like I said, maybe I'm just naive and don't want to believe the problem is a rampant as some people think. Or maybe, it's that deep down I have accepted it as being part of the game and at this point I really don't give it much of a second thought. Because even though it does affect me, there is nothing I can do about it.

:$:

Sure. And I think the majority of everyday drug positives are just that.

But in this particular case we are talking repeated violations of TCO2 levels that are set high enough so that there is no way, naturally, for 99.7% of the horses in the population to obtain that level.

If they continue to condone repeat offenders by sending thier business to them than we probably would be better off without them. I see your point and can certainly agree that we don't need to be chasing new investors off but the manner in which repeat offenders are operating has a lot of current owners thinking of scaling back or getting out.

And seriously the BC threat only effects a small number of participants in the game. There needs to be a deterrent for the entire sport, not just the big leagues.

Very true. There is a better chane of hitting powerball three weeks in a row than getting 4 naturally occuring TCO2 positives.

On the same hand I also hate the fact that some guys are considered "clean" because they are seemingly nice guys or are pleasant with the press. The level of security in terms of horses being treated with illegal, performancing meds is a joke. There is almost no deterrent or detection happening. The amount of money spent in this area is about 5% of what it should be.

I think we can pretty much all agree Stevens was fairly clean.

But isn't the sport condoning them first as trainers, by not barring and banning them from tracks for serious offenses? If the sport did the right thing as far as cheaters go, then owners would be forced to move their horses to other barns. But as long as these guys are in buisness, they will attract horses with their gaudy stats and big races under their belts.

Mott...McGaughey..Tagg...

they should have far harsher penalties, with loss of licenses after a certain amount of infractions. the shame is that you have trainers, such as biancone or asmussen, that serve lengthy suspensions, and come right back and pretty much pick up where they left off-or even add more business because of their violations. i guess the 'what, you think i'm stupid' defense really must work. it might help if a many-times over offender had to pay a ton of money to re-license. hell, look how hard pval had it getting back to riding, and he was only drugging himself! he has to submit to regular testing (and rightfully so), why shouldn't a repeat offending trainer? tracks don't need the trainers, they need the owners and bettors. what good does it do the sport to play pattycake with cheating trainers?

just read this, on doug o'neill....and btw, he does indeed use the 'am i stupid' defense.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep...imers-20100909

one excerpt:

...Arthur going on to name the top five trainers in the game, not one of them cited for such a violation the last five years.

"Compare that to the present situation," Arthur says, knowing O'Neill has been cited four times in the last three years.

^^^^ Tested positive for silicone.

^^^^^bitter that he tested negative for exposure to silicon.

Field size. He has a lot of horses. That's why he gets away without much punishment. What happened to the field sizes when his barn didn't run horses at the end of the HWD meet?

^^^^ Bittah because...............oh I quit.



What are yout talking about!!??

Define "the sport".

Then think of how ineffective the current rules/system is.

Then think about why that is so hard to change, not only from a logistical standpoint of herding 40+ states to do the same thing but the legal challenges that any rules/law need to withstand.

Penalizing the horse/owner accomplishes a lot of what you are looking to do and is possible to do.

I agree that's a huge hurdle for the sport to get across. Obviously if racing could have some sort of uniformed rules governed by an independent body, things might actually get done.

But I think punishing owners in a sport where most of them are losing money already is the wrong way to go about it and would eventully lead to the sport being in more dire staits then it's in already.

Chuck, what would you like to see the owners do? and what sort of penalties would you like to impose on them?