I feel exceptionally strongly on the subject JB.
Was he or was he not found guilty ?? If the answer is yes, then he broke the rules and he should be punished. As far as I can tell from what's been in the press, it was found that he had broken the rules (or that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that he might have). Whether it was him 'in person' or not, he is still accountable.
Rules are rules and are there for a reason - usually for safety (in this case, the safety of the horse). So I don't care who you are, what race you're preparing for, whether it's Christmas, your anniversary, your wife's birthday, whatever. If you break it, you pay for it. If you break the rules, don't go bleating about it being inconvenient for you to serve the punishment. That's sort of how it works. If it's not difficult and inconvenient, then it sort of loses the whole point.
But hey, sure, let him run his horse in the Belmont, (hopefully) win and enjoy all that fame, glory, money and place in history. I'm sure he'll be really sorry about his infringement when they finally get round to punishing him a few weeks afterwards (when he was probably planning to take a golfing holiday anyway).
To me it comes down to why we race horses in the first place. I've always understood competition to be the means of ascertaining the best individual. And we want the best, the fastest, the toughest so that we can hopefully send that horse to stud, add those valuable, robust genes to the pool and improve the breed. I know punting and all the ra-ra has skewed perspectives a little, but essentially that's what it's supposed to be about. To find the best. I thought that was what we were still doing ?
My argument is that your results become skewed, or at the very least impure once you start adding medications into the mix. Lasix to 'manage' bleeding. Anti-inflams to 'relieve a few post gallop aches'. I'm not super crazy about tie-backs either. Sorry - I do not believe that that's in the best interest of the animal, the breed, the industry, the punter, anybody really. We simply end up perpetuating problems. Which is, IMHO, pretty pointless. Maybe I'm just lazy and selfish with my money. But I don't like the idea of spending a whole bunch of money on a weak, unreliable horse. It doesn't make sense to me.
Why do we breed with bleeders? Coz they're fast! Sure, when they're not hemorrhaging through the nose.... And then need a 3 month break, and subsequent meds to 'manage' the problem. And then have a recurrence. And finally have to be retired (probably to stud). Can you see why that is not a clever thing to do?
It should be survival of the fittest. It's good animal husbandry. It's ethical and apart from all the fluffy bits, it's also the most common-sense, economical option. We (should) want tough horses because they're cheaper to keep and a whole lot easier to manage. If an animal is not fit and strong enough to stand up to training and racing, then sorry, either there is something amiss with the training programme, the horse is not entirely ready, or perhaps it never will be. 'Helping it along' does no-one any favours. It just fosters false hope, wastes everyone's time and money and skews statistics.
As a different, but comparable example, a few years ago the Quarter Horse people in the US went mad over a particular stallion called Impressive that did really well as a show horse. They are crazy about that totally over-muscled look and the bigger and more grotesquely muscled a horse is, the better they like it. Anyway, this stallion had muscles that Arnie would have been jealous of, so everyone went crazy over him and they bred with him like there's no tomorrow (remember that AI etc is allowed with Quarter Horses, so you can imagine the damage..). It later came to light that this horse had a genetic abnormality which caused this fantastic muscling. Unfortunately, as a side-effect, it also caused a condition called Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP), which caused unpredictable muscle paralysis, seizures and was often fatal.
What's worse, even after the cause of the problem was identified and it was found that the condition could be tested for (and hence avoided), people kept breeding with HYPP positive horses and selling them for a fortune because hey, they win ribbons in the show ring!! Nice!!
It is a rather extreme comparison, but not too far off the direction we're going breeding horses with conditions / abnormalities that are known to be passed on genetically. We perpetuate problems (and then sit around moaning about vet bills!). Duh !! Problem horses cost money.
The long-term effect is the gradual degradation of the breed as a whole (plus a whole lot of money spent 'managing' these conditions) and I'm sorry, that really does not appeal to me.
So yes, I take exception to people being caught administering banned substances. For a start, they are 'BANNED' for a reason. But mainly I take exception to there being a condition or underlying weakness in the first place, because I don't like horses that may have inherent problems. Because they are unreliable and expensive. So I am exceptionally suspicious of any substance that 'helps', 'manages' or whatever nice acceptable label you choose to put on it, because we're really just plastering over dicky foundations, and rewarding people for doing it, aren't we??
If we're not interested in who is truly the fastest, the strongest and the toughest, then by all means, unban all those substances. Drug horses up to the eyeballs and run them until they blow up on the track and possibly take their rider and other competitors with them. What the hell. But that will be when I check out.
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