Quote:
Originally Posted by BarchCapper
I'm thinking the Arkansas commission had a concern that questions surrounding the "chain of control" integrity of the test samples would result in a decent probability of causing any strong punishment to not survive a civil court case. We just wound up seeing a "settlement" at the commission level to avoid further court costs on both sides, IMO.
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1. False positives can happen. But when you have enough violations, they can't all be false positives.
2. The "won't survive a court case" thing is bad reasoning. First of all, horse race commissions win over 90 percent of the time in court. Really. It isn't as though the courts are stocked with people who don't care about horse or bettor welfare and just want to help people who cheat in sports.
Second, the statutes governing horse racing do not require the vast majority of things that trainers' lawyers say they do. Even something as potentially serious as a chain of custody issue, which can certainly derail a criminal case that has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, is not going to be fatal in a horse racing suspension. The trainer has the burden of proof in a court proceeding, and must not only show that the commission was wrong, but was so wrong to "exceed the bounds of reason". So if, despite the chain of custody issue, it's, say 75% likely that the sample came from the horse and the test was accurate, that's enough to get an affirmance.
There is a phenomenon where horse racing commissions, who are often buddy-buddy with the trainers and owners, don't want a big bruising court fight. But when they actually fight in court, they win.
And honestly, their duty to the public is to fight these cases. The goal of a horse racing commission should not be to have a 100% record in court. They are supposed to bring every case where they believe the trainer cheated. If the courts strike them down, they strike them down. But unless the commission actually believed Baffert was completely innocent, he should have been punished and they should have been in court defending the punishment.
