Will Justify get DQ'd?

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Robert Fischer

But would that really be in the best interest of the sport?

To abruptly start enforcing the rule in the Santa Anita Derby??

Gotta start somewhere.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by GMB@BP

He didnt have an edge, he tested clean in the TC races.

This is a complete non sequitur. There are many, many examples of athletes who were not clean but passed drug tests.

[jay68802]

Originally Posted by Jeff P

Option A.) Announce the test results to the public right away? (And let the chips fall where they may?)

Option B.) Not tell anybody? Wait until after the Super Bowl? Then hold a closed door session months later and quietly sweep it under the rug? And while you're at it change the rule after the fact and significantly reduce the penalty for the banned substance in question?


-jp

.

The biggest problem with the whole situation is right there. I can see waiting until they had all of the information they needed, and then doing something. But instead, they give the impression of trying to hide everything. This becomes a very small blip if they would have just issued a public ruling on it when they were done. By not doing that, they made this a lot bigger issue than it would have been.

And now the governor has appointed two new members the the CHRB. Exactly what horse racing in Cali needs right now.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by jay68802

T But instead, they give the impression of trying to hide everything.

One of the real problems with the way people speak of problems in horse racing is all the qualifications and euphamisms.

They weren't "giving the impression of trying to hide everything". They were hiding everything. We need to say that loud and clear.

This was not the appearance of impropriety. This was impropriety. It was impropriety even if you think the positive test itself was no big deal. There's a proper procedure here, and that is to have a public hearing and if you are going to clear the horse, to do it in public with public evidence and with everyone knowing exactly what you are doing.

[horsefan2019]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

if i was NBC, CBS, Fox and all the other simulcast shows, i would no longer broadcast this junk. they could replace the broadcast with professional wrestling. at least they would not be fooling the public that watches them.

I'm pretty sure the networks only care about ratings....and last I knew they were bringing WWE back onto network TV....

[Blenheim]

Sad and disgusting part about it is Bamboozlin' Bob will never be held accountable; got away with it.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This is a complete non sequitur. There are many, many examples of athletes who were not clean but passed drug tests.

of course, I was using the actual evidence that exists. Is that how they do it in court? The tests say your good to go but we all know better....nod nod, wink wink. Off to jail?

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by GMB@BP

of course, I was using the actual evidence that exists. Is that how they do it in court? The tests say your good to go but we all know better....nod nod, wink wink. Off to jail?

We aren't in court here. You claimed that Justify was clean in the TC. We don't know that. We only know he passed whatever tests were administered.

Be aware that a test is not considered the only competent evidence of doping, even in court. Any number of track athletes have been suspended or disqualified despite passing their drug tests, based on medical records, eyewitness testimony, and other competent forms of evidence.

Indeed, it is VERY important that nobody get sucked into "anyone who passes a test is clean". That has nothing to do with due process and is not a legal standard. It's basically an invitation for people to just go ahead and circumvent drug tests in whatever way possible.

What should happen- but of course won't- is a full inquiry of Justify's entire career. Let's get people on the record. Obviously someone leaked this inquiry to Joe Drape. Maybe there's some veterinary assistant out there who is willing to say what really went on.

But no way am I going to declare this horse clean in all his other races. At BEST, he hasn't been conclusively proven dirty yet.

[papillon]

Originally Posted by alhattab

A little different than Dancers Image. Justify failed the post race test in the SA Derby, which qualified him for the KY Derby. He didn’t fail any post race TC test as far as we know

Churchill maintains he passed both their OCT and post-race tests, but the SA Derby was only 3 weeks before, and the amount he tested positive for was quite high, so there was no time for him to have metabolized it. He should have still failed.

If he had been a $16k claimer from a hated trainer, he would have tested positive me thinks.

Lance Armstrong didn't pass all of those tests, he "passed" them. The UCI never tested a single sample of his after the positive he had in his first Tour win, which should have gotten him tossed from the race. Instead they got $150k centrifuge from him, and the positive was supressed for over a year.

[Redboard]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Regulatory capture. The Meatpacking Commission is generally full of meatpacking plant owners. The Cemetery Board is full of funeral directors. And the Horse Racing Board is full of people who have interests in the industry.

A certain amount of this is actually unavoidable, because you actually need some level of expertise. If you just took 7 random California civilians who knew nothing about horse racing, they wouldn't know the first thing about regulating the sport.

But this is why the Brown Act and open meetings are so important. This way, they have to do whatever they do IN PUBLIC. And this entire thing would have gone down differently if they had done it in public. There would have been calls to disqualify Justify as soon as the positive test was revealed, NBC would have covered it as a major story and a major embarrassment to the sport going into the Kentucky Derby, there would have been pressure on Churchill not to accept the entry, etc.

You forgot the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Another example of the inmates running the asylum. The upper management had always been stocked with industry insiders including former pilots and airline officials. They would act more like a partner to the industry instead of a supervisor. Finally came to a head in 2007 when two FAA whistleblowers attempted to ground Southwest after finding cracks in the fuselage of an aircraft, but were prevented by FAA supervisors that were said to be friendly with the airline.

This is the problem with the horse racing state commissions. I agree with Bks. Take seven people (don't have to be off the street, but maybe just out of law school). These commissions have the power to close tracks or fine them, but that never happens.

[lex]

I admittedly haven't had time to read the stories on this yet so I have a couple of questions. Well one actually. Is this because of the amount of time it takes to get the tests back and the Derby was over by the time they got the results?

If there isn't enough turn around time between a points earning race and the Derby how do we know this hasn't happened before? I don't know anything about how the testing works so I have no idea if this can be sped up or what but I'm sure people here have some clue.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by lex

I admittedly haven't had time to read the stories on this yet so I have a couple of questions. Well one actually. Is this because of the amount of time it takes to get the tests back and the Derby was over by the time they got the results?

If there isn't enough turn around time between a points earning race and the Derby how do we know this hasn't happened before? I don't know anything about how the testing works so I have no idea if this can be sped up or what but I'm sure people here have some clue.

It's worth noting that there's probably even a bit of chicanery even in that.

You can expedite testing. It happens all the time in other contexts. If you are pulled over for DUI and request a blood test, and then appeal your per se license suspension, you have the right to an almost immediate hearing. Somehow, the government always has the results of your blood test at that hearing.

If the CHRB had wanted to know the result of both splits of this sample before the Kentucky Derby, they certainly could have arranged things so this would have happened.

[papillon]

Originally Posted by sandpit

P.S. I'm going to a function tomorrow (not the Keeneland sale), where there will be literally hundreds of breeders, so hopefully I'll get to hear some thoughts and report back to everyone here.

I saw Magnier/Coolmore's tweet dismissing it with, "It's before we got involved, and we're keeping him!" It seems flippant given this will certainly cause them more than a few legal headaches.

If I paid $150k to breed to him, believing he was the only undefeated TC champion (discounting Slew because he kept racing, thereby increasing the likelihood of a loss), and a rare specimen of raw talent, I think I'd be looking for my money back. Who wants to shell out $1m for yearling from a disgraced, unproven sire?

Without the SA Derby, he doesn't win the KY Derby, because he doesn't qualify, the window for positive tests would likely have excluded him from the Preakness and the Belmont too, and he likely would have had to have been shelved till Fall to try to let the controversy die down.

A horse who failed a dope test, cannot be allowed to retain HOY and Champion 3yo. Even if his TC isn't stripped, no one would have voted for him over Accelerate and whoever the unforgettable 3yo in 2nd place was last year. They just wouldn't, TC be damned.

Also, he would have likely been excluded from the BC, who tested him the day after his win in the SA Derby. There is no way he didn't fail that test. So he was never going to run in the BC.

Churchill should do the right thing and disqualify him from the KY Derby, and raise up Good Magic. He did not qualify to run in the race, so there is no way he could have won it. SA should disqualify him from the SA Derby and raise up Bolt.

I'd be really interested in how those who've paid money for his reputation alone feel right now.

[papillon]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

It's worth noting that there's probably even a bit of chicanery even in that.

You can expedite testing. It happens all the time in other contexts. If you are pulled over for DUI and request a blood test, and then appeal your per se license suspension, you have the right to an almost immediate hearing. Somehow, the government always has the results of your blood test at that hearing.

If the CHRB had wanted to know the result of both splits of this sample before the Kentucky Derby, they certainly could have arranged things so this would have happened.

As per the articles, the test results were known before the Derby.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by papillon

As per the articles, the test results were known before the Derby.

I thought the split sample (confirming test) came back 3 days after the KY Derby. (They certainly knew that he had failed the initial test before the KD, though. And as I said, they could have had the split sample test back before the Derby if they wanted to.)