Quote Originally Posted by Triple V View Post
[VVV] C'mon now Jett.
You can do better than that surely. You know what really spins my head about all this?
Yourself, Mark & others have gone on & on about Luke McCarthy having picked up a single Boldenone positive, which is of course your right...and yet in the last week or so Shannon Wonson went for a 3 year stretch (which IMO was a manifestly too short a time) for a far more heinous substance in EPO.
To date, quite inexplicably, none of you have said so much as a word about it on here?
Do yourself and others not see the sizeable measure of duplicity in that?

As for the lame arse Al Capone dig, it might've escaped your attention but I've repeatedly called for the, IMO, disgracefully compressed list of new penalties recently released here in NSW to be significantly stretched out from top to bottom....for example, 3 months for 1st offence therapeutic overages such as bute etc. through to 10 years 1st offence EPO & similar substances...so your inferrence that I'm barracking for such people is quite clearly not the case. Instead I'm hoping that yourself & others might get some perspective here & realise that as an Industry we must never lose sight of the fundementals.

- We are a wagering based industry.

- We need to supply a consistent, reliable wagering product to the Punters.

- With the level of competition facing the average racehorse today, in order to provide and to maitain the long term provision of a consistent, reliable wagering product...it is an absolute MUST that we have a series of thresholds in place allowing Trainers to treat horses with designated equine therapeutics. Bute, Jurocyl etc. (that nonsense going on in NZ is quite staggering to say the least...Caco Copper Iron scoring positives that will likely lose people races???? Gimme a freaking break. INSANE! )

- In order to achieve all of that, we need to have quantitative testing in place, something which for the most part we currently do not have. Instead we have a system which largely relies upon a black and white 'yes it is present' (the actual amounts present & associated pharmacological activity aspects of same be damnned) or 'no it is not' & sir, you're clear.

That sort of a system Jett...it is just INSANE. Remember, these are race horses. They are competition horses. They get bangs & bumps & bruises. They get tired, they get sick, they get sore. There is a better way.

I simply want what is best and most practicle for the Industry and above all else for the horses that we time and again ask to go down the road, week in, week out, year in, year out. I would no more give a horse anything that was detrimental to it's health & wellbeing than I would hit myself in the Jatz with a brick hammer.
If anything I am too far the other way.
That in and of itself motivates me every single day to keep the therapeutics debate alive & kicking in order to hopefully slowly but surely see Harness Racing move towards a much better way of doing things than we currently have at hand.

Ironically, as I understand it Luke actually got a Boldenone overage...there is a threshold in place for it and it is able to be tested for on a quantitative basis.
That aside, we need thresholds for a whole host of other equine therapeutics for which, as I said above we currently do not have quantitative testing in place...duly leaving Trainers at the mercy of a fundementally prehistoric regulatory approach.
Thanks for your reply Jamie. This thread was started with Richard Freedman's comments about testing alone not catching or stopping the cheats and we digress.

Luke McCarthy - You're right, a Boldenone positive on it's own isn't a hanging offence. Luke McCarthy was getting results only previously seen through drug enhancement. Show me where else in any other sport? Where is the logic in not thinking that there's a good chance that his improvements are beyond feed, nutrition and training alone? Someone expressed a comment that it's just the one that he got caught with.

Scale and Magnitude - Wonson's strike rate has never got close to McCarthy's. He isn't in most races beating you from any barrier. He placed 9th with the horse on EPO.

Duplicity - I've highlighted some miraculous improvements by the likes of Thorn, Hancock and Wilson in the past. Remember our exchanges on Dartmoor? You've often got these interesting views on reasons for their improvements. Such as a drop in class, being driven american style, being more professional using scales and the list goes on.
The challenge that I have is that most trainers and drivers think that those reasons are a joke. These are the guys at the coal face.

Quantitative testing - no argument from me on this Jamie.

Maybe we've got it all wrong. Who is the more important customer of Harness Racing? Is it the Punter or the Owner? You've mentioned that we need a consistent wagering product. Does the perception of that take precedence over a level playing field for the owners and trainers?