Steroids do not equal vitamins.

Making rules regulating use is a huge problem.

No kidding...

Ok then lets tell it like it is, they are not vitamins.
If you are going to sell an animals it is
suggested by some to give the horse equipose
for the coat even though the horse is fine physically.

The hormone, which is basically a dervatitive of testoterone
(other brands have slightly diff. chemical structure so they
can be marketed under another name) are used on horses
that dont need them.

I attempted very poorly apparently (fat soluble) to explain
one reason why the levels are hard to measure.

Sorry for the interruption.

I was using vitamins as an example of a non steroid performance enhancer, not calling them the same. Dont you have some delinquent's term paper on the history of the WNBA to grade?

Fortunately no.
Very Unfortunate for the board though.

I can control myself, I can.

Nice avatar :rolleyes:

I just saw Steve Crist's editorial from June 13. I think he's nailed it.

http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=95470

The dangerously scary part, that makes me slightly sick to my stomach when I consider that it may come true:

I was talking to one of our trainers over the weekend about this issue. He pretty much said the same thing as you. He said that if all the legal drugs are banned, then the cheating trainers will have a much bigger advantage because they will still be using illegal, undetectable drugs. He said that if they ban steroids, then the guys that can get synthetic steroids will win all the races.

This trainer strongly disagrees with the notion that steroids are not performance-enhancing. He said, "Steroids build up muscle. Of course they are performance-enhancing."

It is certainly true that certain drugs and medications can have greatly different effects on animals than humans. For example, the drug PCP is a trainquilizer for large animals, yet is has the opposite effect on humans. PCP can make people cazy and it often times will give people super-human strength.

But when it comes to steroids, I have never seen or heard any evidence that would lead me to believe that steroids don't affect horses in much the same way that steroids affect humans. I am very open-minded. If anyone has any information showing that steroids do not affect horses in much the same way as they affect humans, I would love to see this information.

This is the reason why they need meaningful penalties when they finally catch the cheaters. The lax penalties where trainers serving suspensions can turn the barn over to an assistant, so it effectively remains "business as usual," are a farce. I think we all agree that, with money on the line, there will always be a segment of the population that will utilize improper techniques to try to grab that money. Only after racing commissioners/track operators hand down severe penalties that actually act as a meaningful deterrent to improper conduct might things start to change.

I believe you have to beat up the owners some as well. I would:

1. Extend the Absolute Responsibility rule to owners. Fine and suspend owners as well as trainers.
2. Deny entry to all horses owned or trained by the violators for a good period of time.

Just imagine what would happen if cheating Trainer A gives the gook to a cheap claimer owned by Owner X, gets caught and then Trainer A's stakes steed owned by Owner Y has to be transfered (along with all of Owner Y's horses) in order to run.

I'd be willing to extend the absolute responsibility rule (with corresponding suspensions) to owners, but only to the extent that the horse on which a positive is called is owned by the particular individual. I do not believe that Owner X should be penalized for a positive called on a horse owned by Owner Y.

I agree completely with the last part of your post. The possibility of having the barn shut down for a meaningful period of time goes to the very heart of the matter and needs to be part of the trainer's thinking before he considers "giving the gook" to any horse.

That's what I thought I was saying, with respect to the first part. Shut down violating owners and trainers and require other owners of the violating trainer transfer.

Gary West on ATR today
 

Tell Gary that Winstrol was not taken off the market because it "wasn't useful" as Gary said and thinks, rather, like all "orphan" drugs in recent years, with the belt-tightening of the pharmaceutical companies, the drug was taken off the market as it didn't make the manufacturer any money - there is barely a market for it.

Hear that, folks? So little Winstrol was being sold into the horse industry, that the manufacturer stopped making it (and it was picked up by boutique independent compounding pharmacies).

PS - and thank you for honestly talking how eliminating legal steroids (the bandwagon cause, as you say) will do little of sudden and amazing significance for the sport, and thank you also for discussing horse slaughter realistically.

I have become amazed at how so many people who are long in this industry really do not know what they are talking about. Your show always seeks the real answers.

If Whitfield's for it...I'm against it. Who keeps voting for this CLOWN.

Thx Riot... West did seem a bit ill-informed on some aspects of the steroid debate which is unlike him..

Surprised no one discussed referenced the Damon Thayer appearence yesterday or the Gary Pretlow half hour Tuesday... Hope to have Former KY Gov. Brereton Jones today...