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

[toussaud]

Originally Posted by comet52

Horsemen will adjust and eventually thank the congress for weaning them off their addiction to dope.

This post is so spot on it's not even funny.

Like a real person addicted to drugs, when someone tries to do the right thing and intervene, the person who is being intervened usually throws a temper tantrum, blames everyone else except themselves, makes threats and so on and so forth

and usually if that person can stay clean, a while later they are thankful that it happened.

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. His thoughts on the subject are irrelevant because he's not coming from the right state of mind to provide an accurate assessment of what needs to be done. He is thinking, of what rue can he pull to keep his or her drug supply from drying up.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

the drug bill can only improve racing. i rather see 3 horse fields with horses that are not on drugs than 12 horses that have horses in them that are stoned out of their minds.

question #1- What track currently runs a bunch of 12 horse field?
question #2- Since you claim to be horse savvy do you really think a shot of Lasix makes horses "stoned out of their minds"?
question #3- Did you actually read the bill?

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by comet52

Horsemen will adjust and eventually thank the congress for weaning them off their addiction to dope.

How can you adjust when they have basically eliminated all of the rules? You are far more likely to be addicted to dope than a racehorse.

Perhaps someday you will be sick and when you go to the doctor he will say just go rest in a field for a few months, we dont want you to get addicted to dope.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

The impassioned plea of "Horse Trainer" is duly noted...but I have a question for HIM:

While he was training horses and earning untold "millions" for his clients...did he ever stop to consider the plight of the horseplayer...who, after all, shoulders the burden of making sure that those MILLIONS of dollars remain available for the taking?

Why couldn't the racing "industry" take the proper measures to clean up this game BEFORE this government intervention? Didn't they have enough time?

Haven't there been enough veterinarians speaking out against this injustice, throughout the country?

I can still remember a "60 MINUTES" special in the mid-1970s...where Illinois veterinarians were revealing that illegal drug use in that state was getting so rampant...it was almost impossible for the horseplayer to make an educated choice while playing this game.

And yet, the industry continued with "business as usual"...with the horsemen getting "fat" on the subsequent full-card simulcasting and casino infused purses.

And now the horsemen are looking for sympathy from the horseplayers?

Truth IS stranger than fiction...

I wonder why you think horseman and horseplayer are mutually exclusive? What exactly is it that I could do for you? Do I have the ability to make the tracks or states lower takeout? Why do horseplayer's want sympathy from horseman? We acknowledge your importance in the grand scheme but we have a long list of our own issues to try to solve as well. Acting like horseman are getting "fat" is like saying that horseplayers are all getting fat on big pick 6 carryovers.

Perhaps if you read the piece you would have seen the part where I pointed out that among the real problems of the game, high takeout is a big problem.

And if you are convinced since the 70's that the game is fixed, why remain? That is a serious question.

I am asking for no sympathy, just pointing out the issues that this bill will create while solving no issues at all. Please keep in mind that the people who are behind this bill care less about you than about us and it is pretty obvious how they consider us. Keep getting the Feds involved and it won't be long until a Federal surcharge is slapped on all bets to pay for the bureaucratic monster that needs to be created.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

I don't have to read the bill. I don't have to go any further than knowing the guy who wrote this article is a trainer. That tells me where he is coming from. Enough said.

I hope the bill tears the ass end out of half the tracks in America and they shut down. Then maybe the game could be saved. For too long this game has been shitting on its fans. This bill passing might make some of these crooks go away. Things can't get much worse.

Did you have a bad day or something dude? I know it is hard for some to comprehend but this bill gives cheater a bigger edge.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by toussaud

This post is so spot on it's not even funny.

Like a real person addicted to drugs, when someone tries to do the right thing and intervene, the person who is being intervened usually throws a temper tantrum, blames everyone else except themselves, makes threats and so on and so forth

and usually if that person can stay clean, a while later they are thankful that it happened.

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. His thoughts on the subject are irrelevant because he's not coming from the right state of mind to provide an accurate assessment of what needs to be done. He is thinking, of what rue can he pull to keep his or her drug supply from drying up.

You better hope paceadvantage doesn't come up with an IQ requirement.

[FenceBored]

Originally Posted by 5k-claim

Since I will have to live with this bill beyond just voting "Yes" after devoting about 10 seconds to saying, "It's about time something was done. The trainers are all a bunch of cheats.", I went ahead and took you up on your offer to read this.

I guess all of the "details" in the bill are to come later?

Under definitions:
I have also read and/or referenced the 'Uniform Classification Guidelines for Foreign Substances' from time to time. It is noteworthy to me that the Guidelines go to great lengths to group drugs into Classifications ranging from 1-5. For example, Heroin gets a "1", and Tylenol gets a "4". It also recommends penalties based on those Classifications. The Classifications are what I reference, and all of this seems reasonable enough to me.

What is somewhat confusing to me is that the Alphabetized Listing of Drugs that the bill is using to define "The term `performance-enhancing drug'" is just that, an alphabetized listing of all of them. From heroin to tylenol. I don't know if the bill's authors do not even realize that the different Classifications even exist, but I would like to know what distinctions between drugs the bill intends to make. Is the intention to use the Classifications set forth by the ARCI?

As quoted from the bill above, the bill's definition of 'performance-enhancing drug' could really mean just about anything at the moment.

What I need is what people need all over the world, whether they are racing in the supposed utopia of "drug-free rest of the world" or "drug infested America"- and that is a simple list of withdrawal times. Heck, I can even live with the list the British Horseracing Authority provides for its horsemen to use in making sure the therapeutic drugs they are using during training are sufficiently out of the horse's system by the time the "drug free" raceday comes along.

Too bad the bill doesn't provide that list.

Without knowing any details about how this bill would actually work, it is hard for me to give it the "thumbs up" at the moment. And I have no idea how anyone else could, either.

Thanks again for the invitation to actually read this, FenceBored. There is either a more comprehensive version of this bill somewhere, or else there is still a lot of details to be worked out.

.

Details like that won't be in the bill. They'll be left up to regulators in the appropriate Federal agency.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

I wonder why you think horseman and horseplayer are mutually exclusive? What exactly is it that I could do for you? Do I have the ability to make the tracks or states lower takeout? Why do horseplayer's want sympathy from horseman? We acknowledge your importance in the grand scheme but we have a long list of our own issues to try to solve as well. Acting like horseman are getting "fat" is like saying that horseplayers are all getting fat on big pick 6 carryovers.

Perhaps if you read the piece you would have seen the part where I pointed out that among the real problems of the game, high takeout is a big problem.

And if you are convinced since the 70's that the game is fixed, why remain? That is a serious question.

I am asking for no sympathy, just pointing out the issues that this bill will create while solving no issues at all. Please keep in mind that the people who are behind this bill care less about you than about us and it is pretty obvious how they consider us. Keep getting the Feds involved and it won't be long until a Federal surcharge is slapped on all bets to pay for the bureaucratic monster that needs to be created.

The industry and the horsemen have been in control long enough, WITHOUT any interference from the Feds, my friend...and we have all seen what a wonderful job they have done running this game. Did you guys really expect to be allowed to run this game COMPLETELY into the ground, before the Feds moved in?

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

Horsemen trying to deceive us by legal or illegal means...racetracks robbing us blind with escalating takeouts to make up for income lost because of gross mismanagement of their product...and then you say that YOU guys "have a long list of YOUR OWN issues to solve"...before you can concern yourselves with our affairs?

If you think training horses is a tough way to make a living...try betting on them!

[Kelso]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

Keep getting the Feds involved and it won't be long until a Federal surcharge is slapped on all bets to pay for the bureaucratic monster that needs to be created.

Or, perhaps the (popularly elected) feds will recognize that there are a HELL of a lot more handicappers than horsemen and will slap the surcharge on purses. Hey ... now THERE'S an idea!

[lamboguy]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

question #1- What track currently runs a bunch of 12 horse field?
question #2- Since you claim to be horse savvy do you really think a shot of Lasix makes horses "stoned out of their minds"?
question #3- Did you actually read the bill?

i didn't read the bill. i hate lassix, kentucky red, bute and all the other stuff the vets stick in horses.

its pretty sad that horseracing needs the congress to straighten out what they should have done by themselves. of course the law is useless. all over the world where they don't allow drugs they have thousands of people at the racetracks watching the horses. some of the places have worse horses that run all day than they did at yavapai, or ferndale. yet they have people all over the place. they can get people to watch slow horses without drugs, yet we can't get em in the stands to watch fast horses all druged up.


i don't need to read bills, you need to watch racing overseas.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

The industry and the horsemen have been in control long enough, WITHOUT any interference from the Feds, my friend...and we have all seen what a wonderful job they have done running this game. Did you guys really expect to be allowed to run this game COMPLETELY into the ground, before the Feds moved in?

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

Horsemen trying to deceive us by legal or illegal means...racetracks robbing us blind with escalating takeouts to make up for income lost because of gross mismanagement of their product...and then you say that YOU guys "have a long list of YOUR OWN issues to solve"...before you can concern yourselves with our affairs?

If you think training horses is a tough way to make a living...try betting on them!

It is impossible to reason with those who are unreasonable.

If there was a bill that was slapping a 10% takeout on all winning bets do you think I would post here to gloat? What I am trying to convey is that 1. federal intervention is going to cost money. Where do you think that money is going to come from? and 2. the bill as written will not create the level playing field that everyone is looking for. It ignores the reality that horses are living creatures with physical issues like every other living being. Ignoring that they ALL have issues of some varying degree like this bill does will make it impossible to properly treat and care for them which will surely lead to more erratic form. Not to mention that there is no provisions for further research or investigation into illicit drugs that the genius trainers use so in effect they are getting a bigger head start. The idea that Lasix "masks" drugs is both incorrect and misses the point that you don't have to mask what they don't know how to test for.

But hey keep blaming me for your woes. You won't see me cursing or wishing you ill because you dont bet enough for my liking.

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by Kelso

Or, perhaps the (popularly elected) feds will recognize that there are a HELL of a lot more handicappers than horsemen and will slap the surcharge on purses. Hey ... now THERE'S an idea!

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.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Cannon shell

It is impossible to reason with those who are unreasonable.

If there was a bill that was slapping a 10% takeout on all winning bets do you think I would post here to gloat? What I am trying to convey is that 1. federal intervention is going to cost money. Where do you think that money is going to come from? and 2. the bill as written will not create the level playing field that everyone is looking for. It ignores the reality that horses are living creatures with physical issues like every other living being. Ignoring that they ALL have issues of some varying degree like this bill does will make it impossible to properly treat and care for them which will surely lead to more erratic form. Not to mention that there is no provisions for further research or investigation into illicit drugs that the genius trainers use so in effect they are getting a bigger head start. The idea that Lasix "masks" drugs is both incorrect and misses the point that you don't have to mask what they don't know how to test for.

But hey keep blaming me for your woes. You won't see me cursing or wishing you ill because you dont bet enough for my liking.

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 lie in 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..."

[Cannon shell]

Originally Posted by lamboguy

i didn't read the bill. i hate lassix, kentucky red, bute and all the other stuff the vets stick in horses.

its pretty sad that horseracing needs the congress to straighten out what they should have done by themselves. of course the law is useless. all over the world where they don't allow drugs they have thousands of people at the racetracks watching the horses. some of the places have worse horses that run all day than they did at yavapai, or ferndale. yet they have people all over the place. they can get people to watch slow horses without drugs, yet we can't get em in the stands to watch fast horses all druged up.


i don't need to read bills, you need to watch racing overseas.

Pretty sad that you couldn't be bothered to read a 7 page double spaced bill yet feel qualified to comment on it?

I not only have been to other countries I have friends that train in France, England and Hong Kong. Guess what??? They use drugs there too!

You know what they all want to know? What new drugs are there that they can get their hands on. The ironic part about this overseas nonsense is that horses in England and France make fewer starts per year than US horses.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Kelso

Or, perhaps the (popularly elected) feds will recognize that there are a HELL of a lot more handicappers than horsemen and will slap the surcharge on purses. Hey ... now THERE'S an idea!

As usual...the voice of reason!