Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tarnishing the image with both hands

Have we had enough yet?

A horse trained by Rick Dutrow, the Darth Vader of racing, tests positive for twice the prescribed limit of clenbuterol in Kentucky.

A Steve Asmussen-trained horse tests positive for lidocaine in Texas.

Jeremy Rose slashes a mare across the eye in a race at Delaware Park and is suspended for six months. Rose, known for his punishing whip, claims it was an accident. Yeah, right.

If Rose raised the ire of animal rights activists, and he most certainly got their attention in the current climate, Dutrow and Asmussen emerge as examples of exactly why the sport is in such dire straits. Is anyone playing by the rules? Apparently not the trainer of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner or the man with what is currently considered the best horse in the world in his care.

A trainer with Dutrow’s long history of transgression – 72 individual rulings and at least one medication violation in each of the last eight years -- in a more reasonable world, would no longer be licensed to train horses involved in races on which pari-mutuel wagering is conducted. He is, quite simply, an embarrassment, a man who would extol the beneficial properties of anabolic steroids in the weeks before his star example of the power of Winstrol became perhaps the greatest train wreck in the history of the Triple Crown and in one week failed to appear when summoned to testify before a Congressional committee and was suspended for a ridiculously lenient 15 days by the Kentucky Racing Authority. Asmussen only last year served a long suspension for a medication violation and Racing Commissioners International shows a total of 74 rulings against the trainer of Curlin, two more than Dutrow.


These are the most high-profile names in racing at the moment – a moment in which there is much breast-beating, reflection, accusation and examination in progress with the sport’s underside exposed and vulnerable.

While thousands of people make a living at this sport while working hard and playing by the rules, their stories and accomplishments go unnoticed while rogues are wildly enriched.

The stories that have drawn the widest attention in the span of a year were those of two dead horses – Barbaro and Eight Belles – injured on national television with a large part of the audience made up of casual observers, those who could be drawn to deeper interest but are instead left horrified. The horse at the center of the story that dominated the recent Triple Crown – the sport’s single most powerful marketing vehicle – was overshadowed by his trainer’s history of habitual transgression, outspoken support for a substance it is generally agreed will be illegal in every jurisdiction by year’s end and a group of owners with sketchy backgrounds. Throw Asmussen, Jeremy Rose and perhaps Patrick Biancone, who was evicted from Europe and Hong Kong before moving to the United States and is on long sabbatical after the discovery of cobra venom in his barn at Keeneland last year. Racing is having a hell of a year.

The current malaise will not lighten until there is an imposition of accountability, proper and reasonable punishment of offenses, a ban of all race-day medication and a zero tolerance policy enforced vigorously in ever jurisdiction by a central – or, if necessary, federal authority. You asked for it.




Check out Paul Moran on Blogspot At the Races