Mine, either. It is the weather;-)Originally Posted by Somnambulist
Mine, either. It is the weather;-)
How much more do the American people, regardless of political leanings, know -- and I mean real, firsthand knowledge, not just what Hannity or Maddow tell you on their nightly half-truth-fests -- about their government than their government knows about horse racing?
Those in the business will not cooperate with each other after decades of competiting. It is really that simple. The game is owed by greedy people who live to hurt each other's business. Nothing, and no one, will ever be able to stop it.
The DNA of racing is based on it, it is much like the middle east conflict, centuries later it carries on.....till there is no one left to carry on. Racing once thrived on it, and it will eventually die from it.
Everyone come home sound
If you want no raceday meds/drugs, then that change ain't gonna come from within racing. The reason there are raceday meds in the first place is because that is what the HBPA wants. It's in their economic interest to have horses running on raceday meds. Go listen to the Dale Romans interview from last week re: the Kentucky Lasix vote. That is the voice of most trainers/owners right there. Hancock, Strawbridge, Jacksons etc are in the minority (probably no accident that they are all old money blue bloods, not there is anything wrong with that, I wouldn't mind seeing them have more clout).
It's like letting the kids decide what's for dinner. You're gonna get cake and icecream every night. You need an adult there to tell them that they have to eat their veg and meat. Racing needs an adult (central body) in charge. Either 50 separate ones for each state (preferably all reading off the same page) or one for the country as a whole. The latter can't happen without the big bad Federal Gov getting involved.
Racing got off steroids thanks to a congressional hearing without the feds moving in, and it can get off raceway meds the same way.
Well, the threat of federal intervention is meant as a large prod by those using it. But the sport will just chase its tail until it happens or the tail is all..gone.
I wouldn't place the Jacksons as symbols of the "good" in racing. Frankly their ambition to "save" Barbaro was one of the most cruel and selfish acts I've witnessed. To put a horse through that extended torture simply to save him for a potential stud career was inhumane.
Getting back to the larger point, to simply hold a hearing with only the bluebloods and anti-medication factions represented makes such activities nothing but a bad joke. Horsemen deal with soundness, health, and performance issues each and every day and to purposely leave their voices out turns what could be an enlightening session into a sham. Horsemen at the middle and lower end of the spectrum are often dealing with a completely different set of issues than the upper crust of breeding and racing. After all, many of them are training the cast offs from the "blueblood" outfits.
As far as feds writing racing regulation, we only have to visit the recently dropped farm safety regulations. I read about half of the report before the new regs were dropped (I will finish just to see what else was in it) and my immediate impression was that these workplace rules were written by someone who didn't know the difference between a disc harrow and a hay baler. I certainly don't want a bureaucrat who doesn't know the difference between a fetlock and a coffin joint writing rules on how to deal with soundness issues.
Bloomberg, Obama, and Cuomo--the three mullahs of the American Taliban.
The regulation has already been written and the committee chairman is a sponsor. It's the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act and you can read it at the link...
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.1733.IH:
It includes the sort of harsh penalties many here have called for.
Under the terms of the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978 the feds can shut down advanced deposit account wagering any time they want to. There have also been bills introduced to directly tax the individual accounts themselves.
So that's the threat to the industry, along with many of us.
Killing a few less horses and getting rid of some crooks seems like a fair tradeoff all things considered.
While the attempt to save Barbaro has been discussed and debated many times, you are just simply flat out wrong and a **** stirrer for bringing it up again here. The "stud career" was not the impetus and a 15 million dollar insurance policy was approved to be paid out many many months before he was put down. Did they go too far? Yes. Does that happen when you get on the path of saving a horse from a complex injury and subsequent complications? Yes. Did they learn a lot, both in terms of helping other horses and going too far? Yes. But if blame is always a required assignment when the twine breaks, down on the farm, then look no further than Dr. Richardson.
As for the rest of your clearly biased view, they are trying to clean up the manure, not spread it.
I think that's why the title of this thread is a little deceiving and can cause the knee-jerk reaction that we don't want any Feds involved in racing. Obviously they're already involved in racing, but really it just comes down to reforming the race-day meds law and getting all jurisdictions to agree. This hearing in itself could be enough if racing decides to act unilaterally as it did with steroids.
No the title is not deceiving. It is about Gary's quote on the subject in the linked article in original post. Thanks.
(You're not getting it about disparate state regs vs. Feds.)
I guess I don't mean deceiving as much as I mean distracting. And I don't mean to criticize your title as much as the statement itself. Whether the Feds save racing or racing saves itself by banning race-day meds isn't as important as racing being saved (if you agree with the argument that for the long-term good of racing, horses shouldn't be allowed to race while drugged).
Instead of getting arguments for the use of drugs on racedays for horses, we're getting personal attacks against members of the hearing, we're getting this idea that it's just more elitism on parade or "Bluebloods", we're getting the argument that the Fed is incompetent. And these distract from the larger issue which is how is it good for the long-term viability of the sport to allow horses to run on any drugs.
The issues facing racing are not just race day meds. Title and arguments for and against can be discerned, and only distracting if you want them to be.
The "Bluebloods" comments are somewhat germaine to the argument though.
It's easier take a principled stance when you come from bags on money. The reason that raceday meds exist in the first place is money (the "horse welfare" issue is handwaving, if you're really concerned about welfare you won't run the horse). People don't want to invest tens of thousands in money breeding/buying/training a horse only to find out the horse bleeds too badly to be a competitive race horse. If you are the heir to the Campells soup fortune (Strawbridge) or a Rockefeller heir (Jacksons), then it's easier to absorb those loses. Bute won't save you losing potentially tens of thousands on a horse, but it will allow a sore/creaky horse to run (i.e make money) instead of getting some down time. As pointed out earlier, those kinds of horses are the ones the blueblood's cast-offs that filtered down.
Don't get me wrong, I'm an opponent of race day meds. I think it's important to understand the entrenched opposition there will be to any ban, and where it's coming from.
You're right. I think it's possible to find some sort of compromise with that argument. Not everyone can afford to run stakes horses. Fine. Not every race is a stakes race (ok, actually a small percentage). Not everyone can afford not to use drugs to keep the horses safe. Fine. Start making jurisdictions card a certain amount of races to be completely drug-free.
I spoke poorly. I only meant to suggest that Stevens goal is not to have the Feds take control of racing, his goal is for reforms that improve the sport.
And I think, like many have come to do so that didn't before nor wanted to see the day they did, that he firmly believes the only way the sport moves forward with any long term success on many issues will be with federal intervention and revised regulations that supersede the individual state's disparate rules that govern racing.
Jeannine Edwards, who will be covering the hearing for ESPN, knows how to "tease" an event. On Twitter: "After reading the witness testimony for tomorrow's hearing I believe Arthur Hancock's words will get some attention"
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
Satish Sanan:
Sanan reluctantly agrees that government intervention is needed.
“The last thing you want is to be told how to run your business,” he says, “but because of the nonexistent leadership in this sport it will happen. The Senators are not going away. We could solve all of our issues with federal intervention right now. I used to be opposed but not now. If we’re opening up the Horse Racing Act to fix medication rules we should take this opportunity to fix all the major problems in the industry.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/mo...#ixzz1tSUG0FFZ
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
This is related only to the race-day meds part of the argument. It's from The Rail.
New Model Needed for Race-Day Treatment, a Veterinarian Says
By SID GUSTAFSON http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/201...ys/?ref=sports
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks