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Originally Posted by oracle80
No, I don't think hes been an angel his whole career. Far from it, and you know i don't know the guy from Adam.
But its the same substance that these guys keep getting nailed on. I find that suspicious, VERY suspicious.
I asked someone about this who I thought would know just what kind of effect a horse would get from it, and he said well if you block a nerve they can't feel pain. I then asked if it would cause one to freak out run a crazy good race, and he said that no, it would only cause the horse to run the best effort he was already capable of based on what kind of shape he was in. he said the lack of felling the pain would cause him to run better than he would with the pain, but wouldn't cause the horse to run away and hide in a new lifetime top performance like we've seen in the past ten years.
Thats what I'm saying Randall. Seems to me that a guy gets a bad rep or gets accused of cheating, and all of a sudden they ALL get a positive for the same exact thing? I don't buy it, not at all.
My friend's an attorney, and he was driving with me to Kentucky this past spring. he was telling me tongue in cheek about something "incredible" that was happening in Ny with his clients. He said for years that he had a lotta guys come to him with DWI's who had blown exactly .10 the legal limit, who swore they hadn't had that much to drink.
Then they changed the law to .08 being the threshold for DWI, and then the most "incredible" thing happened. He said he got more folks in one year come in with arrests at .08(previously a lesser charge of DWAI) than he had in his previous entire legal career. YOu can draw your own conclusions on what he was eluding to.
I find this whole thing similiar to what he told me. Now look, I want the game to be as clean as possible, and I have ranted and raged myself over guys I thought were cheating. But you don't see where I stand Randy, I want the guys cheating to be BUSTED FOR WHAT THEY ARE CHEATING WITH!!!! What good does it do to nail a guy and suspend him if you aren't nailing him with what hes actually using so that you can test others for the same thing? Don't you see where I am coming from?
Asmussen, Dutrow, and Pletcher all were accused by many of cheating, just like Mullins. Do you HONESTLY feel thats its not suspicious that they all got nailed on the same exact drug? I just don't feel thats rational or likely.
You can take the stand that well he was cheating anyway with something so its ok, but i don't take that stand. If we can't devise and maintain a better drug testing system that is fair and equal for everyone and catches the supposed designer drugs that have been or are being used, we aren't any better off than we were in the first place.
Nail a guy for what he is guilty for, not something else.
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I agree with most of what you are saying here but one thing that I think you are missing is the levels of this particular drug found in a horse's system. With a trace level like Pletcher's case, I believe that it most likely had no effect on the outcome of the race (I believe this is the tact that TP's lawyers are taking in fighting his case) However in the Assmussen case the drug levels found were consistent with raceday application. Using carbocaine on Raceday would be an extremely powerful edge. It's similar to blood alocohol levels. If you blow .01 you are a whole lot less impared than if you blew a .20. Same with drug positives. If they find 1 nanogram then its most likely not having any effect but if the levels are 1000x that level, you can bet that the drug is having its intended effect.
The medication rules are so screwed up. Its laughable when I read about how much progress the RTMC consortium has accomplished. Basically they have made things worse. The rules are still drasticly different from state to state, the penalties are still inconsistent, and they keep telling you how much progress they have achieved and they need more money to continue this great work. Its typical of this industry to gloss over the truth in favor of a good story. Indian Charlie as racing czar would be better than the current "industry leaders"!