The first Saturday in April is always one of racing’s top days. When the Wood Memorial, Santa Anita and Illinois Derbys roll around, you know it’s spring and that the best time of the year in all respects has arrived. As fans and wagerers, given the performances at Aqueduct, Hawthorne and Santa Anita by the ’09 sophomores, we all should have been left aglow after the weekend with anticipation for Derby 135.

 

Instead, we are greeted by another unnecessary controversy and embarrassment for the game thanks to the alternately brazen or stupid acts of Jeff Mullins, trainer of possible Derby favorite I Want Revenge. Mullins attempt to administer to Bay Shore entrant Gato Go Win while the horse was sequestered in the Aqueduct pre-race detention barn, represents a new low in disregard for racing’s rules by the oft-cited and disciplined West Coast conditioner.

 

The explanations and excuses by Mullins, and his attempt to turn fault on detention barn security personnel, are pointless. It doesn’t matter how innocuous a product he was planning on giving the horses. There is not one acceptable or plausible defense for his actions. He knew very well why horses are in a detention barn for 6 hours prior to post, and that nothing is allowed to be administered to those horses. He has had his own horses similarly sequestered back in California as part of the discipline for milkshake positives there. Every trainer visiting jurisdictions outside their home base knows what the medication and associated rules are in that racing locale. If he didn’t, simply put, he’s a hazard to the sport in an era when personal responsibility and professionalism are demanded. 

 

The reality is that Mullins has been operating outside the spirit of the rules of the game for such an extended period, that he doesn’t see any line being crossed when he acts as he did Saturday. New York has an opportunity to send a message in this incident, and penalize Mullins for what by nearly any standard was a blatant sneering at the rules of the game. The incident also represents an opportunity for owners, who have been silent on integrity too long, to send a message. Famed pinhook operators Randy Hartley and Dean DeRenzo are part of the group that own Gato Go Win, and make their livelihood buying and selling racing stock. It will be interesting to see if they act in the best interest of racing by expressing their outrage and disgust at their trainer’s actions and distancing themselves from him. 

 

David Lanzman, as decision maker for the new ownership partnered with him in I Want Revenge, also faces a Rubicon. While Mullins got him this far with his homebred Stephen Got Even colt, he has to decide if he wants to be tied to an individual with so little respect for the game’s integrity. As part of that decision, he will have to weigh the possibility of Mullins placing him in a humiliating position on the sport’s biggest stage, the Derby winner’s stand in the Churchill Downs infield.

 

This whole scenario also provides a glaring message to the sport as it looks for ways to better police those that seek to take advantage and operate outside the rules of the game. Testing of blood and urine can be expensive, inconclusive and frequently not acceptable as evidence in prosecutions. Security guards as witnesses of illegal acts and rules violations will be far more reliable and easier for authorities to act upon. In other words, as in this recent example, catching in the act those that work outside the rules will be the most effective deterrent.