NSW prize money?

[triplev123]

I agree. Random post race TC02s would be more effective and a lot more cheaper than what is being proposed. Have you mentioned this to Sam, VVV?

[VVV] No, not yet I haven't. Need to take a while to collect my thoughts & compose a reasonably well thought out response. I've no doubt he already has more than enough on his plate as it is but as far as coming out of the other end of this mess...getting this part right is crucial too. Later on tonight when I get a few moments of peace (i.e. the XX Chromosomes are both off in the land of Nod) I'll fire off an e-mail to him & add a bit more weight to his burden.

[The Big Mile]

Do you even know why people such as myself and VVV are for post race TC02 testing? Do you know the benefits of post race TC02 testing? It is a more effective way of testing. More effective means less expense. There is no need to test every horse in every race because knowing that testing will ALWAYS happen and just not knowing when you WILL be tested is just as good a deterrent and costs a fraction of the price. There will be more integrity in the industry if there IS post race TC02 testing. Like I have said 1000 times, you never hear of a TC02 positive in North America because they post race TC02. After a race, a horse's TC02 level dramatically drops before it begins to rise again - which is why a 1.5 hour or 2 hour post race TC02 will pick this up. If given close enough to the race, a horse will be under the threshold and there will be no TC02 positive in the pre race TC02. Which means that pre-race TC02 is effective against people who need to travel, but not as much so for those closer to the tracks. Why do you think Menangle has implemented a 2 hour arrival time? To try and stop close-race bicarbers in an attempt for their pre-race TC02 levels to be above the threshold. Which is why post race TC02 testing is more effective - it nabs the close-to-race bicarbers too.

Flashing, not really sure where I said I was against post race testing?

[Flashing Red]

My mistake, I wrongly assumed your post was saying that cheapening the testing process would be at the expense of the industry (I was arguing that post race testing is cheaper AND better for the industry). I misread your post, sorry

[triplev123]

What price the integrity of the sport? Spend a lot of money on this fact because with whats gone on recently, there will be no sport left. With bigger prizemoney on offer soon, maybe the incentive to fill up a horse will increase?

I'd like to see the ocassional meeting where EVERY horse is swabbed. Every one.

[VVV] Steady TBM. I think you're out beyond the breakers there. Flashing knows exactly what she's on about with this one and so do I. What is being proposed is a completely unneccessary waste of Industry funds. At the risk of repeating myself...it was NOT the Testing Regime itself that has come up short, it is the fact that the Testing Regime, by way of human intervention & that alone, was extensively SUBVERTED/BASTARDISED/USURPED/SIDE-STEPPED/MISDIRECTED/MANIPULATED to the point of being completely & utterly ineffective.
Having gone to great lengths in order to abscise the elements that were directly responsible for the aforemetioned, to then go with a subsequent extremely expensive & extensive ramping up of that same Testing Regime by way of testing more horses more often is ridiculous. It will achieve little more than a transfer of a sizeable chunk of Harness Racing Industry funds to the end of financial year bottom lines of Beckman-Coulter & Co.
It's lending itself to an age old addage my friend. We don't need to work harder, we need to work smarter.
In this instance however, we don't need to test more horses, we need to test what we do test in a smarter way.
For starters, a smart move would be 2hrs on course prior to their race combined with a regime of 2hrs Post Race TC02 testing. You would completely wipe out the pre race drenchers and do so in a matter of weeks.

[thesushitrain]

i'd be pleasantly surprised if there wasn't a buffer out there that didn't peak like bicarb does, more like stay at 34 for several hours


get the full might of the north sydney bears behind this post race testing for menangle...


hey flash do they ever do a retention barn for after the race in the US? make them stay under security until the next day, possibly to get a late night swab or blood that the maskers mighten be so sharp on?

[triplev123]

There are a number of them. That's why Post Race testing gets them all.

[Zipper]

Storm in a teacup this article. It even states in the article that it costs about $250 per race to swab, so if that's what the intended prize money increases are going to be reduced by then this is literally a storm in a tea cup.

I am very uneducated on drug testing principles and effectiveness but based on what some of you more informed people are saying it doesn't seem to be the right solution. I fully support any endeavors to clean up the sport and I just hope all decisions that are made are made with the best long term interests of the industry and it's participants.

[triplev123]

Be that as it may Zipper, it is still 3/4's of a million that we could use for other much more constructive purposes.
If they want to spend an extra 750 gorillas then flick it this way & let me take care of it. I'll get the job done for a heap less, much more effectively, and whatever's left over I'll put towards my retirement fund. I'll end up line balling with the weight of cash in Colonial Mutual's Super Funds before you know it.

[Flashing Red]

hey flash do they ever do a retention barn for after the race in the US? make them stay under security until the next day, possibly to get a late night swab or blood that the maskers mighten be so sharp on?

I'm not sure about retention barns for after the races (well I didn't see any but I was only there 12 months) but they did randomly pick certain horses to have a post race TC02, which was normally done between 1.5 hours - 2 hours. Your horse was put in a stall and you couldn't touch it in that period. The horse had a post race urine swab, however they still required the 2 hour post race TC02. Chester and Poconos were great, they had on course TC02 testing - EVERY horse was pre race TC02ed, they tested the samples.... if you got a high reading all that happened was you got scratched (and maybe a fine). I think that that is great, the horse didn't race so the trainer doesn't loose their license etc. Then after the race, the winner and one random gets urine taken, and then sometimes winners and sometime random horses ALSO get post race TC02ed. The post race TC02 testings were completely random - you never knew when you were getting done. You didn't have to win, you could have run mid field. Yonkers took post race TC02s about 5 minutes before you raced. Which is easy over there as horses are stabled in race and post position order, so all race 1 horses together etc. All the horses are lined up so they just go along and take blood from all 8 runners, literally minutes before they are due on the track.

For big races, they have detention barns where the horses go in 24 (or maybe it was 48?) hours beforehand. I'm not sure, never had a horse in a big race hehehe! I was also in Canada for a little while - while I was there, they randomly selected trainers, and for that week all their horses had to race out of 24 hour detention barns (even though they were normal overnight races). Tarners would ship their horses to the track the night before.

I'm not really a fan of detention barns in Australia, as unlike North America, most of our horses are in yards/walk in walk outs, if they are stabled it is normally only at night. North American horses are use to being permanently stabled and are constantly shipped all over the countryside, stakes horses and claimers alike. Their horses are use to it, ours aren't. And a stressed out horse (which can be caused by a change of environment when they aren't use to it, especially for stallions) can severely impact on race performance. But that argument is for another time and day

[Flashing Red]

Another thing they did at Yonkers I think it was - if a horse returned a high TC02, you had the option of leaving the horse, on stipulated couple of days, under guard, to be stabled on course. They would then take frequent blood samples over those days, to determine if the horse had naturally high readings. Someone I knew over there got off a TC02 positive because over the course of the 2 days the horse was there, all the blood samples showed a natural TC02 level of 34-35. A horse naturally that high has a good chance of going over the TC02 threshold on raceday with lasix. They got off the charge. Another fair testing procedure, IMHO.