Fatso-- you're welcome. If you are playing this week's mega-tournament in Vegas, know that we are doing the same thing with our players, and Bill is staying out there.

Mall-- the guy I put you in touch with was Charlie Harris, an owner (Clement trains for him) that wrote the op-ed piece in Bloodhorse that got milkshakes banned in Kentucky a couple of years ago (of course, what "banned" means is an open question). I agree with you that milkshakes themselves are probably not causing the move-ups (as does Scott Waterman, point man for TOBA on drugs)-- the jump-ups are much more severe than those that occurred a few years ago, in situations where I had it on very good authority milkshakes alone (legal then) were used. I think the milkshake may be being used to introduce the significant drug into the horse's system, and my reason for believing this is the results of races on days when raceday security has been tight-- like the 03 BC. Hence the need for a detention barn.

The EPO situation is a little more complicated. I put forward an idea a while back that would deal with Berube's issues-- just "grandfather" the penalties. Announce that they will test for EPO, and offer the test free to owners and trainers, but over the first 6 months make public and don't penalize positives (do allow claims that come up positive to be voided, as we have now been told they are doing at NYRA). After 6 months, when all old EPO should be gone, punish positives.

Chris-- you ain't kidding about the need for teeth and announcing the positives, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that the public (ME, FOR EXAMPLE), would like to know what the hell is going on when placing a bet. Trying to guess whether they are testing at any given time in SoCal is wearing me out. If they do that, the Oaklawn plan may be a step in the right direction-- let's see what certain trainers do there, and whether other tracks follow the lead.

The purpose of my point 4 in the letter, making the trainer and vet list everything that went into the horse, is exactly because of the issue you raised. This idea comes from Charlie Harris, who is a CEO, and he based it on the Sarbanes-Oxley forms that CEO's are now required to sign off to certify the financial practices of their companies. The idea is, if a drug shows up in a frozen sample later that you did not list, even if it is not illegal now (or even KNOWN now), the fact that you did not list it by itself constitutes a violation, and gets you serious penalties.

There are problems with your idea of testing between races-- for starters, the rules would have to be changed to make being on drugs between races illegal, which it is not. Also, steroids are legal, at least a lot of them are (like cortisone, and chlenbutarol, which many horses train on, but are not allowed to run on), and others which are given to improve appetite.

Richiebee- Charlie Harris also had the same idea of penalizing the owner, and I voiced opposition for the same reason Miff cited-- it's impossible to police for an owner, so it's wrong to hold him accountable, even if in some cases it's clear that's where the problem lies. And by the way, if "bottom line" was the test, Prestonwood would have won the Eclipse a couple of times when I was involved-- and hell, we should have won in 98 anyway, when VG won the Belmont, Da Hoss the Mile, and Distorted Humor set a couple of track records winning G2's, with about a 15 horse stable. We didn't even get into the finals.

Len-- "sheets connected" was great.

Listen, there have been lots of good and important posts here recently. Again, if you guys mean business, WRITE LETTERS. Bloodhorse, DRF, Thoroughbred Times, etc.



TGJB