http://www.harnesslink.com/www/Article.cgi?ID=99529
Printable View
Oh dear...
Not a big fan of old mate however, I happen to agree with the basic thrust of his argument there.
IMO there's one Hell of a dire need for some pragmatism. I think the Industry has largely lost its way in a fog created by overt regulatory intervention. The fact that Kiwi Trainers are getting called in for Caco Copper Iron is absolutely A-B-S-U-R-D.
Putting aside who is actually saying it he is saying publicly what many others are saying privately.
It does take a bit for the Trainers and drivers assn to start talking racemeeting boycotts over some of the issues as they were a few weeks ago.
Small exert taken from New Zealand Harness Trainers and Drivers news...
The Association representatives had two private meetings on the first day, firstly with the JCA, and secondly with the RIU and vets.
The first was a follow-up from a meeting we had with Kristy McDonald and Peter Smith of the JCA Board, mainly trying to sort out the problems with costs. Both Kristy and Peter acknowledged that this issue needed to be sorted out and, to his credit, Peter had gone back and reviewed a number of the more contentious cases of the past twelve months and understood where we were coming from. As a result, the JCA are in the process of preparing what the legal fraternity call ‘practice notes' or what we know as guidelines, for their panel members so that some form of consistency can be achieved instead of what currently appears to be stabs in the dark. In addition, the JCA intends to employ independent reviewers to study hearing results and publish them, in layman's terms, in the Harness Racing Weekly as a footnote to the official transcripts, which are too long winded for most to either read or understand. It seems that the Association's efforts to obtain fairness in the matter of costs may have borne some fruit at last.
The second meeting we had (hastily arranged by Anthony Butt) was with RIU representatives Mike Godber, Cameron George and Nigel McIntyre, along with Pat O'Brien, Edward Rennell, and HRNZ legal adviser Chris Lange. Unfortunately leading veterinarian and also HRNZ adviser Andrew Grierson couldn't attend, however he joined us on a telephone link. The main point of this was to get all parties involved in the recent concerns over positive tests to arsenic, and the very scary scenario of horses returning positives to a substance contained in fence-post stain used in the majority of stables nation-wide. I'm not sure that this meeting went as well as the first with a fair bit of straight talking and finger pointing from all sides and, on the surface, very little room for compromise.
As fate would have it, I found myself seated next to Andrew Grierson (there to accept the Stallion of the Year Award) at the awards night function, and I spent an interesting twenty minutes in a one on one conversation with him. Due to on-going negotiations and recommendations still being underway, I can't comment any further but, having since also spoken briefly to Chris Lange, both parties have expressed sympathy for the plight of the trainers, so hopefully they can sort this mess out satisfactorily and soon.
As you can see, the time at Conference wasn't wasted, and there will be more developments on many fronts in the coming weeks.
Andrew's a good fella. His involvement in the Industry from grass roots breeding/foaling and right the way through to yearling sales, to racing & to regulatory sees him with a very pragmatic point of view on most if not all issues. I only wish we had a few fellas of a similar ilk involved in proceedings here in Oz.
I'm a joe blow owner here who is very concerned about drugs in the game, ie if the game doesn't do everything it can to catch the cheats then I'd be thinking twice before buying my next yearling. After reading this can i ask, are the trainers trying to suggest all these positives easily explained by the ingredients in the stain on their fence posts?
Are they trying to say they are squeaky clean and the positives are all 'false'?
No they are not saying that at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by little fish
Trainers are being warned re a particular product widely used in a legitimate manner to prevent cribbing and the likes now identified in the treatment of fencing timber may contain a prohibited substance or a metabolyte thereof. It is similar to DMSO only in that a horse may return a positive if it was to ingest it or absorb it through the skin.
Why don't they just put up an electric wire then problem of cribbing solved.
What do u hang the electric wire on???