Indeed Frank and I had some back and forth last Saturday morning regarding the
results from Belmont Day. Frank knows and loves the game and was honestly upset by
what he and others saw as one of the biggest days in NY racing being played on an
unlevel playing field.

I think my apathetic reaction may have surprised Frank. I told him I was much more
upset by what I perceived as a big jump up by H. Graham Motion's winner of the
Manhattan in the race previous to the Belmont. (Based on previous tops, and the
fact that Ascend was running against a graded stakes quality field in his first
graded stakes appearance; it was not a huge forward move TG-wise).

Why am I not upset that the game, even on its biggest days, is not played on a
level playing field? Because the field has looked this way since I first started
playing the game casually early in the 1970s; when I worked on the backstretches
of various tracks in the 1980s; when I played the races at numerous tracks daily
in the 1990s. Getting married in 2001 took some wind out of the pari-mutuel sails,
but even though I am now a weekend warrior, I feel like I am close to the game as
ever due to access to Blood Horse, Paulick, TG and other sources of information.

Big days? Remember (as if I would let anyone forget) that legendary veterinarian
Alex Harthill stood sentry while a co-conspirator treated Northern Dancer with
Lasix prior to the 1964 Kentucky Derby, an injection which, given ND's dominance
as a stallion and sire of sires, changed the course of the racing industry for 30
or 40 years (unless of course you believe that ND would have won without Lasix, or
alternatively, that ND, a diminutive and not entirely sound specimen, would have
gone on to a brilliant stud career without the benefit of that Kentucky Derby
victory).

The 1970s? Oscar Barrera has been mentioned a few times in this thread, how he
went from a trainer getting otherworldly results to a trainer who went 0/140
something. The story which I have been told by numerous sources is that OSB was
running his horses on Lasix (before Lasix or any other race day med was permitted
at NYRA tracks); when NYRA detected this, they apparently thought the best course
of action was to give Oscar a stern warning and let him to continue to ply his
trade.

Now to Mr. Baffert. My own observation (and I hate to do this without providing
statistics, but I think most here would agree with the observation) is that
(a) Bob Baffert is somehow able to work his stock much faster than other trainers
and (b) Bob Baffert excels at shipping and winning. To NYRA. To New Mexico and
Texas. To Illinois. To Dubai. My OPINION is that "(a)" gives Baffert runners an
edge for as long as said runners can withstand the taxing training regimen. My
exact comment to Frank (quoting my text message to Frank) was "Medication figures
into both the workout and the shipping equations". This final comment would best
be characterized as a "SUSPICION", and I will leave it to someone else to
determine where "suspicions" fit with opinions, assertions, allegations and false
news.

What can [i][u]you[/u][/i] as a horseplayer do to level the playing field? I will
repeat myself much as I do each time the drugs in racing issue is discussed. Write
a letter to NYRA, or the folks in charge of racing in Illinois, or Florida, or
California. Even better, get together with numerous others who share your feelings
and send a letter which has hundreds of signatures. Tell the addressees that the
signature(s) at the bottom of letter represent [a large dollar number] in terms of
handle. Tell the addressees that this [large dollar number] will be diverted to a
different racing circuit, a circuit which is doing more to promote drug free
racing. HANA might be doing something like this as I type (it is called a
"Buycott", not a "Boycott").

I am not saying that posting expressions of outrage here or elsewhere will not
have some impact, but change will not come until racing starts to feel the pinch
of decreased handle directly related to the end user's dissatisfaction with
performance enhanced racing.

[One final comment: Somewhere in this thread Baffert was annointed as "The
Greatest of All Time." P-Dub wryly suggested that Charlie Whittingham was spinning
in his grave. Let me give the East coast version of this: Woodford C. Stephens is
spinning in his grave, with five skeletal fingers sticking out of his coffin.]