JC / Railbird - Barry Irwin Calls Bullsh*t

Barry Irwin Calls Bullsh*t

In a letter to the editor in the Thoroughbred Daily News, Team Valor founder Barry Irwin responds to Michael Iavarone’s announcement that IEAH horses will race drug-free (except for Lasix) and his invitation to other owners to make the same committment:

I think almost all of what he proposes makes sense. The problem is that Mr. Iavarone’s headline trainer is a Rick Dutrow. When he received a suspension for violating the rules in Kentucky this month, it marked the 73rd ruling against him since 1976…. I am sure I speak not only for myself when I answer his call to join him in saying no to drugs as follows: only somebody terribly naive is going to sign up as long as Rick Dutrow trains for IEAH. If he really wants to make a statement, he should consider moving his horses … Until then, the proposal looks like an attempt at damage control or a PR stunt.

Iavarone told the New York Post that he wasn’t happy learning of Dutrow’s latest violation, especially with news of it breaking the day after IEAH made public their new policy, but that the stable is standing by the trainer for now:

“We had serious thoughts of taking all the horses out of the barn,” said Iavarone. “But IEAH has won over 400 races since its inception and Rick has won over 200 of them…. We never had a positive with Rick as our trainer.”

I suppose it’s only fair to mention Steve Asmussen as well. (Throw in Jeremy Rose’s suspension for whip use, and this has really been an embarrassing week for racing — time to get things in order, guys, in case last week’s hearings weren’t enough notice that rules reforms were ripe.) The trainer was given official notice on Thursday of a positive for lidocaine in a filly named Timber Trick, winner of a maiden special at Lone Star on May 10. Asmussen’s case has been taken up by prominent owner-lawyer Maggi Moss, who plans a vigorous defense with co-counsel against the charge, based on the contention that the result is due to environmental contamination. A hearing is scheduled for July 18. If the positive stands, the violation would be Asmussen’s 18th or 21st (depending on how you count one entry in his record, which covers three horses) medication overage and could earn him a six month suspension.
Here’s an enterprise assignment for someone, based on all the recent chatter about the records of Asmussen and Dutrow — what’s the average number of all violations for trainers? The average number of medication violations? What are the three most common drugs cited? How does dosage and testing vary across the jurisdictions? (Jennie Rees has some insight on this question in her C-J blog.) Are there any patterns that emerge when looking across all records? I’d be most interested in reading the 2500-3000 word article to come out of such research …

Posted by JC in Medication/Drug Policies on 06/27/2008 @ 9:10 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter