Farewell, Detention Barns
There’ll be more stalls available at Saratoga this summer, and fewer complaints from horsemen year-round. NYRA announced today that, five years after the detention barn opened, the secure area has been closed, to be replaced by random out-of-competition testing and other security measures.
Trainer Rick Violette, president of the NY Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, approved of the policy change, telling the Daily Racing Form:
“It’ll be more horse-friendly without sacrificing the highest level of integrity in the business.”
“Horse-friendly” is definitely one thing that can’t be said about detention.
In 2005, when I worked on the Saratoga backstretch, I was paid an extra $30 a day for horse-sitting in the barn. Working detention added a decent sum to my weekly pay; trainers always needed the help. But there was a jittery boredom to the assignment, a tediousness too often only broken when a horse panicked in the unfamiliar surroundings. It was hot and bright in detention, the humid air fraught with nerves. It didn’t take much for a horse to freak out, to turn into a sweating, quivering, dangerous mess. I remember once standing uncertainly in front of a stall, shank in hand, as a 3-year-old colt wildly kicked and bucked and a security guard shrieked behind me, “Get it under control!”
That horse left his race in the barn, and he wouldn’t be the only one to do so.
7/15/10 Addendum: Another benefit to ending detention? Says @superterrific:
now let’s get Zenyatta out here!
Come east, big mare. Forget the Clement Hirsch, consider the Personal Ensign. John Pricci is thinking along similar lines: “But now, the Personal Ensign at 10 furlongs and at scale weights at meet’s end eliminates any excuse …“
3 Comments