Second O'Neill horse tests positive
 

Doug O’Neill, the leading trainer this summer at Del Mar, has been cited for having his horse Argenta test for a high amount of total carbon dioxide (TCO2), commonly referred to as a milkshake, the California Horse Racing Board announced Tuesday.

http://drf.com/news/second-oneill-ho...carbon-dioxide

duh

and to think Jeff Mullins is having a terrible Delmar Meet!

Ya wanna know what is the biggest problem that this game has to overcome?

This is the second time O’Neill has been cited for a TCO2 infraction this year. In April, his horse Stephen Got Hope tested for a high amount of TCO2 at the Illinois Derby at Hawthorne. After a delay, O’Neill eventually served a 15-day suspension, from June 30 until July 15, during the end of the summer season at Hollywood Park. During that time, O’Neill’s owners joined him in solidarity, and he did not start any horses in the name of his assistant, Leandro Mora.


Denial by the people who allow it to happen.

Interesting that his horses have so much trouble with passing TCO2 tests and in other cases actually staying alive.

Would you expect anything less from the people that employ him?

Like "West Side Rentals." What a perfect match.

I would expect reasonable people to see that the laundry list of issues is becoming increasingly hard to pin on simple mistakes, selective persecution or whatever other lines he feeds them. Anyone can have a bad test, anyone can make a mistake. But the same guys having the same issues without some kind of retribution from the people that employ them makes all the other people in the sport (and i'm sure those not directly involved as well) weary.

It happened with Mullins, I was real surprised to see he was down on starts and more importantly wins. Problem is those hilarious owners went to O'Neil from Mullins.

:tro::tro:

steve asmussen picked up some of his best horses ever after his six month suspension. it's sad.

Perfect thread about one of the main reasons horse racing has a bad rep. As much as I love this game when money can be made it seems anything goes. It’s really sad. I feel so sorry for the horses. When I die the last thing I want to come back as is a horse trained by Doug O'Neil and those like him. I'll be Trackrat Boobytrap. Someone please claim me. :)

Doug Sucks.

^^^^ Once tested positive for Extacy.


Make that 67 times.

Think I have lost her as a huge fan.




It's the risk one takes being a super star.

BTW, this has to be at least the 4th time he's been caught doing this (2nd time this year.)

Scuds, you have to be a fan of Ray after this article.

http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/do...l-a-tired-act/

Still think he shaked Peace Chant on 2-14 09 at Turf Paradise. He loves to claim off a clean trainer (Mandella,) and shake. He owned that horse outright. Horse ran huge that day to win that sprint stakes at Turf Paradise (1st off the claim.) Then, didn't race for 7 months. Showed up back East for Phipps. Ran o.k. for one race, and then hasn't run good in 3 races since. The last 2 races have been with O'neil. I guess the Phipps guy gave up, and they sold the horse back to O'neil. Hasn't raced since May 31. Horse might be in food cans by now. Tell you another time I think he cheated. The day that Bobby Flay chef guy from NYC had to settle (Mrs Kipling) for 2nd in the 3 year old filly turf stakes at Anita (Providencia.) I think he shaked the hell out of Acting Lady that day. Obviously he's shaked a lot of horses, but those two really stood out in my mind as examples of it. She was like the 8th choice. They kept saying she got a great trip, but she looked shaked to me. Full of run the whole way, and she's never looked that good since. I remember the owners just happened to be in from England to see the race. Kipling ran good, but O'neil had his filly ready to pull a house down the street. It's been worth it to him. He's made some nice money cheating, and not really had to pay the price. I knew he was cheating the 1st couple weeks of this meet. He was so happy. It was like they stopped testing the 1st part of this Del Mar meet. Did they wait (releasing this news) until the holiday weekend was over, and only 1 day was left in the meet? They are way too helpful to these dirty trainers.

You know, I know the comments on those Paulick articles can be shrill, but someone mentioned that a trainer with a positive during the calendar year of a Breeders Cup shouldn't be allowed to run at the Breeders Cup doesn't sound like an altogether horrid idea.

What's it going to take to stop this guy?

A massive earthquake that has a disdain for fat guys with horrible fashion sense.

Wouldn't that eliminate Chuck too?:D

Chuck wouldn't be caught dead in that liberal cesspool.

I agree

Yeah good idea, but realistically would any horses just be transfered to an assistant trainers name?

Anybody ever wonder why Lava Man ran so poorly outside of California?

I don't.

I would like to apologize for constructing the worst sentence ever in my previous post.

Not if you ban the horse entirely, no?

Do you think that's fair to the owners, who might not necessarily know what's going on inside the barn?
Granted you would think that it would hurt some trainers, who might lose some buisness from owners not wanting to roll the dice. But I really think that it's more of a punishment for an owner/investors of the sport who spend a lot of money on a stable only to be banned from one of the biggest race days of the year.

Maybe they will stop buying horses and investing in the game as well. I'm not saying all of them are innocent when it comes to these issues. But it's very tough to punish the people who make the sport go round.

It's a tough question. Are you really penalizing owners if they hire a schyster as their trainer? When you hire a guy like O'Neill or Dutrow, don't you kind of know what you're getting yourself into as an owner?

Fair question, but you would think that owners know what kind of trainer they were hiring. Also it seems that any time a trainer starts running good, people start whispering (usually unfairly) about the possible juice.

How do you feel about a guy like Pletcher?

Tough one. Obviously, the Wait a While case was a high profile one, but how many other obvious infractions has he had?

The owners do suffer consequences in that the purse money must be returned on a positive test .

Not sure, but obviously he's one of the first names that comes up when the whispers begin. I just brought him up in reference to you calling the two other guys schysters.
I'm really not a big Dutrow fan and as far as O'Neill goes, I just don't follow the circuit close enough to have an opinion. Regurdless, I'm in no position to accuse or spread rumors of anybody cheating. I do believe that if I did own a horse, I would have no issue with it being in the Pletcher barn.

They kind of go hand in hand. But it already seems like the betting intrests of the sport gets the short end of the stick on a consistent basis and the majority of them continue to come back. Not sure that would happen if it was the owners who were consistently getting penalized especially for things that they might not even know about. I think that they would just take their ball and go home.

Yeah, I agree that if I were an owner, I'd love to have a horse in the Pletcher barn. The problem is that aside from like Mandella and one or two others, who is really clean out there anymore in terms of zero drug infractions? Anybody? Sheppard maybe?

See, it's a bit different out here. One of the reasons they play paddy cake with them (out here) is the lack of horses. O'neil knows that. His brother knows that. This eats away at the power of the authorities out here.

Maybe I'm naive, but I want to believe that the majority of trainers are playing by the rules.
But as crazy as it sounds, it's something that I really don't give much thought to. It's out of my control, so I just play the races accordingly. It's just another handicapping angle that you have to factor in.

Oh, believe you, me, it doesn't effect how I play a race in slightest. It just seems to me that every major trainer out there has had some sort of reprimand in their careers, even guys like Mott. I was literally trying to think of some very high profile trainers who've never been fined and/or suspended for some sort of infraction of this sort.