Detention Barn
Feeling Insecure
Nick Kling on the closing of the detention barn:
In an attempt to sway bettors in their favor, barn opponents alleged it had no deterrent effect. However, that belies several examples of success from the security barn.
The most glaring was the case of a trainer known for winning at a high percentage at every venue. The instant the security barn opened this person’s New York success fell off the table. The stable continued to win 25 percent everywhere else, less than half that in New York.
Coincidence?
In the past four years, the New York entries from this barn have been fewer than half the number from the final five months of 2005…. This outfit has had ZERO New York starters in 2010.
7/19/10 Addendum/Edit: Trainer Rick Dutrow, one of the reasons for the detention barn? “They didn’t trust me, man.” (Not the case, says Hayward.)
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 …“
Not Like the Other
One last post about Zenyatta or Rachel Alexandra (for a couple days, at least), as I can’t help noting that the reasons both trainer John Shirreffs and owner Jerry Moss are giving for ruling out shipping the mighty mare to New York for a race at Saratoga or Belmont is the detention barn and Giacomo’s meltdown before the 2005 Belmont Stakes. Interesting how they’re citing the one thing that makes NYRA tracks different, just as Jess Jackson did with his mentions of Curlin’s Breeders’ Cup Classic loss and the Santa Anita Pro-Ride when he said Rachel Alexandra was unlikely for the Breeders’ Cup. Excuses to duck? Or legitimate concerns for both camps?
Fed Up
The following is a comment I made this morning at 8:09 a.m. on Ray Paulick’s latest, “A ‘honest mistake’ by Mullins,” and which is still “awaiting moderation” as of 10:56 a.m. now approved. I post it here because there a couple points I’d like to make in reply to the piece:
It doesn’t matter if Mullins made a mistake, as he claims. The NY rules are clear, Mullins brazenly violated the whole point of the detention barn, and he should be disciplined. But reaction in some quarters has been disproportionate, [making more of what happened than early reports indicated,] and yes, insinuating. I remember the Van Berg incident; hysteria didn’t follow. The same sort of perspective should prevail now. That it’s not, I take as a pretty good indicator of how broken racing is when it comes to drugs and enforcement — much of the breathless, Mullins-had-a-syringe! response seems rooted in a general dislike of the man himself and a desire (understandable, I also share it) to see the racing industry get tough and get rid of people who think the rules don’t apply to them. People are fed up, and here’s a convenient punching bag.
And that’s it from me on Mullins, until new developments arise.
11:30 Addendum: It just occurred to me, [maybe] Mullins is to integrity as Eight Belles is to safety. It matters not what actually happened, or how it happened — that something happened is enough to galvanize change.
Fairly Stupid
“Here we go again,” as Brooklyn Backstretch writes. A supremely talented colt stamps himself a likely Kentucky Derby favorite in a performance that defies belief and barely has he returned to the barn before his unsavory trainer comes to the fore. “Mullins allegedly violated detention barn rules,” is the headline on the Thoroughbred Times story and the details don’t look good: The trainer, already infamous for calling bettors “idiots,” serving milkshakes, and enjoying a little bling (a gratuitous bit of class-based criticism), is now accused of administering an over-the-counter equine medication called “Air Power” to Gato Go Win in the NYRA detention barn, for which officials scratched the horse from the Bay Shore Stakes. The blogosphere is already working itself into a lather over Mullins’ stupidity (and oh, it was a stupid, stupid thing to do, given how clear the rules are, how blatant is the reported act), with the words “syringe” and “inject” getting a great deal of play.
Let’s be fair, though: Mullins is alleged to have used an oral syringe to administer an anti-cough formula orally. He claims the plunger was brought into the detention area openly, in a bucket searched by NYRA security, reports the New York Post. Even if true, Mullins violated detention rules, which allow for nothing to be given except Lasix by the track veterinarians. He may have done so because he believed the substance — a mix of honey, apple cider vinegar, aloe vera, menthol, oil of eucalyptus, lemon juice and ethyl alcohol, guaranteed not to test, being an “all natural” product made up of legal ingredients — would give Gato Go Win a little edge in the starting gate [or because, as he stated later, he uses Air Power “on most of his horses”]. Regardless of the reason or motive, if Mullins did what is alleged, he should be punished for breaking the rules by the NYRA stewards. But the rest of us — by which I mean, everyone, blogger or journalist, commenting or reporting on this story, also have an obligation, and that is — even in the midst of calling Jeff Mullins a stupid, stupid man and a likely cheat — to be accurate in the details and not fan ignorance or prejudice unduly.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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