Quote:
Originally Posted by parsixfarms
I never said that a drug positive makes a person a "cheater." Just like the fact that, given the current limits of testing, the fact that a person has never had a positive does not mean that he or she isn't cheating. (See Marion Jones in another sport.)
However, when one has multiple, repeated offenses for the same thing (you use clenbuterol as an example), I think there is a real problem. Sometimes these clenbuterol positives are innocent, but I've had a trainer of mine tell me that most of them are not so innocent, especially those that occurred when testing for clenbuterol was first started. The "guilty parties," in an effort to push the envelope, were trying to determine withdrawal times and doses they could get away with. Given the lack of serious penalties, they were willing to "take a positive" to learn how they could take an advantage down the road.
As for the last sentence of my thread, there are about 13,000 trainers (90% of the total) with clean records. If we were to run out of the game every trainer that had a positive (I'm not advocating this), there would be more than enough horsemen to take care of the horses currently trained by the other 10%.
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I agree, and understand clearly you didn't say that (makes a "cheater") -- however, that is the absolute that becomes a problem. Make that the standard and that is your new problem. Multiple offenses for clenbuterol might in fact be a real problem -- but it might not. So, let's say it is. Eliminating that real problem is not your solution. Because that is far too wide a net to cast. Trainer A loses an owner to Trainer B and Trainer A gets vindictive. He contaminates Trainer B's feed. There is one clenbuterol positive. He then does something else -- strike two. Trainer B is now a victim, but a victim who is now a "cheater" and in this panacea world he now loses his ability, or is on his way to losing his ability, to earn a living.
The same holds true for your point of the trainer who has never gotten a positive -- yes, you are right, that doesn't mean he's not cheating. Perhaps it means he's never gotten caught. And now, in the panacea world, this trainer is in the original 90% which is now the 100% because we rid the sport of the 10%. Where are we going here?
I just don't think there is a simple answer. The solution is multi-faceted and must be borne, paid for, enforced upon, etc. ALL parties -- vets, owners, trainers, grooms, and perhaps others as well.
Eric |
