[ELA]

Originally Posted by parsixfarms

No, but we need to start somewhere. I hear what you are saying about where are lines drawn (perhaps at Class I medication violations at a minimum), but to me, the Biancone situation is an easy one.

At the end of the day, it's about right and wrong, and maybe my moral compass is different from others. I agree that the "industry leaders" that you cite in your message do nothing but perpetuate the notion that racing will never be serious about cleaning up its own house. However, in order to get racing cleaned up, good people need to start becoming more judgmental. I'd rather do it that way than have some knucklehead in Congress with absolutely no understanding of the racing industry tell us involved in it what's "right and wrong." I think that their uninformed view on that subject would not please anyone in racing.

Having attended some industry events in Saratoga over the years, people talk and talk about these issues, but nothing ever seems to get accomplished. Maybe it's that the "powers that be" want to maintain the status quo, because they're happy making money in the game as it is today. I hope that's not the case. I hope that Dinny Phipps's recent comments at the Jockey Club Roundtable will prove to be a wake-up call to all industry leaders, and those of us involved in the game need to show our support for them. I hope that, if the Jockey Club stewards are really serious about cleaning things up, their leadership, coupled with an "unshackled" NYRA running NY racing, will start to effect the change that the racing game needs so badly on this subject. I know that's hoping for a lot. But if we lose that, we might as well get out of the game.

I agree with you. However, notice, how on such a simple situation, we've already address many related issues -- and in this simple situation, the positive that I know for a fact Biancone got hit with, was for a drug that has an everyday, therapeutic use on the backstretch. The cobra/snake venom is still alleged and I won't touch that being completely absent of facts. Regardless, I don't know enough about Biancone's other offenses to say what I would or would not do. Be that as it may, yes, in a simple situation -- knowing all of the facts -- I think it's easy for someone to take a stand.

Like others here, I've been in this game my entire adult life. I think we all learn over time and the learning curve can be everchanging. I've served on committees that have actually made recommendations, and served on others where there's been "paralysis by analysis" -- we see everything in our industry. The Biancone situation is going to be clear cut to some, and perhaps not to others. Until there is a clear-cut, quantifiable benchmark where people will be guilty or innocent, then we might not see change.

About the owners, Martin Schwartz might be different than the Coolmore gang, Gary Tanaka -- or might not. Personally, I don't know. However, and this may sound very simplistic, I don't hold people -- strangers might I add (hence the hecklers) -- to my standards. I think there is a difference between a qualified and unqualified opinion, an educated and uneducated one, and I think that and more adds or subtracts to/from credibility.

Now, I hold my partner to that standard and if a trainer of mine becomes involved in a scandal, comes up positive for some designer/exotic/super-drug, etc. -- not without a conversation or discussion -- I would ultimately pull my horses from that trainer. But for clenbuterol? One positive? Two positives? Three? No, I don't think I am pulling horses for that (depending on the trainer, a 5 horse barn would have a different bearing than a 200 horse barn). Too me, it's too hypothetical and not that simple. Biancone perhaps, but not all others.

Excellent points.

Eric