LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Will you keep going to the race track if you know the results are as bogus as a $6 bottle of water — with the added downer that the animals running their hearts out have been doped to the point of catastrophic injury?
Those are questions that every horse racing fan will have to answer after the game was dragged into another ugly scandal Monday, only 54 days before the Kentucky Derby.
Can you overlook the cheating?
Will you look away from the injuries?
And, if you really love the racing, you also better ask this one:
Have the regulators of any professional sport failed their game as much as the regulators have failed horse racing?
It’s a fair and necessary question.
Horse racing has always been a game where it was difficult to determine who was in charge. No central authority. No uniformity in rules and regulations. No confidence the rules were actually the rules.
Worst of all, no urgency in figuring it out.
It’s been management by crisis — and the latest crisis was inevitable because the cheaters have long been ahead of the game.
Jason Servis, the trainer whose colt, Maximum Security, crossed the finish line first before a disqualification in the 2019 Derby, headlined a list of 27 trainers, veterinarians and drug manufactures indicted in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York in a “widespread scheme to illegally dope race horses.”
Maximum Security lost the Derby because he nearly knocked over another horse in the stretch. Unfair, howled Servis and nearly everybody else in the horse’s camp.
Unfair?
Now the federal government alleges that Servis administered performance-enhancing drugs “to virtually all the racehorses under his control.”
You can be upset with the trainers, who juiced their horses with substances like Viagra, cocaine and cobra venom. According to the indictment, at least six horses died.
Not that the trainers were surprised or apologetic. The idea was to mask pain, over-stimulate the adrenaline system and minimize bleeding in the lungs.
A trainer was overheard on one wiretap saying a fatal injury was a risk from “over-juicing” a horse.
You can be upset with owners. They employ trainers who are comfortable with these tactics. This is a game where horses have been compromised from running their best by cheaters placing sponges in the nostrils of horses in rival barns.
But, if you love horse racing, the people with questions to answer are the ones who regulate the sport.
They’re the ones who have failed. They’re the ones who have been unable or unwilling to stop the cheaters and protect the animals.
Last year the Kentucky Derby buildup was stained by the string of horses that died in California. This year, the Southern District of New York will make it difficult to dwell on the Kentucky Derby prep races.
You wonder when we will reach the tipping point.
This is an area that loves horse racing and breeding. The Kentucky Derby is a treasure, one that that defines Louisville across the globe. It is a wonderful celebration about what is grand about the game.
The Derby is also an economic engine. Jobs are at stake. There’s a lot at risk if racing deep dancing into controversy.
The federal government has seen enough — enough of the playing field that is not level, enough of the use of performance-enhancing drugs and enough of horses dying on the track.
Fans of horse racing should applaud this day. There are people who try to do it right, compete within the rules and by keeping the horses safe. In fact, there are many of them.
Trainers like John Ward and owners like Arthur Hancock have preached for years that racing needs to limit racing medication, moving the game closer to the European model.
It’s been a losing bet. The rules in Kentucky are different from the rules in New York, which are different from the rules in California, which are different from the rules in Maryland. You can win the Kentucky Derby using medication on a horse that you will not be allowed to use in the Belmont Stakes.
Every spring the Triple Crown circuit is ripe with rumors about which horses are juiced and which trainers are trying to mask injuries.
It’s a guessing game that handicappers have to play when they make their selections.
What is the first thing the wise-guys say when a trainer gets his barn on a winning roll?
Is he juicing? Who’s his vet? How is he staying ahead of the tests?
Now the federal government is involved. They have seen too many strange results. They have watched too many horses die.
Racing better hope that it isn’t too late. When you lose your integrity, you lose your game. Horse racing better figure it out.
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