Quote:
Originally Posted by Track Phantom
3. The integrity oversight in the game is non-existent. It is, and always has been, the well-educated, dedicated, hard-core racing fans that raise holy hell in these situations for anyone to even take a look at it. For the game to rise out of this "shady sport run by shady people" purgatory it exists in, the people policing the game have to make some very hard decisions. Not only does it seem they are unwilling to make the decisions, they seem equally unwilling to investigate.
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People have long celebrated the inherent, centralized deception of the sport and the rogues that populate it. Damon Runyan made an entire career out of it. But the mob used to run Vegas, hat factories used to employ oodles of mercury that destroyed its work force, coca cola used to have codeine in it, the NFL routinely turned a blind eye to brain damage of its players etc. etc. The problem is, in these other areas society changed (many would call it 'progressed') and turned its back on what was once acceptable.
But horse racing hasn't. A guy like Baffert, whom any reasonable person would say has somewhat of a checkered past, is celebrated not only by fans and owners and breeders (and by racetrack management) but by the media itself--the same media that in any other sport would take a journalistic stance that is adversarial when necessary (ie., ESPN has done several shows on football and CTE). This, in my mind, is precisely what will end the sport as we know it.
