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Originally Posted by parsixfarms
My general premise is that we need to adopt a set of uniform rules from which everyone works. Some will like them; others won't. But once we set the rules, we need to enforce them.
I appreciate the concern that Chuck stated in an earlier post. If the RMTC model rule on steroids is adopted, will there be trainers/chemists that employ designer steroids? If human sports are any guide, the answer is probably, "yes." But that's not a reason to fail to adopt the rules. To my way of thinking, the concern over the parade of horribles argument that Chuck is referencing would ultimately lead to the following guiding principles: "Everything goes. Use whatever you want."
Racing's problem is not that some unscrupulous individual is going to try to circumvent the rules (or "push the envelope" as some like to call it); rather, the problem is that it doesn't meaningfully enforce the rules that it already has. And if the RMTC rules are adopted, and racing continues its lax enforcement, then the whole exercise is a complete waste of everyone's time and energy. The only difference now, as baseball has learned, is that, if racing doesn't get its house in order, then someone (the Whitfields of the world) may do it for us - and in a manner over which we have no control.
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One of the problems racing has is that many of the rules concerning drug testing were written at a time when testing was far less effective. When horseman try to get the rules amended to represent modern testing we get told that they will not give us threshold levels and that we are just trying to get more 'liberal' rules. Horseman have been painted as the bad guys in this deal and the fact is that there are some bad guys. But we have consistently been dealt a bad hand and the RMTC has not exactly been forthcoming with details. Go to the RMTC website, and look up the withdrawl time schedule for 80% of drugs listed. You get no information. They tell you guys one thing yet do another and this whole federal deal is NOT going to make things better, it will create more kneejerk plans that are simply not effective. These things need time to get worked out as shown by the states that have extended the grace period on the steroid testing because they are complex issues. If anything good were to come of the whole hearings is that perhaps money will be found to do some real research into many of the problems that we currently have. But I doubt it.