Originally Posted by
triplev123
Let's not get too flaggelatory there trooper.
Former glorious self? Geeze, obviously memory serves to significantly soften the jagged edges of a lot of things.
I've been around in Harness Racing since I was about 5yrs old and directly involved as a Breeder & periodically an Owner since I could first legally do so, which was back around 1986.
As a general comment...and despite the disgraceful & without question dastardly deeds that came to light in August or thereabouts of this year, the Sport is still way, way cleaner today that it ever was at any stage in the past. No question in my mind whatsoever.
One often celebrated now passed on horseman used to pre race tube horses with Laudanum whilst ON COURSE at Fairfield and Richmond for crying out loud. He had a Catholic Priest who was also a mad Punter & he used to stand at the end of the rows keeping an eye out for the Stewards.
There were serious crims running a number of Drivers back in the late 1960's to early/mid/late 1970's and quite a significant proportion of them most definitely saw the early to mid even towards the late 1980's. In keeping with that influence, the amount of black money that was washed through various Bookies back then would no doubt have been quite a staggering thing to behold.
I'm not suggesting today's racing is absolutely squeaky clean by any means because the fact is, wherever there is money there is always going to be those who seek to find an edge in order to get their hands on it. Rightly or wrongly, it is human nature...and gambling in particular attracts all kinds as you'd know.
That being said, I would also swear on a stack of Bibles higher than the roof of my house that today's nefarious behaviour, as hard to cop as it may be, is comparably verging Girl Scout stuff as compared to various forebears. Fact is that some of the things, many of the things, that used to happen years ago were pretty damned dreadful...but, for one reason or another...they simply never saw the light of day. I believe, though I have no real proof, that a number of those in regulatory roles at the time were either compromised in one way or another or they lacked the will to swim against the tide despite knowing things were not on the up & up...or they lacked the technology & resources now available to their modern day counterparts.
Fast forward to recent events and there is a signficant case to be made, via Lance losing that race as a result of a DMSO positive, to suggest that the drug testing regime under which Australian & NZ horsemen now operate, has effectively gone off the deep end. It has gone too far the other way, so far as to have become absurd, ridiculous. DMSO is not a performance enhancing substance. That anyone should ever think of it as such merely serves to underline just how far we have to go as far as educating the Industry on such matters.
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