Thanks for the stats. The man has a solid training resume and I fully support Dee Tee Stable and Gary Sciacca. This one incident, clouded by over 4 years of time amidst differing accounts, should not define his entirety.

What it should define is he cheated, and cheating needs to be dealt with swiftly, and severely

more like 1.50 per day....but I use it on my old arthritics and really think it works...as well as when I gave IV legend and IM adequan with daily glucosamine, chondroiten, and MSM....and cheaper.

lmao!!

i'll settle for buying all my toys with legit funds! i sleep just fine at night.

altho i don't think i'd qualify for sainthood, i do believe in honesty.

PA, you should try the Aflutop as a sub. Its better than both, and much cheaper.

i do think penalties should be tougher. i also think that repeat offenders should be shown the door. i know good trainers can move up a horse, and i know that not all moves up are due to shady doings. but proven cheaters, especially when they are proven time and again, should not get the same 15 days as a first time offender. or an offender on a lesser charge.

they should have maybe an a, b, c category. X amount of c's would be equal to a lesser amount of b violations, with a being the worst. rack up enough letters to make a bowl of alphabet soup, and your license is denied. period.

why should biancone, who acts oh so hurt and offended, be able to rack up at least three different violations this year alone, with no expectations of anything other than a bit of time away??

Perhaps he was just trying to re create his one magical meet when he couldn't lose on the lawn.

Once youve tasted success its tough to be on the bottom of someones shoe

Has he had 21 winners since?

has there been any issues with sciacca since then? i think that's also a legit question.
altho some think once a cheat, always a cheat (some say that with spouses for example) that's actually not true.
was this catch enough to put someone firmly on the straight and narrow? a lesson learned perhaps?

Whats his clip since he was caught milkshaking

You could give the guy a pass if his assistant did it while he was away and if he FIRED the assistant. If he didn't fire the assistant right away the liklihood is he was well aware of what was going on and he is part of the problem. Sorry but in the sport of horse racing, once a cheater always a cheater. Overrages are one thing, milkshaking though is a blatant effort at cheating.

You seem to want to be forgiving but do you want to reimburse the people that lose money to horses that won due to cheating.

Remember, usually when someone gets caught cheating there are numerous other times when they were cheating and didn't get caught.

"Oh you were caught cheating years ago! Nevermind the fact that you were stealing money from other owners, trainers and gamblers! It was 4 years ago! You're not winning now so you deserve to keep that money you stole and roam the streets a free man! Hell maybe a hall of fame induction could be in your future!! LOL you're fat and have a good sense of humor! You get a pass lol keep eatin!!"

All I know is he was once a force and now he wins at a 6% clip. 6% isn't exactly the 26% clip he once won at.

Because this is the most important issue in horseracing, and I think it will be for the next 10 years. I agree anything done to cheat the public out of one cent is abhorrent and intolerable. Period. As the public, shouldn't we be a little more up to speed on the subject?

I hear people say, "That horse must have been drugged" for an unexpected performance. To even barely support that argument, there has to be a reality check - there has to actually be a drug or concoction that could have been given to result in that performance.

Do I think there are trainers that amazingly and regularly move up horses, not due to hay, oats and training? Of course I do. I'm not ignorant.

so why are cheaters still allowed in the sport? that's my beef. biancone got a 15 day sit down, but it was suspended if he didn't get caught anywhere else. so what happens, another positive. so two 15-day suspensions. then the cobra venom. still not enough to show the guy the door for good. so then he thumbs his nose at racing, shows up at the bc when he knows he isn't wanted. but technically the ban hadn't started yet, altho the horses had been transferred. glad the guy at monmouth told him to get lost. he should have to stay lost!
and yes, i do try to give the benefit of the doubt--as this particular case sounds shady. differing stories, trainer on vacation, security may have had the wrong horse, etc. to me the time span fighting it means nothing, as the 'why would i fight so hard if i was guilty' defense means nothing--used pretty often.
what i want to know is if there is anything to go on in this particular case then he said, he said. was the horse tested? was that horse the one who was going to race, or was it a horse that had run the day before? as i said, allegations aren't proof.

if there is proof, by all means, serve the time. people allege jamie sanders is no trainer, yet there she is, license in hand.

biancone got caught with testing. and searching, more than once. he's a repeat offender. but i truly hope that not all offenders are the type to do so over and over.

but then, who's to blame? the many-times over cheater, or the sport who continues to welcome him back with open arms, the prodigal trainer come back to try again? never know, might end up with an eclipse award for his/her troubles.

No, alot of the world is like that.

Horse racing has a zero-tolerance policy on some drugs (those with no purpose other than to improve performance - cobra venom, heroin, amphetamines, etc), recognizes some drugs "could" improve performance, and that some drugs do not and cannot.

There are penalties for positives in all those categories. The penalties differ, and they differ for a reason - because all "positives" are not the same, not all positives change or could possibly change a horses performance - and not all positives could defraud the public regarding gambling.

Should Biancone (cobra venom - stops the pain of soreness) be treated differently than Pletcher (mepivicaine, at a level later changed to "allowable on race day" as it can't affect performance at that blood level), than Mandella (a non-therapeutic trace level that cannot affect performance)?

I see them differently.

Yes, milkshakes were legal until the 1990's, and if you go back a few decades, heroin, amphetamines, caffeine, etc. was legal, too.

Just because he is your best customer, do you think it's ok to shamelessly protect him? How much does he spend on the pulled pork?

Obviously many here seem to have an agenda against Dee Tee Stable using Gary Sciacca as a trainer.

Nobody is speaking out about Sciacca training for Deetee, I doubt anyone cares except the people in DT. If they dont mind having a confirmed cheater as a trainer, then they are part of the problem. This issue needs to be addressed, no excuse is good enough. Owners need to make up their minds, you either want this game on the up and up, or you want to continue the bullshit that goes on at sales and on the backside.

Either horseracing gets honest, or it will continue to be a second rate sport, PERIOD

Ya think Daaaaaaaaaah?

They can try and make it as honest as they want....It will continue to be a second rate sport. FWIW I guess baseball is a second rate sport as well due to all of the cheating that goes on.

So who are your horses with?

Baseball has lost countless fans due to the steroids

i don't think that's obvious.
what i do think is obvious is that many see everything in black and white, absolutely no shades of grey at all. i'm more inclined to give someone some leeway when faced with a seemingly unclear, four year old case--while not understanding the constant forgiveness for those who repeatedly break some pretty stringent doping rules.

thing is, until those who can make changes, who can install and enforce rules with real teeth, you'll have people constantly breaking the rules. there's no reason for them not to--there's no real punishment for offending trainers. yet jocks routinely get suspensions that can last YEARS. i know of two different jocks who got five year bans for carrying a buzzer. not using a buzzer. but they had it. hey, absolutely sit them down.
but trainers should have the same types of punishment. after all, a trainer who gets caught in testing didn't just have illegal substances, he actually administered it to the horse--why should that be a lesser crime than what those jocks did?

until racing gets serious with rule breakers, the sport will be seen as condoning cheating.

It's only cheating if you get caught?

I am not so sure about that, they have broken attendence records again this year.

It is obviously completely different from baseball because one has gambling involved as its primary source of income.

Horse racing needs to find its niche, like minor league hockey. The Wolves here in Chicago(actually Rosemont) sell out constantly and are a good team, they are marketed perfectly. I think we just got a field hockey team also that is seeing some good attendence numbers.

As with any sport, there has been cheating, and let's face it there has been many different instances:

NASCAR: Cheating with equipment
Baseball: equipment and steroids
Basketball: Steroids and crooked refs
Cycling: Doping allegations and convictions
College Football: Doping, fixed games, boosters giving cash to players, etc.
College Basketball: same as college basketball
NFL: Steroids, any of the above and more

Let's face it, where money is involved there's going to be cheating. The good thing is, these people are being caught and punished. Does it give the sport a black eye? Sure it does. But, what I love is all of the people who can't wait to get on their "Holier than thou rants" about people who are caught. Suddenly we know all there is to know about these people based on one or two articles. Sure, there are some bad people doing bad things, but I bet there are many people in this game that we perceive as "the perfect trainers or owners" that are doing their share of dirty activities as well.
Do I want to see another trainer or owner get busted? No. I wish everyone was on the up and up. But the reality of the situation tells us otherwise.

Thanks and No

This is not true

Very few people have ever been caught in the act.

This is not one of your better efforts.
1. You will have a hard time criminalizing most medication positives without illegal drugs (non FDA approved) being used. The charges against these guys of sports tampering were dropped for a reason.
2. The one governing body theory can not happen so why keep bringing it up?
3. I would never go to Cabo on vacation.
4. The reputation of the game wont change no matter how good the tests are or how harsh the penalities are. Do you realize that watching a race where 5 guys are cheating and one where no guys are cheating will look the same? If you dont agree you prove my first sentence.

You must have missed that day at vet school.

It is used to neutralize the effects of lactic acid, either in recovery from a race or workout, or to prevent the same prior to a race - it's measured in the level of CO2 in solution in the blood - obviously not to hard to catch

Actually the gambler is not being screwed nearly as much as the horsemen who compete against the cheater. I'm sure you have cashed many tickets on horses that may have been running with some sort of illegal substance in its system. I'm sure that I have not won any races with a horse with an illegal substance. (Actually once and it got me 15 days and I had to give back $4k)

Let me ask you this question. If 2 weeks later you found out you had cashed a ticket and made money on a cheater, would you give it back?

They may also benefit by hitting a big pick 6 by using a cheating horse. They still get to keep the money.

I am not condoning cheating but just pointing out the other side of the 'cheating the gamblers' argument.

How would a joint lubricant help make the breed more fragile?

I have heard many opinions with facts as to why they do it, the who lactic acid reason just does not hold water to me based on the medical opinions I have heard....Some may use it for that reason but I believe masking drugs was the prevalent reason amongst bigger barns.

dont buy it...though I suppose some used it for that....