According to DRF/Hegarty, Richard Dutrow goes down 7 days for bute overage at the Little A.

When can we go after the vets, ban 'em from the grounds for a week or two? Or
publish the vets names each time they treated a horse who tests positive. Maybe
we have to go after the vets, because these trainer wrist slaps are not having
the proper deterrent effect. And why should they? Asmussen and Lake are both
sat down, and the stables hum along at the same win percentage with a Blasi and
a Krebs at the controls.

Seven days does not sound serious, but it was originally 15,cut by more than
50% because Dutrow was bright enough to realize he had no plausible defense and
waived his appeal. Racing rewards an outright admission of guilt with a 50+%
reduction in penalty. "Don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining." The drug
problem in racing is that no one wants to take responsibility for punishing
cheaters. And as a racing fan from way back, I am tired of hearing about
nanograms, contamination and split samples.

Read on the other board that a certain Robes P. was not interested in a NYRA
race which featured "2 RD2s and 2 GCCs". Read about the same time about Peter
Vestal, a successful midwest trainer for many years (I also think he did OK at
the Spa a couple of meets) leaving the game after his string dwindled to 6
horses. Vestal did not mention cheating, but did mention that he didn't feel
like he could compete for owners with the large far flung outfits which have in
excess of 100 horses racing at various tracks.

I do not believe Racing will benefit if it is utterly dominated by these
larger operations, whether they be driven by hay,oats and water or exotic pain
meds. If Pletcher, Mott, Frankel, Dutrow, Asmussen and Lake all end up with in
excess of 100 horses in NY, they basically are running NY racing. The
composition of their stables will dictate which overnight races will be run.
These trainers will be allowed to stable 2YOs at the track for 6 months, some
of whom will never face the starter.

I do not know if making a more evenhanded merit based stall allocation (ie
stalls for animals who are for the most part ready to run)could work, but I do
know that the high volume racing "factories" have subtle but real negative
effects on racing.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2007 09:05PM by richiebee.