Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I remain on the 50 yard line with this.
1. This is a therapeutic positive. It's not the same thing as the Navarro and Servis cases.
2. Unless I'm going to believe the picture of the horse's rash, the latest lab report his lawyer is talking about, and any vet treatment reports that exist are all phony, it seems more likely the overage in this case was not from an injection.
3. He's had so many overages and deaths over time (and in the most prestigious races) he's clearly either wildly irresponsible or playing with fire looking for an edge. It may be both. That doesn't even count the possibility that he's doing things we don't know about and/or can't prove.
IMO, the horse should get DQ'd and he should have gotten a suspension far beyond the typical one for an infraction like this because of his long term record and because it was the Derby. But I think 2 years, no points for his wins etc.. is probably excessive. It's understandable though. He's giving the sport a major black eye. I think people are finally saying "enough is enough". That's why they went too far. Now everyone is dug into their positions and it's a mess.
I don't blame him for fighting the DQ even though I think the horse should get DQ'd, but if he had accepted responsibility for the overage right from the start and showed some remorse, maybe the punishment would have been one year or even 6 months and we'd be past this already.
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I agree with most of what you said. He has given the sport a black eye but also elevated it with his two triple crown victories. The ratings were extremely high for those races elevating the sport. I think the horse deaths at Santa Anita a few years ago involving multiple trainers gave the sport a bigger black eye than any drug offences. They had to close the track for weeks. He does have a lot of drug offences and deaths but I believe most of the deaths attributed to him are because he trains his horses harder than anyone else thus getting the most out of them. Some horses are more fragile than others and possibly couldn't handle his training methods. I could be wrong. If he's doping horses all the time that is also a contributing factor. We know horse racing is a dying sport but I don't attribute that to him. Even the casual fan knows Baffert and not because of the drug offences. I think Baffert is a minor problem in racing, I just think there should be a standard penalty for each offence depending on the severity. If they injected Medina Spirit then the penalty should be higher but if it was just a cream. It's overblown. If Churchill knows this at this point they are just covering their butts because they made a big deal out of it.
