It seems clear - what is intentional, what is accidental. Someone somewhere has to prove it. Which, to me, is why the allegation of paying the clocker to put wrong times in is the hook.

Agree that value is in the eye of the interpreter...and that everyone has a right to their own opinion...I just don't share the opinion that published final times of workouts are frequently of little value because of malicious inaccuracy...rather imho published final times are of little value because they tell so little about the quality of the work.

I completely agree with this.

Using workout times in the paper is, IMO, a futile exercise. Looking at dates of works, frequency, or gaps in timing, makes sense to me, but the actual times used tell perhaps the least ( I'm being generous here ) important story.

The only time I can use times for much or anything is if its a certain barn and I know that something stands out about the time and distance. This is not something a casual observer would catch but if you follow a circuit close enough I am sure it would be useful knowledge.

which is all the more reason why it's gotten to this point at penn national. look, i don't know why this hasn't happened sooner. i think a better question would be why did horse racing let it get to this point? had they gotten their act together long before now, you wouldn't have these cases now. the feds have been hinting around for a while, congress has made noises. tracks and others just kept going along like before. i figure someone made a call, or someone decided this could be handled this way. it ought to be a wake up call to anyone else engaging in this sort of behavior.

and it's this attitude held by many in the sport that has led to federal involvement. racing has a lot of money changing hands all the time. we're supposed to just shrug about cheaters, liars and the like? and then we wonder why our sport isn't as popular?

as for the gelding who is now intact, was there intent? a conspiracy to defraud? or just a mistake in an announcement. maybe the 6 horse in race 8 was a gelding, and they said the 8 horse in race 6 instead.
someone paying someone else to give repeated false info-whole different case.

The NFL is still popular.

What they are claiming is pretty clear. My question is do these acts constitute felonies? Obviously they believe they can make these cases but I have doubts especially in the case of Rogers that the timing and person delivering a legal medication constitutes criminal manipulation other than in the broadest of definitions. Does the supposed personal monetary gain matter because the trainer of record (of which Rogers isnt) doesnt make a whole lot of money winning a race at Penn National.
In other words no one "manipulates" a race for the hell of it but the monetary gain here involving simply the trainers % of the purse is a pretty paltry sum for a case in Federal Court. I don't recall what class level her race was but the largest purse at Penn is generally 35k which would make the trainers % worth about 2000 which is less than the limit of small claims court. I understand that there are people who are betting on the race but as in every race in the parimutual system, the same amount was paid out to betters regardless of who wins.

I am not defending the accused here because they did in fact break the rules. My question is are these really felonies, should taxpayer money be spent trying cases in which the publics interest is only marginally affected (only the losing bettors could claim harm) and how broad are these interpretation going to be?

We have legal wagering on sporting events in 4 states I believe. Are pro sports next? Isn't a player who takes a PED doing the same thing?

I still am trying to understand why trying to win is fraud.

trying to win isn't fraud. how is falsifying data and paying off a clocker trying to win?
trying to win by juicing a horse is fraud. or at least cheating.

i'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner, with all the rumblings the last few years. some people have been saying for some time that racing needed to do more, have consistent rules, have a way to punish the notorious cheaters.
well, someone got cheated, or knows somebody, or the feds just had enough-or saw an opening.
of course it all may lead to nothing. the feds don't win all their cases. but if these people end up found guilty, they have no one to blame but themselves.
tracks want people to bet-it would be in their best interest to keep things as honest as possible. they need to take a page out of the casinos book-they don't countenance anyone working the system, and they get lots of customers because of it. if a casino was perceived as having dealers working for and with certain customers, they won't have other patrons for long.

You seem to be missing the point. The impact on racing and the fact that there has been little or poor oversight isnt in question (Though 2 of the 4 were caught by state investigators)

My point is that don't they have to prove their case more than saying "oh they were going to give their horse an "illegal" treatment", that's fraud? Alan Pincus who apparently is going to be defending at least one of the accused has already made the statement that these are administrative issues, not criminal ones. Again I am not a lawyer but you'd have to believe that the burden of proving fraud has to be more than what we know considering the thousands of similar cases over a long time period haven't been criminalized.

And as far as the clocker is concerned is faulty equibase information really a felony?

You are overlooking the part that the participants may well be betting too. So it isn't just the purse amount that matters. It may very well be that some of those bettors are the people charged.

Taking money to print phony workouts is not "faulty Equibase" information. There was intent to deceive here.

But is that a felony?

If I have a horse that needs a 30 day work and I give the clocker $50 or $100 to put one in is that really a felony? (I have never given any money to a clocker nor do I know anyone who has so I'm guessing on the amount) That is abusing his power as a racing official but is equibase information really protected under criminal statutes? Yeah I get that they are using the open ended wire act argument but a large number of workouts listed are self reported so what standard there for accuracy or legitimacy of works?

Perhaps they can prove that he was using this information to deceive for personal betting purposes but is simply deceiving for relatively minor amounts of money worthy of Federal prosecution? I mean I'm not defending the guy because he clearly did wrong but this potentially seems like very small potatoes for a Federal case.

Losing his job? Getting hefty fine? Lengthy suspension? Made ineligible to hold similar position again? Sure. Federal Felony? Not so sure.

Webb and Rogers horses were scratched.

Are all those tracks that you keep saying are providing wrong timed races...even after you have said that you have brought it to their attention, committing a felony? That information is going straight to equibase, even though they know it is wrong and you know it is wrong. Is someone trying to deceive the betting public...they've been made aware yet wrong times continue to be submitted? Is someone betting those races and benefiting, knowing the times are wrong.

I'm just asking because you are obviously really tuned into the timing and numbers of races with Timeform. Do you think anyone can benefit betting these races, knowing the information is faulty?

Let me be clear, I don't want to make it out as though I am defending any of these people because they are all guilty of serious transgressions. Personally I have no problem with intervention from authorities if the rules/law and penalties are clear and applied across the board, not just cherry picking bit players at a C level track. However I have little confidence that this will be the case as there is no reason to expect that Federal prosecutors in other jurisdictions will have any desire to get involved with horseracing regulation. My other concern is that the broad interpretation concerning wire acts makes non-intentional medication violations into criminal acts, perhaps not felonies but misdemeanors and that will more or less kill off most of racing. Trainers will simply not be able to accept the risk under the current system of testing and oversight.

Maybe to combat the risk is to eliminate some of the medicating that is happening?

Do you think there is any link between the recent House panel on medication and the willingness to look into what happened at Penn?

and yes your post sure seem to suggest there is some sort of witch hunt going on.

I think it could be argued they are deceiving the public and IMO its wrong and have taken that stance by not correcting it.

For it to be a crime though doesn't there have to be willful deceit not just negligence or difference of opinion.

Despite the rhetoric from the uninformed, the vast majority of medication is used properly and isn't "abuse" or illicit. The problem that I have talked about for years is that the authorities have failed to give us clear and undisputed schedules for most completely legal medications. The Mid-Atlantic plan is better than what we have had but still is very limited in its scope and number of allowable medications. Just using something relatively innocuous like stomach ulcers as an example, the new plan only allows 1 type of ulcer medication to be used and that is the $30 a day medication. There are many over the counter meds available far cheaper (zantac, carafate and tagament for example) and nearly as effective that are now "illegal" for use. It is easy to say that you should just stick to the only allowable medication but only about 5% of the horses in training are worth enough to spend $1000 a month on just ulcer medication. So what does a trainer who doesnt have ability to put every horse on gastrogard do? Try to treat them using small dosages? Withdraw long enough out (if we had any idea what that really is) and switch to gastrogard as the race came closer? Ignore the issue? Treat with aloe vera or other "natural" product which most likely wont work and because there is no FDA supplementation oversight, might contain something that will test?

The risk is that a misdemeanor charge of "race fixing" will prevent you from being licensed for a long time, if ever. Being that some over the counter ulcer med could trigger that charge and the fact that none of us can absolutely control everything that our horses ingest 24 hours a day who will want to take the chance? I personally have had 2 positive tests in 14 years (2000+ straters) and neither was a med that was even given close to the withdrawl time. One was for a minute amount of tranquilizer that we had no record of giving to the horse in question for 3 weeks prior to the race and the other situation was explained in an earlier post. To think that those would be potentially be considered criminal cases is troubling.

Allowing that I am unfamiliar, thankfully, with grand jury indictments, I notice that the indictments against Webb and Rogers refer specifically to one alleged act of injecting a specific horse, while the indictment against Wells lays out a more general scenario with no references to specific dates, horses or medications. Are both situations "normal" for grand jury indictments?

it is possible that it's a stretch to say it's fraud, but since the cheating can gyp bettors, i can see why they're trying to go that route. you're betting based on info given, and assuming a level field. cheaters are not just affecting race outcome, but wagering outcome.
it reminds me of capone. they couldn't prove criminal conspiracy, but they got him on tax evasion.

taking bribes to falsify info is. there's error, and there's intentionally conspiring. did they do so to defraud bettors? no, sounds more like they were trying to have works for horses who didn't work as a way to get around track officials.....but when doing so, they defrauded bettors. it wasn't intent, but it was a side effect of that conspiracy.

true. manipulating odds....could have been something else they were doing.

yes. they are seated to look at all gathered evidence to see if charges should be placed it could be one, a couple, or hundreds of charges..

Any Tranquilizers left?

I liken it to the S&P knowingly giving faulty ratings on risky investment ventures.

So are you saying that a trainer that decides to work his horse on the slow side purposely, (to probably inflate his price next time out) should possibly be charged with a felony too?

of course not. and i'm not even saying anyone charged in these cases we're discussing should have been charged.
now, if the trainer works him slow and then pays the clocker to put in a false time....well, now we're in new territory.
if you work the horse and he has the time, it's for the bettor to decipher.
if you have a conspiracy, bribery, and willful intent, don't be surprised if there's a knock at the door.
there's a line, they crossed it. did the guy paying the clocker think about all this? probably not. but you can bet everyone is thinking about it now.

lol only Roofies

I agree with that. I'm going to wait and see what these guys are actually convicted of and what the punishments are before I say much more. Things have run amok in this game far too long, and I'm guessing a few are going to be held up as scapegoats in an attempt to clean it up.

that's what i'm figuring as well, that they are being used to set an example.
tracks are supposed to be controlled by their states commission. things have been allowed to slide for too long. there has to be consistent rules, and fitting punishment and fines. and jokers who repeatedly violate should be out of the sport. does racing really need patrick biancone for example? jeff mullins? asmussen? if it takes a few heads to roll to let people know they can't keep getting hands slapped and nothing more, so be it.

I don't think this is the same thing, though of course I'm all for proper times making it into the PPs. While there are wrong times, I don't think anyone is doing it on purpose.

Now, in the Pacific Classic, there is 100% irrefutable proof the time is wrong, and yet they still stuck by it. If you back up the video from the finish line by the "official" time, the horses are still inside the stall. But those guys claim there is nothing "wrong" with the time, so I'm not sure what else you can do. Is it criminal that they are not very smart, at least in regards to timing races?

Saw that all except the clocker were released on a $25K unsecured bond and forfeiture of passports. All have no conditions other than David Wells who can drink but can't drink 'excessively'. :rolleyes:

IMO Alan Pincus's email being kelso64200@yahoo.com is the most interesting tidbit coming out so far.

Oh and cheating to try and win a race is far different to cheating to try to lose a race. Just ask Pete Rose.

The question is - is it wire fraud?

As one would expect from reading the indictment, the feds clearly think it is, which justifies their involvement.

Is this a crime that could potentially result in more than years worth of imprisonment for the accused?

Better?

i guess we're going to find out.

Sure, why not? Where do you draw the line if this isn't worth a year?