Quote:
Originally Posted by horseofcourse
What does "drug-free" actually mean? I'm actually being serious.
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They have no idea. I have no idea. No one seems to have any idea. But they sure look like they are doing something.
I have asked some of the people who actually believe that if horse racing is "drug free" that handle will spike and more people will come to the races how to define "drug free". Mostly they have no real plan and have zero idea that the impact of what they are proposing will make it more expensive to own horses and make horses form more erratic. In a time when finding owners able/willing to lose money is growing increasingly more difficult, getting the answer "if horses need drugs to race they shouldn't be racing" is hard to digest when you ask exactly what we are supposed to do when horses have ailments. Generally the people who are pushing this agenda aren't horse owners and a lot of them dont bet either. The typical anti-medication person:
Doesn't own racehorses
Wants to eliminate 2 year old racing
Wants to eliminate whips
Wants polytracks/artificial surfaces
Hates "juice" trainers yet refuses to understand that this agenda actually helps them
Thinks that horses are running too much
Believes that breeders/owners are all rich
Think foreign racing is pristine simply looking past the fact the most blatantly illegal drugs are not created in America
Thinks Zenyatta was just the greatest horse ever
What most people don't understand because it is a little too complicated for them and people want to believe what they want to believe is that most of the drug positives that we hear about have no effect on the performance of the horse in question. And that the level of detection at which a positive is called at rarely is at a level where the horse would be of any benefit, it is usually just an arbitrary number tossed out by the chemists and adopted by the commissions. "Zero Tolerance" is simply a continuation of this piss poor system which routinely causes bad PR for nothing and allows the 42% trainers a complete free hand as the commissions and labs spend most of the time and effort (and money) looking under rocks for moss we already know is growing.