Joe Drape NY Times article today

[highnote]

Joe Draper asks if the sport of horse racing is becoming obsolete.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/s...ype=collection

[Tom]

Joe Draper should become obsolete.
What a scumbag and a fraud of a writer he is.
Don't waste your time reading anything this bum wirtes.

He hates racing, hates NYRA, and is a bottom feeder.

Clip his columns and use them for toilet paper.

[LemonSoupKid]

Funny how stereotypical the article, and the comments are. But looking at the source, no wonder.

[highnote]

Drugs have ruined the game. So in that sense he is on target with his column. Even the breeder Hancock agrees that drugs need to be eliminated.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by highnote

Drugs have ruined the game. So in that sense he is on target with his column. Even the breeder Hancock agrees that drugs need to be eliminated.

Maybe the game was already ruined and thus the need for drugs to begin with.

[highnote]

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

Maybe the game was already ruined and thus the need for drugs to begin with.

Maybe. I don't know how anyone could think drugs would help.

Do parents fill up their kids with drugs before they take the field to play soccer? It's common sense that drugs should not be used to enhance performance or to mask pain during performance.

Masking pain in racehorses so that they can perform puts the jockey at risk, too.

Hancock is more of an expert on the industry than I will ever be. If he thinks drugs in racing are bad then he is probably right.

[cj]

[horses4courses]

Be funny if it weren't a serious issue.

Are we really happy with the current state of affairs?

[highnote]

Here are some notable excerpts from the article:

In the late 1980s, Rob Whiteley, who taught counseling psychology at Rutgers before entering the horse business, helped transform Carl Icahn’s Foxfield thoroughbred operation into a moneymaking commercial breeding concern. Then he struck out on his own, bred 19 Grade I winners and landed on the important industry boards that consider rules about the treatment of horses.

“They truly ignored the negative trend in perception and lived in a bubble of self-deception, either not caring or not grasping how many people were turned off by the uses of drugs and the sight of riders hitting horses with whips,” said Whiteley, who sold his horses in 2012, unable to weather the financial crisis. “I could not recommend anyone coming into the business.”

In 2012, Arthur B. Hancock III and his wife, Staci, founded the Water Hay Oats Alliance with the mission of getting drugs out of racing.

The group, along with the Jockey Club, helped shape a federal bill introduced in March with bipartisan support to create a uniform national standard for drug testing and medication rules in racehorses that would be overseen by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Notably, Churchill Downs Inc., the host of America’s most famous race, and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the Senate majority leader, who counts the company among his top patrons, do not support the bill.

In a memo obtained by The New York Times that lays out Churchill Downs’s opposition to the bill, the company cites costs and the fact that trainers and veterinarian groups are against the measure. It also asks whether having the support of the Humane Society of the United States is “letting the fox in the henhouse.”

The company also points to the antidoping agency’s role in bringing down the cyclist Lance Armstrong, suggesting Usada might find much wrong and could not be trusted to keep information out of the public eye.

The Louisville Courier-Journal recently proclaimed Churchill Downs one of the “deadliest racetracks” in America and reported that the track had lost 43 thoroughbreds to racing injuries since 2016, an average of 2.42 per 1,000 starts, which was 50 percent higher than the national average during the same time.

[highnote]

Alex Harthill is the famous KY Derby vet of something 10 Derby champions.

Jay Hovdey or DRF said Harthill told him he had given Northern Dancer Lasix before his KY Derby win. That was in 1964 before the rest of the world knew about.

Harthill believed in giving drugs to racehorses because he felt it leveled the playing field because it made sore horses run better. It was often said that Harthill enjoyed making a dishonest buck more than an honest one.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/der...ddiction-80640

The main thing is, don't be naïve and think that all owners, trainers, and racetrack owners put the well-being of horses first. To many of them a horse is livestock to be treated with the same indifference that a hog or cow farmer treats their livestock.

[Grits]

I remember when Joe Drape liked horse racing. ... Funny how people change ain't it. Probably a soccer dad now.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by Grits

I remember when Joe Drape liked horse racing. ... Funny how people change ain't it. Probably a soccer dad now.

I was thinking the same thing. Lots of pissed off players out there.

Damn shame what has happened to the game

[castaway01]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

I was thinking the same thing. Lots of pissed off players out there.

Damn shame what has happened to the game

You're saying the opposite though---Grits and Tom are saying Drape has changed and is bitter, while guys like you and Highnote are saying that Drape and others are upset for good reason.

[cj]

Originally Posted by horses4courses

Be funny if it weren't a serious issue.

Are we really happy with the current state of affairs?

I've been talking against Lasix for several years. It has been terrible for the game IMO. My little image isn't going to change anyone's mind or cause any harm.

[jocko699]

Originally Posted by cj

I've been talking against Lasix for several years. It has been terrible for the game IMO. My little image isn't going to change anyone's mind or cause any harm.

Totally agree along with the over-saturation of tracks due to casinos. You made a great point with the image CJ!