Re: Drugs and Modern Sports (627 Views)
Posted by:
Barry Irwin (IP Logged)
Date: September 20, 2006 07:07PM
I like Steve Crist and appreciate everything he has done for the betterment of DRF.
But I think his column may be a case of figures don't lie, but liars figure.
First of all, his analysis does not deal with cheating or cheaters.
A lot of what he pointed out has some merit.
But the reason Charlie Whittingham had a low win percentage was not based on the fact that he trained a lot of homebreds for breeders, but what he did with those homebreds. Charlie Whittingham (and he was not alone by any stretch of the imagination, had a habit of using these animals to set up betting coups. Charlie, like a lot of oldtimers, would have his youngsters held until he wanted them exposed, an event that usually coincided with a bet he was making.
Charlie could justify the holding of horses as "schooling," so that when they were finally let loose and won, they would be ready to advance to the next level. God forbid Whittingham should ever allow a horse to win first time out and force it to run against winners before it had been properly seasoned.
I will never forget the day Whittingham shocked the Southern California racing community when he won first with two first-time starting fillies at Hollywood Park.
Racing has changed from those days. A guy like Todd Pletcher wants to win first time out. Why? Because ever since DRF started publishing trainer stats, all trainers want to have high win percentages. It happens to be good for business.
Also, today's game is more about development of horses and winning and making money with purses, not about holding horses and cashing bets.
Except, of course, for those outfits in which the owners are pure gamblers and their trainers are supplied with illegal performance enhancing designer drugs to insure spectacular results.
The magic continues to be worked in New York and California, and Texas, and in the Bay Area by expert practitioners of the black arts.
But one of these day--and I personally hope I live long enough to see it--the FBI will get their act together, start focusing on racing because it involves inter-state gambling, and close out the cheaters.
Then some of them can go back to harness racing where they belong.