Makes too much sense.
 

Certain changes that are being proposed in the article you posted cost money as well as can cost tracks betting handle (tighter drug rules = shorter fields = smaller betting handles)

Its all well and good and a noble thing to want to propose stuff that makes the game safer, cleaner as well as possibly helping reputation, but the money has to come from somewhere....and people who are proposing the ideas arent going to dip into their own pockets to pay for it, ideas are good, but if they cost money, you have to find someone who wants to foot the bill.

Silver florin, welcome to P.A. Enjoy!

Welcome.....Glad you found us!

Yes, welcome SF. :ThmbUp:

Thanks everybody :)

Have you looked at the yearling sale prices lately? If they have the money to pay those prices, they have money to make the game safer and better.

Guys, I just want to bring some reality to the situation. The drug rules are already strict and have become a lot more strict recently. People bring up the LASIX debate when saying the u.s. Drugs are horses. The use of LASIX is debate able even between respected vets. PETA made the LASIX injection seem like doping which is dumb.

Therapeutic meds are not permissible in any amount that would be performance enhancing on race day. That is why there are withdrawal times. The exception is joint injections which can be helpful for months. Used properly, they are an important tool in keeping an athlete happy and sound. Used improperly and overused is problematic especially when horses go from barn to barn. Withdrawal periods have been pushed back in an attempt to avoid difficulties in a prerace exam. Nothing in the tapes indicates whether the horses getting joint injections were being done properly or improperly.

Joint injections can also be diagnostic. Horses can be sound with good X-rays and the horses joint fluid can be ugly indicating the joint is not keeping up with stress. A trainer may decide to back off on a horse when he sees murky, thin or bloody fluid. The fluid coming out of a horses hock in the video was surprising because it was a hock. Hocks don't have the same joint space as like an ankle. I've had horses build up pressure in their joints where fluid flies out that were perfectly sound, it is something to discuss with your vet but does not mean they are being cruel.

There are some guys that are sick, they want to give the horses everything they can even if they are just wasting money.

Tougher drug rules are not the answer, but they have to fill the cracks. they are missing things. The thyroid medicine thing is new and it won't test. Although there are rules pertaining to substances that effect the horses metabolism how do they catch this? It is also totally possible that other things can be used with anabolic effects during training as long as they are withdrawn properly. They will not stop this without testing between races. This explains high percentages and they will not change this testing just post race.

The one thing I disagree with is D. Horse owners need the option of year round racing these days to try to keep up with the bills. Horses need layoffs, but it is on an individual basis usually (many get hot and then get cold, maybe due to a slight injury,etc.).
Also, the idea of quality isn't that important to those who gamble the most. High field size is a bigger factor, I believe studies back me up here. Also, many horses lose lengths the older they get and if they are going to continue racing, cheaper races are needed. By lowering the amount of cheaper races, it becomes even less attractive to be an owner because if their horse can't compete at higher levels, where do they go?
Owners are a good source for newbies, you want more owners, not less. And many owners are not only motivated by potentially making money, they like the action, and they like getting in a win picture, even if they lose money over time.
I don't know for sure, but my guess is that higher end horses have much higher vet bills per year than cheaper horses who run more often. So if there is a big movement towards hay, water and oats, it will most likely be easier for the cheaper horses to be able to adapt than those who run in higher class races.
Also, another reason why year round racing is needed, is because there is a lot more gambling competition in North America and I don't think it is wise to tell a horseplayer to take a forced break, because there is a chance they won't come back. They might find something else while on hiatus.

Pay or it by taking 2-3% out the owner's share of all purses.

It seems most have acknowledged on this board that horse racing is a sinking ship.

It's time to flip the game on its head to see what happens.

Sure, there will be short term consequences, but when you know what lies ahead long term if the racing world keeps doing the same things over and over again, then what is there to lose?

For individuals: I guess everything if you operate in the gray and don't think you can operate on a level playing field where actually being a real trainer matters

For the game: There is a chance to reinvigorate it. I've got a pretty clear picture in my head as to what could happen if they started showing the public the backstretch (after they clean it up) and catering to the player. Short term loss for long term, stable gains.

The "sinking ship" theory.

Do you know why some think racing is a sinking ship? Because they're looking at betting handles from "yesteryear" when things were completely different. When you are the "only game in town" than yeah, you are going to do fairly well. Some people are comparing handles of "only game in town" to a game where there is tremendous competition for the dollar, we have the internet, there was no internet a few decades ago, people have WAY more ways to entertain themselves, and that's why the betting handles are lower than they used to be.

Just because the pre-internet era betting came FIRST, its wrong to assume that first means norm. First does not mean "norm". NOW is the norm and the previous era was an outlier....we got used to the pre-internet handles and because the post-internet handles are lower, we figure that something must be wrong but there's really nothing wrong, its just a "Correction" in the market, those monster handles of decades ago were a fluke and what we see now is the "norm".

Can racing make some more money and get the handles up a bit? Sure, there must be a few things they can do to get more people betting, but the genie is out of the bottle, we're not going back to the way it "used to be" the industry needs to understand where they are and know that they're not going back, they need to move forward and try new things to get customers to bet more money.....where there's a will, there's a way....but, racing industry higher ups don't seem to have much of a "will" to get better and attract more customers, they just open up the doors, turn on the lights and underachieve badly, like they've been doing for decades.

The bottom line for me is:

How can you expect a kid (where it seems the majority of casual and serious players come from) to fall in love with a game that has 24 horses dying a week.

The spotlight on deplorable treatment of the animals that are the focus of the "sport of kings" is only going to get brighter.

Fix it now or lose the game forever.

People fall in love with WINNING. I know when i started following the game, i just thought about how i was going to cash my next ticket and pick the winner of the next race, the rest of that stuff never even entered my mind. If you have a person who is winning money or at least THINKS he can win money, he's not going to turn his back on this game no matter how 'seedy' the underbelly is. People use the seedy underbelly excuse if they're losing, they blame this and they blame that and all of a sudden, losing horseplayers have bleeding hearts for the "poor animals" but the bottom line is that they "closed out their accounts" because they arent winners. Winners don't close out accounts because they're sad about underbelly stuff.

A word of warning to some posters. When you start defending the use of Lasix, I and a lot of other people stop reading. We have heard of the arguments for Lasix before and we are not buying into them anymore. That debate is over.