Is the Drug Bill about the destroy the business of Horse Racing?

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

Cursing you and wishing you ill? NOTHING OF THE SORT!

I am just telling you guys that "you have made your bed...and now you have to lay on it."

And I find it very amusing that - after the horseplayer has been ignored for so long - he is now being told by the horseman that..."we are all in this together..."

The truth is that we haven't made any beds. The rules that are written weren't written or enforced by us. The racing commissions make the rules, we don't.

Again there are a lot of horse owners and trainers that bet, so acting as though they are completely separate entities is silly. The fact is the horseman have very little to say about many of the issues. I realize that you guys are all upset about the takeout deal in CA and I dont blame you. I thought it was a very short sighted deal but it wasn't done to screw the players. It was done out of desperation and because the powers that be in CA have made a lot of errors. The least represented party gets the short end of the stick but the state and track are complicit as well. The thing is that the vindictiveness shown towards horseman, most of whom aren't making much money at all, serves no purpose. The truth is that the horseman, jockeys, tracks and players should all be working in concert but pettiness and greed by all the parties seemingly will never let this happen

[Kelso]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

Do you seriously think that elected officials are going to help horseplayers? Seriously you cant be that naive. Just look at the big favor they do you with the withholding tax already in existence.

Are you really dumb enough to think people don't recognize your feeble efforts to put words in their mouths? I wrote nothing ... NOTHING ... about the feds helping horseplayers. I wrote of a logical alternative to your wagering surcharge scare tactic.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by Kelso

Are you really dumb enough to think people don't recognize your feeble efforts to put words in their mouths? I wrote nothing ... NOTHING ... about the feds helping horseplayers. I wrote of a logical alternative to your wagering surcharge scare tactic.

Scare tactic? That is not a scare tactic, it is a logical assumption. They are going to look for the largest pool of money and attach to it. Only the naive believe that horseplayer's are going to come out of federal intervention unscathed. And only the truly naive believe that the Feds will be any different than the current state run administrations which everyone complains about.

[saratoga guy]

I've been an longtime advocate of going back to hay, oats and water -- BUT at the same time I realize there is another side to the issue and a that a drastic change in med policies - particularly if implemented quickly - could have unintended consequences.

The issue deserves thoughtful discussion from both sides. And any implementation should be cautious.

So it's kind of disheartening to read a thread like this.

Horses "that are stoned out of their minds."

"Stoned out of their minds"? Really?

"I hope the bill tears the ass end out of half the tracks in America and they shut down."

That's some positive thinking!

"The last person you should be hearing from in the case of an intervention, which is what the feds are doing now, is hearing from the drug addict."

So horsemen and trainers are "drug addicts"? Yeesh.

"Name me another industry which has as adversarial a relationship with its customers as THIS industry has!"

Hmmm, I vote: Airline industry.

As has been suggested - a suggestion that was taken up by some in this thread, and resulted in some thoughtful comments - read the bill.

And if you're for federal intervention - well, watch out what you wish for. And remember when pointing to foreign jurisdictions as models, the British flat season just started a couple of weeks ago and ends in October, in Hong Kong and Japan they race two or three days per week at two or three tracks. Meanwhile we're year-round at many tracks and we have a shrinking foal population. If you're worried about field size now - think what it might be in the immediate aftermath of this legislation.

And for those of you who see this as a battle between horsemen (against the legislation) and horseplayers (for) -- take a minute and read Steven Crist's take (gotta put him in the horseplayer camp): "Federal regulation could cripple horse racing"

http://www.drf.com/news/federal-regu...e-horse-racing

[pandy]

Banning drugs, including lasix, has little to do with field size. They race horses clean all over the world, except here in North America, and field size is impressive in many places including Europe, Down Under, Japan, etc. When we raced horses without lasix both harness racing and thoroughbred racing had bigger fields than they do now and the racing was better.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by pandy

Banning drugs, including lasix, has little to do with field size. They race horses clean all over the world, except here in North America, and field size is impressive in many places including Europe, Down Under, Japan, etc. When we raced horses without lasix both harness racing and thoroughbred racing had bigger fields than they do now and the racing was better.

So there are no other differences except Lasix?

The Lasix issue aside the current bill doesn't, as Steve Crist point's out, show any distinction between aspirin and elephant juice.

[Deepsix]

Its been a pretty interesting exchange of views. Thanks all.

[JustRalph]

I have been for closing half of all tracks for years now. I dont have to have a bad day to realize who the bad guys are in this game.

The game is so much worse than it was ten years ago.......the disappointment is almost immeasurable on some levels. Between the super trainers cheating their way to wealth on the back of the players to the west coast imbeciles who actually believe raising the price on a declining product is good business sense, I have to ask why the hell do I care about this shit sport that is constantly in search of some new way to survive and pick my pocket at the same time.

That question is coming up more and more............

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

So there are no other differences except Lasix?

The Lasix issue aside the current bill doesn't, as Steve Crist point's out, show any distinction between aspirin and elephant juice.

he's right. there is no diference, both are very bad for the horse.

how long does it take to figure out that the horse comes first, not the track, not the trainer, not the vet, and not the owner of the horse?

no lassix= more horses in the long run

no drugs period= better racing product and more people interested in it, and less handles pushing slot machines.

[Charli125]

Originally Posted by pandy

They race horses clean all over the world, except here in North America

This is the biggest misconception regarding this issue. This was news to me as well, but the other racing jurisdictions that people say, "race clean", are not 100% clean. They actually have higher thresholds and are legally able to use MORE drugs than we are here, Lasix being the big exception.

This really shouldn't be a players vs. owners thing since we both want full fields of healthy horses with a fair chance to win. I really don't think the players or owners have any business making this decision, but I know for sure that congress doesn't. I'd love to see some vets and higher-ups from the "clean" jurisdictions come over and work with some vets here to build our policy.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

he's right. there is no diference, both are very bad for the horse.

how long does it take to figure out that the horse comes first, not the track, not the trainer, not the vet, and not the owner of the horse?

no lassix= more horses in the long run

no drugs period= better racing product and more people interested in it, and less handles pushing slot machines.

So there is no difference between other countries racing and ours except Lasix?

Yeah sure the horse comes first bs. Acting as though thoroughbred racehorses shouldn't benefit from modern medicine is laughable. There is a huge difference between giving a horse of shot of some illicit drug and basic care of the horse. Those acting like Lasix is some terrible drug that causes harm to horses obviously has no understand of horses. Tossing out human issues with the medication misses the obvious point that humans take the stuff every day versus a horse getting it a few times a year.

The most laughable theory yet is the idea that eliminating the treatment for an issue will ultimately eliminate the issue especially in the case of EIPH which has many causes and in a great deal of cases is a symptom of another issue. I have no great love of Lasix, if given another reasonable alternative I would most likely choose that. However acting as though a diuretic is some evil, nefarious drug is misguided. All it does is make them pee.

Again the idea that there is some huge crowd of gamblers waiting for the sport to get rid of the L in the program before they dive back in is crazy. There is a huge difference between an effective, workable anti-drug program and what is being proposed.

[thaskalos]

I agree that this issue should not have been left for Congress to decide...but there was ample time for another "more knowledgeable" group to step up with a more viable solution to this serious problem...and NONE did.

All we got were the slap-on-the-wrist fines for repeat offenders, resulting in 40%+ training "wizards" in every racing circuit...and petty excuses like..."Only a small percentage of the trainers cheat..."

Even in the article featured in this thread's initial post, "horse trainer" brings out the same tired argument of how "98.6 of the test samples come back negative...so it cannot be said with TRUTH that the drug use in this game is widespread."

Nary a mention of all the illegal drugs that manage to AVOID detection...because of the severely limited resources allocated to the proper testing of these samples.

I guess the bettors should have volunteered to pay for the "modernization" of the laboratories too...

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

I have been for closing half of all tracks for years now. I dont have to have a bad day to realize who the bad guys are in this game.

The game is so much worse than it was ten years ago.......the disappointment is almost immeasurable on some levels. Between the super trainers cheating their way to wealth on the back of the players to the west coast imbeciles who actually believe raising the price on a declining product is good business sense, I have to ask why the hell do I care about this shit sport that is constantly in search of some new way to survive and pick my pocket at the same time.

That question is coming up more and more............

Final something we can agree on. Well put.

[cj]

Cannon, has Lasix has been used as a masking agent? I'm no expert here, but that argument is used often. What do you say?

[Kelso]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

Scare tactic? That is not a scare tactic, it is a logical assumption. They are going to look for the largest pool of money and attach to it.

Not logical at all; simply self-serving. The politicians will tax the least potent voting group. That's you, horseman.

Your self-delusive "logical assumption" remains nothing other than a scare tactic ... and you failed miserably with it.