Quote:
Originally Posted by MargieRose
Are you serious with this statement?  |
No. Yes. I don't know.
No, but that was pretty close to the common accepted practice.
There was one guy who blatantly juiced every animal, but that guy had almost all well-bred stakes horses. Most of the other known juicers, who openly advertised, were mostly shunned(to rule their own B-level or lower meets). The top trainers were more often class-acts that only juiced the star horses, and you didn't get as many betting coups to make it a comprehensive case of race-fixing.
It's gotten to the point now, where very legitimate, class-act owners have mostly gone to the juice men. And they do every animal in the owners barn at every class of race. A quarter of the time they also bet heavily.
The ownership-veterinarian-trainer game has
jumped the shark, and all the game can do is promote the action.
We have fostered anarchy out there for a long time, and it's brazen.
We do the same thing with 'herding' and other practices.
I have 30 trainers that I watch for when they have a '6-1'(or any mid-range odds) on a horse that doesn't have the paper form. If they don't do the betting coup thing, I can sometimes hit a nice one on their leftovers.
It's part of the game. I don't know how to deal with it, but either does any of racing's governing body. It's part of common standard accepted business practices at this point. A gentleman's agreement. If the top owners are OK w/ jumping the shark, then that's the game we get.
