Great Article by Moss
 

Seems to be a relatively solid opinion.

This is a very existential thread.

OOOOOOOO



http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...ndy&id=3387061

A more reasoned approach than his ill-timed remarks the other day.

Don't often see articles in which I agree with every single point the author makes - I do on this occasion.

He's still off base about the whip. Asking stewards to enforce excessive use rules is all that you need do. Use the English model of no more than three successive strikes, etc., and sit guys when they flail away. This piece will not negate his comments from the other day which will be used against him and the game down the road.

Respectfully disagree. I'd be interested in more info about the Jerry Bailey opinion Moss referenced.

"The sentiment that jockeys need whips to control their mounts may be overrated -- Jerry Bailey thinks so -- and nothing contradicts the claim that racehorses love their work more than the sight of them being beaten through the stretch."

I also think the 2nd half of that quote is right on the mark. We talk about the horses loving to run and how competitive they are. Yet what we see is whack-whack-whack with the whip...to remind the horse how much it loves to run?

The first thing my wife, a moderate fan as a result of long association with me, asked when it was announced on TV that Eight Belles was down was, "do you think he whipped her too much?".

Those of us who are long time fans and bettors are so accustomed to the whip that its use has no impact. You need to step back and think what it looks like to a young person first approaching the game to understand what Moss is getting at.

Overall, an excellent piece by Moss.

--Dunbar

Used against him by who?

The Pita bread people that no one takes seriously?

I don't think whips should be banned but don't forget what you saw at Rolex. Horse wasn't going great so rider went to the stick to encourage him. 2 fences later horse falls and is put down. Its a real dilema, knowing when to be aggressive because a horse is lazy and when to back off because something is wrong. Jockeys for the most part are passengers not horsemen, and unfortunately many of todays trainers are not horsemen either.

Steve,

What comments? I've been a litte out of the loop lately.

I was also glad to see Moss include this proposal, which I don't remember seeing in any major media before:

"If the world's racing jurisdictions required sires and dams to be at least 5 or 6 years old before producing a registered thoroughbred, would the tide swing toward durability? Or would this simply result in more infirm horses staying in training and breaking down at later ages?"

Moss seems neutral on it, but at least he gets it out on the table.

There was also a nice piece written by Kevin Modesti of the Los Angeles Daily News, in which he turns the table on PETA for its attack on Saez:

http://origin.dailynews.com/sports/ci_9176569

The Harrisburg Patriot-News ran that article in yesterday's Sports Section. The Patriot-News's editorial cartoon from yesterday was also about Eight Belles. It was by Mike Keefe of the Denver Post: You can find it from this link:

http://www.intoon.com/index.cfm (on the left is an index which includes "Eight Belles Dies". I'm afraid I kind of like "The Inbreeder's Cup".

--Dunbar

Exactly. Well said.

I agree with the people who don't bet. Get rid of whips now!!

Yet another wrong knee-jerk reaction.

--Dunbar

Pardon my skepticism - just another blah blah blah article that must make Randy feel like he has really accomplished something that makes a difference. One of a hundred articles that span many many years that basically says the same thing - the sky is falling unless..unless... unless...

Unless this Industry can find a leadership voice who's call to action finds non-partisan support from trainers, breeders, owners and patrons alike we will just keep getting more articles that makes us re-realize the sky is falling but so what?

And your wife's question after Eight Belles went down wasn't a knee-jerk reaction?

Spare us your agenda.

They don't carry whips in the two furlong baby races at SA ... in fact, I don't even think you're allowed to equip your horse with blinkers in those races.

I think the riders obviously need to carry whips - if they want to regulate excessive whipping, fine ... but it would simply be a change made to improve image.

Requiring a sire or dam to wait until they were five or six wouldn't make sense to me. If a horse is fragile and is going to be passing fragile genes, it will happen as a 5yo just as it would if he was breeding at four. Also, while there are plenty of horses that are retired sound that could have continued racing, there are still those that suffer actual injuries that preclude them from racing. It's unfair to the owners of those horses to make them wait if they have a 2yo or 3yo that can't race and earn any money in any other way. And this doesn't even get into the area of insurance.

By requiring the horses to race until five it would provide less incentive to breed any horse that won't likely last until five which will alleviate all the other problems you mentioned. No longer would getting fast 2yos and retiring them early in their 3yo season with an injury be as profitable and demand would fall for the sort of stallions that produce those runners, the exact sort that are weakening the breed.

You can't require a horse to race until five though. There are legit circumstances that will not allow a horse to race. So what does the owner of that horse do? If the owner of Brass Hat had decided after the first injury that he didn't want to take the chance of having something worse happen and retired him, he shouldn't have the right to breed him? So what's he supposed to do? Sit on the horse, pay all the insurance on him, all the money it takes for the care of the horse, and have no way of making any income from the horse until he's five? I don't see how that's fair. By making people wait till their horses are five to breed them, I think we'd end up seeing more horses out there that probably shouldn't be running but are because having them sit around on a farm doing nothing for a year or two isn't going to work.

Yes. There's a strong argument that the sort of horse you are bringing up shouldn't go to the breeding shed in the first place.

Brass Hat probably isn't the best example.

I've been having this discussion with a couple of friends this morning. The notion that 100 percent of this year's Derby entrants have Native Dancer in their lineage (all through either Northern Dancer or Mr. Prospector) is unbelievable to me when you consider that Native Dancer was only foaled 50 years ago.

I often wonder why horses like Silver Charm, Holy Bull, and Go for Gin, and others were never really given a completely fair shake by American breeders. Is it because of the lack of Native Dancer? Just asking the question to some who I think might have the explanation.

This crap tht Moss is pursuing can potentially be more harmfull to the game than any horse breaking down. Think clearly for a second and realize that many of changes that he proposes are a one way street that cant be repaired. The banning of whips for example. Maybe the casual fan doent care for them but the betting public sure will. Get beat in a couple photos when your horse hangs and see how thrilled you are then. But Trever Denman and Jerry Bailey say so? Let them start betting or owning horses instead of just collecting paychecks and their opinions will count.

His use of Barbaro, George Washington and Pine Island as examples of recent famous breakdowns and the thought that the breed is too speed favoring is interesting. Especially considering that they are by Dynaformer, Danehill and Arch, none of which would be considered speed or unsound sires. Throw in the fact that Alysheba and Kris S are broodmare sires on 2 of them makes you wonder about how exactly you will "breed the stamina" back into them?

The lack of "worldwide diversity" is especially interesting since there is more of a mixture of blood throughout the world than ever. Stallions have been shuttling to both hemispheres from the US and Europe down to S. America and Australia and New Zealand. Being that the TB originated from 3 sires it is hard to see where that diversity would come from. Supposedly only the US has a problem with this yet foreign buyers flood our sales to buy American pedigrees.

Calling for sires and dams to be 5 or 6 ignores the economic realities that the vast majority of breeders face and potentially puts at risk horses back into training simply because there are very few owners that can carry a horse and its bills for 4 years or more. If you had a nice, young, well bred mare that happened to get injured in some unusual manner (kicking the wall of a stall, fence, etc) and she was hurt at 3 lets say. Well she would not be able to be bred till she was 6, would not foal till 7 would not have a yearling for sale till 8. Adding in insurance, stud fee and 8 years of care, who could or would do this? Or what about the horse that makes 2 starts per year for 3 years? Are they proving their soundness? Or mares that get some kind of sickness that scars the lungs where it is impossible for them to race? Just throw them out?

The push for the end of Lasix and steroids seems to be contradictory considering he calls the breed much weaker. Since we have such weak horses how exactly are we supposed to get them to run without any help? I will personally benefit greatly if Lasix were to be banned. Yet I can not support the idea because it is just a bad idea. Eliminating the medication doesnt eliminate the problem. Horses will still bleed, likely more will, leading to more layoffs, more owners bills, smaller fields and more form reversals. Sounds great. Naturally he trotted out the old, tired "Lasix may mask other meds" crap for effect, even though that is simply not true in 2008.

The thought that the suggestion of using the Horse racing Act of 1978 as a tool to force states to comply to medication rules is scary. That piece of legislation is the current lifeline of the industry and if it is used a instrument of blackmail once, the politicians will do it again. What about when the jockeys decide they are entitled to 15% of the purse and their lackey in Congress (Whitfield)threatens to withold the signals unless states and tracks comply to that? Or if the federal govt decides to pay for the testing of horses with a 5% tax on all wagers. Or worse? Getting the govt involved is a horrible mistake in any manner. If you think PETA is an opportunist group of scum (which they are) then Congress would really impress you.

I wont even get into the synthetic track thing.

I think it is funny how Dan Wetzel's article which was correct in a lot of ways was labeled junk yet Moss' was revered. Basically Wetzel was saying that this whole thing will blow over because racing is a big business, the hardcore fans are going to keep coming anyway and most of the casual fans at the "big events" are more concerned with drinking anyways . HE is mostly right, Moss is mostly wrong.

Take a look at Coolmores Irish roster and you will find the same thing.

Holy Bull has been given a chance, he is a middle of the road sire. Go for Gin was a bad sire and Silver Charm was the only one who never got a real chance.

Lot of good points. I don't think mares should have to wait until 5 or 6 but I don't think it would be a terrible idea to force stallions to. I still think the best idea is to limit books by age. A 3yo can only cover 20 mares, 4yo can only cover 60, 5yos and up can cover 100. That way you aren't forcing injured horses to wait but at the same time there is less incentive to retire a sound 3yo.

A very nice well thought out retort......have you thought of yourself as a media guy Chuck? Far too many with nice smiles and empty heads seem to be paying their bills handsomely as "talking horse heads" without any accountability for what they say. I can see it now "Simon Says" quality horse commentary for the good of the game!!

......then again Decaf may be the answer for me.

There are only about 5 or 6 horses (stallion prospects) a year that are retired early. At least those that matter. If you put restriction in the horses will still be retired early, however they will just wind up in Japan for a few years. The Japanese wont give a damn about any restrictions.

I dont think that too many of them are getting paid "handsomely". And I'm too apt to speak my mind to be a media type.

With some perhaps but you really think an Any Given Saturday or an AP Warrior would have been retired to stand in Japan for a year rather than come back and race at 4?

Even the Japs wouldnt want AP Warrior. Would you take a 2 year guarantee for say $10 million or a year racing?

So make the progeny of the violaters that go overseas ineligible for the BC and Triple Crown.

There arent a whole lot of Japanese breds pointing for either of those 2 races

If the market is there then let them go. If you lose the ability to sell to American buyers it would seem your stallion would lose value on the market which would drive down profits and make the 60 mare limit in America or racing another year more appealing.

My agenda? I don't think I've spent 5 minutes thinking about the necessity of whips before the discussion on these pages. Like most longtime fans and bettors, I'm pretty immune to the sight of horses being whipped. It's part of racing. What I have now is a newly formed opinion, not an agenda. [note to pro-whippers: emphasize and belittle "5 minutes thinking" part out of context]

Yes, my wife's reaction was knee-jerk. That's the point. Almost any non-numbed spectator of horseracing will wonder why horses that "love" to race are being whipped repeatedly. Not many will conclude that horses are masochists that "love" to be whipped. Instead they will question how sporting the sport of kings is.

As DrugS pointed out, jockeys don't carry whips in the 2-furlong races for 2-yr-olds at SA. Funny that with those inexperienced horses the jock doesn't need a whip to control the horse's path. [note to pro-whippers: be sure to quote and insert bit about needing whip to switch leads in longer races here]

Some think the risk of losing a photo because of no whip is a good argument for whips. I suspect horses would try even harder if the jockeys could carry buzzers. Maybe we should lower the bar instead of raise it and allow buzzers. It might have gotten Alydar past Affirmed which would have made a lot of bettors happy.

It would be a level playing field with no whips. I think I could adjust my capping to evaluating horses in a world where jockey's had no whips. It would be a piece of cake compared to evaluating the synthetics.

--Dunbar

dunbar this made me laugh. answer to peta? we're removing the whips, but from now on all riders will carry buzzers.:D

I think we'd see a huge increase in convenience euthanasia- insurance fraud.

I'm pretty sure that he wasnt a big proponent of banning whips when he rode considering he hit horses about as hard as anyone. Of course he hasn't actually said anything publicly about this to my knowledge, Moss just dropped his name a few times. Of course it is idiotic to not pay attention to people who press for rule changes that will have no effect on them or to think he would have thought about the long term consequences of such a rule change. Maybe he can sell a video about how to bet on a race where there is no whips used?

Hurrrrr
No offense to your wife and the other "fans" who tune in for the Derby but they can go **** themselves. Their thoughts, for the most part, are borderline retarded concerning horse racing.

It's absolutely ridiculous that the powers that be are considering speaking with PETA and other imbeciles over the sport.
Yes and those races are unbettable and an utter disaster from start to finish. Bad example.

Here's a note for you. I'll reply however the hell I want to. Keep your smug know-it-all caption to yourself next time. It doesn't make you look smart nor clever.

Who is this "we" you speak of? You aren't a part of any committee or lollipop guild who makes decisions.

I agree with the buzzers though. I think they should be used on humans who fail at comedy.

So it isn't a level playing field now because whips are used? And then magically it will be a level playing field without them? Ok...hurrrrrrr.

--Pillow Pants

[Just in case I forget my name on here]

Oh man, I don't know how to tell you this.....but it seems like you already did forget. You aren't Pillow Pants anymore. You're Coach Pants now. Apparently we all need to start reminding ourselves like Dunbar.

-- miraja4

;)