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[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by chucklestheclown

What kind of media would not report this? If they are saying it is a trainer scratch and not a vet scratch (which is a vital statistic in handicapping) doesn't it have to be true? Are you saying the vets say "Scratch him or I will?". How is that different from saying "Bench him or he will foul out"?

Yes, that is correct. They were basically told, "Scratch him or I will." In most situations, it wouldn't be done this way. In most situations, the horses would simply be vet scratches. But these two horses were high profile horses in high profile races. It looked better for everyone involved if these horses were voluntary scratched.

In the real world, I think a good anology would be when an employee is asked to resign, instead of getting fired. When a person resigns, it allows them to save face and it's just a better situation for everyone involved. There's much less controversy when someone resigns.

By the way, the state vets were obviously 100% correct in not allowing either of those horses to run. Both of those horses had pretty serious injuries and will be lucky if they ever make it back to the races again.