Quote:
Originally Posted by sandpit
A decade or so ago at the Breeders' Cup I had an hour-long discussion with a Kentucky Derby winning trainer about many things, including drugs in the sport. He told me point-blank, and reeled off several names that we all know, that there are people that he just can't beat because of what they do to their horses.
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I worked with a vet's assistant at the standardbred meeting which overlapped the T-breds. She worked in the T-bred clinic during the day, and then was up on the roof as a director of the various playback shots for the stewards in the evenings. She used to tell me astonishing tales of a trainer getting hold of a new medication and saying something to the effect: "Let's try it and see what it does." She was flabbergasted as many of these occult meds were for odds uses like equine cancer and they were seeing what it would do..LUCKILY most of the trainers took her expertise to heart but she did relate to me several names of chronic abusers.
"Watch as the season goes on," ......"These trainers cannot win later in the season as they cannot overcome the wear and tear hidden by previous drug usage that would allow the chronically sore to participate at anywhere near 100%....They are all used up."
The Canadian Parimutuel Agency kept about 20 horses in training over the year and repeatedly tested them on drug clearance times per dose and summarized their findings each season in a small booklet that anyone (I wrote away for one) could get through Ottawa. Many trainers were masters as THERAPEUTIC drug use that cleared and did not get a positive test based upon this published research. Others did not.
