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Old 07-10-2018, 01:34 PM   #1
papillon
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Arthur Hancock III On Lasix and Doping

https://www.paulickreport.com/news/r...g-a-lone-wolf/

This is something you'll never see at Bloodhorse. TLDR: American racing is an embarassment due to doping.

Steve Haskin has what may be the most offensively assinine essay that has ever been written in this sport over at Bloodhorse right now:

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/horse...-All-Time.aspx

TLDR: Bob Baffert is the greatest HORSE of all time, and that the frankenhorse combination of AP, Arrogate, and Justify are the greatest single horse, not 3 of the greatest but a mashed together frankenhorse, of all time.

Until a year ago, he maintained that Spectacular Bid was the greatest horse of all time.

When creating a frankenhorse, it seems to me you'd take the fastest horse, who could carry more weight than horse in history, along with the horse with the most tenacity and refusal to be passed, along with the horse with the most consistant and long career at the very top of the sport, with stamina to bare, who was also one of the most beloved, maybe the most beloved of all time, all of who ran before Lasix, and especially, EPO, but what do I know, other than there are no coincidences in money and respectable people never become hacks without kickbacks.

Also at Paulick, there is a poll where over 79% say supertrainers are bad for the sport, yet Haskin names one of the most prominent the greatest HORSE of all time.

I'm 46, I never thought I would outlive this sport. It's heartbreaking.
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Old 07-10-2018, 01:56 PM   #2
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Now, how many tracks was it that you all believe shall still be racing in...etc, etc?


Arthur Hancock, III is right.
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Old 07-10-2018, 03:17 PM   #3
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If the new normal is that no really good male with breeding value races for more than a few races before retirement, then fans will have to live with that. But if that's the case, I would caution people to just not elevate 4 race wonders into the pantheon of greatness. These horses may be fast, but they just aren't doing what horses in the past did.

Personally, if I had a vote, I wouldn't vote American Pharaoh into the Hall of Fame. I would, however, vote Beholder, California Chrome, and Game on Dude in. Even though AP was a better horse than any of them, he just didn't have enough races and they had long careers. And if Justify runs once more in the BC Classic and then retires (as is looking more and more likely), I wouldn't vote him in either.
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Old 07-10-2018, 03:28 PM   #4
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Now, how many tracks was it that you all believe shall still be racing in...etc, etc?


Arthur Hancock, III is right.
The sport cannot exist without ordinary people being willing to spend their hard earned money on it.The record handle in the TC was not individual bets, but gigantic bets like the one that made a mockery of the Dwyer. It also can't exsist if odinary people think it is a joke.

Haskin is a bellwether. The insane push to prop up Arrogate, whose value nose dived when he turned into a pumpkin, and Justify, who all but one major figure maker has as ordinary at best, in a crop proving to be a joke, raises red flags, at least for people who deal with money.

Haskin couldn't have chosen a more tone deaf moment for that article, nor to have betrayed his good reputation that is as old as I am. When you do something as bizarre as he just did, something so out of character, all but pretty pony fanboys (though mostly girls in this instance) smell something foul. When you do it the day after the only horse in Justify's crop, who could potentially impact his value, lost in a classic speed duel scenario caused by horse that in doing so proved he could have absolutely pushed Justify in the Belmont, and a winner who freaked who is trained by a questionable trainer bet down sometime between 0 MTP and the speed duel, it's just plain cynical.

Small tracks are already dying, even my home track can't even fill the stands for the FL Derby, even though admission and parking are free. A mall is what keeps GP alive, what pays the property taxes that would already have shuttered it. The very same mall most purists hate. Hialeah has been dead for decades, Calder is as good as dead. If GP is on a knife's edge, do you think really the sport can survive a complete loss confidence in its integrity? I drive down 20 minutes to place all of my bets in person out of solidarity. But after the TC and the Dwyer, I can't really see why it's worth the gas anymore.

I come from a sport that was a 100 years old when I was in it. I out lived it before I was 30. It is WWF on two wheels now, and that descent began in the early 1990s. We had all the tells that people are just waking up to now in this sport, whose descent followed right on our heels, using the data we had amassed as voluntary human guinea pigs.

Those Baffert horses, who died while on the thyroid medication, which is banned in human sports because it helps shed weight, without power, maximizing the weight to power ratio? The Warfarin excuse to explain it? Well Warfarin is a human blood thinner that is banned in human sports because it thins the blood masking EPO usage, which thickens the blood. It also is an emergency drug for atheletes, whose blood has become too thick. It is no longer used as a medication in humans, because of its risk of severe, uncontrollable internal bleeding. The amount a horse would need to consume to induce internal bleeding is massive, but people absolve Haskin's GHOAT Baffert because they want to believe incidental quantities used to kill rats is enough to do anything to a horse at all. But that is changing. Rapidly.

It will take the equivalent of Lance Armstrong, who was propped up and shielded by the UCI, to bring down this sport completely, which has been dead to the general public for decades other than for one race a year, which has become pagent of the absurd.

Google Smarty Jones' Belmont ratings, then pull up AP's and Justify's and tell me this sport is going to survive, esp if core supporters walk away from it in disgust.

I've seen your condescending, snide "etc, etc's" before in cycling by the general public before the emperor's nudity could no longer be ignored. I've also seen the lightspeed back peddling of those who uttered them when Lance Armstrong, who everyone in the sport knew was dopped to the gills for 15 years, was finally exposed. Did you perchance have a yellow bracelet?

You know what got him? F#!king over Floyd Landis, who went to the DOJ, not for doping but for Armstrong being involved in illegal drug trade--you can't carry and distribute pharmaceuticals in the US without a license, carrying them across national borders is drug trafficking.

If the federal law passes, and god I hope it does, a lot of trainers and vets will be exposed to charges of controlled substance felonies. Vets have to be licensed in each state, to administer and distribute pharmaceuticals. Non-vets can't under any circumstances. There will be a Floyd Landis. The events since the Belmont prove that. And that is the end of this sport, because no one will tolerate the proof that horses are doped with life threatening human medications. It is tolerated now, because people can still pretend maybe it is not true. If the sport is exposed to massive gambling manipulation and fraud, again, coffin nails. If it comes out people like Haskin and Gary Young are getting incentives, and esp if it comes out figure makers are getting incentives, the sport is dead.

YMMV, but if you'd like to place a future's bet that this sport is still alive by the time I'm 80, I'll take it.

Last edited by papillon; 07-10-2018 at 03:34 PM. Reason: Smiley appeared out of nowhere
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Old 07-10-2018, 03:38 PM   #5
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I support the federal legislation, but don't assume it is a panacea. Regulatory capture happens all the time at the federal level-- the regulated entities and people are the most likely to have interest in serving on the boards and will do tons of lobbying.

It is completely possible that unless Congress specifically bans Lasix in the statute, the new federal regulators will come to the conclusion, urged by their friends in the industry, that Lasix is essential and we will be back to square 1.
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Old 07-10-2018, 03:39 PM   #6
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"As with any problem, there is always the question of, “How did we get here?” The simple answer is that cheating has always been at the doorstep of racing. However, the door was flung open when in the 1951 case of Fink v. Cole, the New York courts struck down the authority of The Jockey Club to regulate the rules of racing.

This kicked regulatory functions to the various state racing commissions, eliminating uniformity in the conduct of racing, including what types and amounts of medication would be allowed. Without a central authority, regulation now depends solely on the various state racing commissions, which today are neither uniform nor without political influences in their oversight of our industry. This is precisely why the passage of the Horseracing Integrity Act is so important if we wish to free ourselves from the scourge of drugs in racing."

Say's it all here, without some national standards, the door is wide open to abuse by those who want to do it.
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Old 07-10-2018, 03:43 PM   #7
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Only way to get peoples attention is for the FBI to do a deep investigation into the operations of a couple big names. Would probably take a couple years but if would be effective.



Last edited by Andy Asaro; 07-10-2018 at 03:52 PM.
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Old 07-10-2018, 04:18 PM   #8
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Only way to get peoples attention is for the FBI to do a deep investigation into the operations of a couple big names. Would probably take a couple years but if would be effective.

https://twitter.com/jockeyclub/statu...32552391020544

https://twitter.com/racetrackandy/st...71650052763648
The FBI can only investigate if there is a pssible federal crime. (Not simply a regulatory infaction-- those are handled by regulatory agencies-- a crime.)

What part of 18 USC are you contending these "big names" violated?
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Old 07-10-2018, 04:30 PM   #9
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If the new normal is that no really good male with breeding value races for more than a few races before retirement, then fans will have to live with that. But if that's the case, I would caution people to just not elevate 4 race wonders into the pantheon of greatness. These horses may be fast, but they just aren't doing what horses in the past did.

Personally, if I had a vote, I wouldn't vote American Pharaoh into the Hall of Fame. I would, however, vote Beholder, California Chrome, and Game on Dude in. Even though AP was a better horse than any of them, he just didn't have enough races and they had long careers. And if Justify runs once more in the BC Classic and then retires (as is looking more and more likely), I wouldn't vote him in either.
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Old 07-10-2018, 08:26 PM   #10
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Just curious. Not to dispute Mr. Hancock's claim that racehorses treated with Lasix lose from 25 to 30 pounds (assuming urine) in the hours leading up to a race, but in all my years of watching horses in post parades, I cannot remember a single incident where a horse urinates on the track.


Whereas the opposite can be said for manure deposited there, while in the post parade or while loading in the gate.



Why is this???
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Old 07-10-2018, 08:32 PM   #11
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The FBI can only investigate if there is a pssible federal crime. (Not simply a regulatory infaction-- those are handled by regulatory agencies-- a crime.)

What part of 18 USC are you contending these "big names" violated?
Maybe you ought to give me the parts of 18 USC that may have been violated so there can be an investigation. Surely you don't believe that racing can police itself?
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Old 07-10-2018, 10:17 PM   #12
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Maybe you ought to give me the parts of 18 USC that may have been violated so there can be an investigation. Surely you don't believe that racing can police itself?
I don't believe racing can police itself. Nor does it. The federal legislation seems a good idea because state regulators seem to have been captured.

But all that said, the FBI doesn't go out and start investigating people absent evidence of a federal crime.
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Old 07-10-2018, 10:32 PM   #13
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I don't believe racing can police itself. Nor does it. The federal legislation seems a good idea because state regulators seem to have been captured.

But all that said, the FBI doesn't go out and start investigating people absent evidence of a federal crime.
All it takes is one big name to go down and then all the necessary legislation will follow. Doping and profiting from it has to be illegal. When the FBI asks the right questions people will have to decide whether to lie or tell the truth and I seriously doubt they will all lie under that kind of scrutiny.

One falls they all fall and the game will be cleaned up.
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Old 07-11-2018, 04:49 AM   #14
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And if Justify runs once more in the BC Classic and then retires (as is looking more and more likely), I wouldn't vote him in either.
I never thought Justify would run at all again......... Now, it is looking like he won't.

(you know, because "they love him so much!" )

Smarty Jones and Justify or AP don't even belong in the same sentence AFAIC.
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Old 07-11-2018, 05:23 AM   #15
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One falls they all fall and the game will be cleaned up.
how many times were the Feds over at Penn Nat?

Really cleaned it up.......NOT.
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