JC / Railbird

TDN

Keep ‘Em Going

Part two of a six-part series on drugs in racing by Ryan Goldberg for the TDN considers the current, not-so-pretty situation (PDF):

It seems a trainer would have to be crazy to use illegal drugs when so many legal ones are at his disposal. Before the days of pharmacological drugs, the goal was to “hop ‘em or stop ‘em,” but what the picture looks like now is an everyday practice of using drugs to manage pain and other complications to get a horse to post. Since the majority of horses race for tags, it makes sense. “The claiming game does not protect the horse,” Scollay says. “It’s like day- trading on the stock market.”

The respiratory drug clenbuterol, its anabolic properties, and the widely differing state-by-state guidelines for its use get particular attention; Massachusetts is among the states listed in Goldberg’s piece as offering no guidelines. That was the case through the 2012 Suffolk Downs meet — since then, though, Massachusetts has joined seven other states in adopting the Mid-Atlantic Uniform Medication Program, which allows for 24 therapeutic drugs and sets guidelines for their use, and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission began the process of incorporating the new rules in January 2013 (PDF). Under the new guidelines, clenbuterol will no longer be permitted within 14 days of racing. Corticosteroids won’t be allowed within seven days.

Posted in Racing on May 10, 2013 / Tagged Clenbuterol, Drugs in Racing, Equine Health, Massachusetts, Regulations, Suffolk Downs, TDN

Significant Support

8/20/09 Update: Much, much more on the Saratoga numbers, from Steve Zorn. “The Saratoga sale’s success masks some serious problems, and does nothing to address the weakness in the thoroughbred industry.”

How much did Sheikh Mohammed and the Maktoum family support the recently concluded Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select sale? By quite a bit more than acknowledged, according to Bill Oppenheim’s estimate in today’s TDN:

While no one seems to want to admit it publicly (they buy for “unnamed principals who don’t want to be identified,” or some such doubletalk), everybody knows a number of European trainers and agents are employed to sign for horses which end up racing for Maktoum entities. My entirely unofficial and unverifiable estimate is that seven other agents or trainers were signing tickets on their behalves, and their actual purchases consisted of about 37 yearlings totaling around $20.5 million in sales. That would represent 18 percent of the horses sent through the ring, and 39 percent of the money spent. I’ll bet that closer to the truth.

Savvy sellers plan for the future.

Posted in Industry on August 13, 2009 / Tagged Auctions, Bill Oppenheim, Business, Fasig-Tipton, Sales, Saratoga, Sheikh Mohammed, TDN