Doug O'Neill

[tector]

Originally Posted by pweizer

The NY Times has now weighed in:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/sp...nted=1&_r=1&hp

The key quote:

Nationally, thoroughbred horses break down or show signs of injury at a rate of 5.1 per thousand starts, according to The Times’s analysis of more than 150,000 races over the past three years. In more than 2,300 starts, horses trained by O’Neill show a breakdown or injury frequency more than double that rate, at 12.0 per thousand starts.


“It’s a horrible statistic to be associated with,” O’Neill said.


In comparison, horses in the care of Motion — one of the trainers without a single drug violation and who will race Went the Day Well in the Preakness Stakes next Saturday — have started nearly 1,900 races and broken down or showed signs of injury in just 0.5 per thousand starts.

Paul

If these numbers are true, they are pretty damning.

I would also note that the Times article actually missed a significant angle--while they talked about milkshaking, they did not raise the drug-masking effect.