Hi Mike,

When a trainer significantly underperforms relative to his previous record in big races like the BC where there is tighter scrutiny, that is actually a cause of suspicion.
In any case, I was not using Plecther's BC record as evidence of his cheating – his own convictions already do that. My point that is that his record in the races that count the most does not support an Eclipse award, especially when someone like Matz has a better record in these races.
As far as his repeat drug positives. Many people think that nanogram means an “insignificantly small amount of a substance”. Not so. Many drugs have short half-lives and only traces of them or their metabolites are found in the blood and urine so one needs sensitivity to the nanogram level to detect their use at all. That does not mean that there was an insignificant amount of the substance in the horse when he raced. Furthermore, many drugs are illegal in any concentration, so if any amount shows up, the trainer cheated – period. There certain substances like, CO2, that the horse produces naturally and these must be found in concentrations several standard deviations above normal levels before we know there was something fishy going on. That was not the case with Pletcher’s conviction. His horse was found to have something he shouldn’t have any amount of, so the concentration was irrelevant to his guilt.
As for him having given it to the horse well before race time and it not clearing, Pletcher makes no such claim in his appeal. Instead he insults the intelligence of the court and everyone else by claiming the horse ‘must have picked it up from the breath of another horse stabled nearby”. Just how stupid does he think people are? Fortunately the court didn’t buy that absurd excuse in turning down his appeal.
The fact that there may be others using stronger stuff is irrelevant to Pletcher’s guilt. If we do not punish the people we can catch using the banned stuff we know about, we set a tone of laxity for enforcement of any banned substance use.
Given the evidence, to consider someone like Pletcher for an Eclipse award is ludicrous. Give it to Matz.

Bob