Proposed Bill would give USADA authority over horse racing

Cross-posted from the New York Times

WRITTEN BY JOE DRAPE

A racehorse steps onto the track for training. Image by Clarence Alford.

Two lawmakers who contend that the United States Anti-Doping Agency is the most effective agency to regulate horse racing plan to introduce a bill in Congress to give it the authority to enforce antidoping standards and to kick out violators.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was written by the lawmakers, Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, and they plan to introduce it when Congress returns to session next week. The act would give the antidoping agency, known as Usada, the authority to develop rules for permitted and prohibited substances, and it also would create testing and stiffer penalty programs for horse racing nationally, replacing the patchwork state-by-state system currently in place.

Usada, a nongovernmental organization, is the official antidoping agency for the United States Olympics team and has worked with Major League Baseball and other professional leagues to eliminate performance-enhancing drugs. Its credibility as a vigilant watchdog was enhanced most recently when it was widely credited for its relentless pursuit of the cyclist Lance Armstrong, who earlier this year admitted that he had systematically used drugs during his racing career.

“We look forward to helping the industry clean itself up,” said Travis Tygart, Usada’s chief executive. “We fully support, and have shown, that the independent model is the only truly effective way to regulate a sport.”

Unlike previous bills, which were not enacted, the new one would enable Usada to act as the antidoping body without amending the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978 or involve any federal agency or regulation, increasing hopes for its passage. It would be financed by the industry — racetracks, horsemen groups, breeders and owners — through either a percentage of the betting handle or a series of fees.

“The chronic abuse of race horses with painkillers and other drugs is dangerous and just plain wrong,” Udall said. “Racing groups have promised drug reform for decades, but this bill would bring in real standards and enforcement from an organization with a proven record for cleaning up sports.”

“Last year, I chaired a hearing that took a deep look into the problems of both legal and illegal drugs in horse racing,” Pitts said. “We heard testimony about how abuse of drugs is killing horses and imperiling riders. Before more people and animals are hurt, we need to put a responsible national authority in charge of cleaning up racing. This is a sensible, bipartisan measure to restore trust in racing and protect lives.”

Read full report at NYTimes.com >>

Famous horse racing Sheikh brings drug cheat scandal to Britain

Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum in the stands at the races. He is the central character of a huge racehorse doping scandal in Britain. AFP image.

Cheating in horse racing with the use of illegal drugs is usually about greed or ego or both, and the USA are usually seen as the shameful face of it around the world. Not any more. Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum has brought this filthy tactic and blighted the reputation of British horse racing and the empire he created, Godolphin.

We say take your horses and go home. But can British horse racing afford for him to do so? Maybe not.

When the Aga Khan was busted — who had a similar sort of investment for the times — he took his horses away and boycotted British horse racing saying he would never race there again. The British Horseracing Authority seem terrified Sheikh Mohammed may do the same if pressed too hard.

I remember when Sheikh Mohammed took his horses away from Sir Henry Cecil’s yard at Warren Hill in Newmarket. There were some who predicted it would cripple Sir Henry and perhaps even close his famously successful training facility. That did not happen, although there were some hard times. Sir Henry went on of course to train one of the greatest racehorses of all time, Frankel.

JOHN F BURNS reporting the The New York Times reports:

NEWMARKET, England — It is called the sport of kings and it has been in this haven of racecourses, stables and studs since the 17th century, when King Charles I and his courtiers made the 100-mile journey here by horse-drawn carriages.

But the town has never known a darker passage than the past week. Another monarch, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai, and Godolphin, his global horse racing enterprise, have been the talk of Britain after what The Times of London described as British racing’s “Lance Armstrong moment.”

On Monday, the British Horseracing Authority announced that 11 of the sheik’s best horses tested positive for banned anabolic steroids, including stanozolol and ethylestrenol, which can give horses a muscle strength that is well beyond their natural capacity. Forty-five Godolphin horses were tested in an out-of-competition sweep earlier this month at the Moulton Paddocks stables.

Godolphin, which has a billion-dollar roster of 5,000 racehorses stabled in 12 countries, including the United States and Japan, quickly announced that its own tests found four more of its Newmarket-based horses had banned steroids in their systems.

Although the drugs are strictly barred in Britain during training and competition, several other countries, including Australia, Dubai and the United States, allow their use in training, as long as they are not present in a horse’s system on the day of a race.

Godolphin announced an immediate lockdown of Moulton Paddocks, with no further competition for its 100 horses until all have cleared drugs tests and the stable is judged to be completely clean. The 15 horses that tested positive for steroids were barred from racing for six months.

Read full report >>

How disgraceful. How disappointing. How useless.

THE SCAPEGOAT

And this from PAUL HAYWARD reporting for The Telegraph:

In an interview last year with Geoffrey Riddle for The National, a United Arab Emirates-based newspaper, Al Zarooni said of Sheikh Mohammed:

“He’s my master. He’s the one telling me to do this, this, this. He calls me daily, nearly. He must be so busy. He runs a whole country, but often he comes here to watch the gallops, sometimes for morning and evening lots.

“It is his idea how to work the horses. What they do exactly, what pace they go and over which distances they run. He tells me: ‘Mahmood feed that horse this, or this horse doesn’t look too good’, and so on.”

Read full report >>

If you must bet, bet on something else folks. There’s plenty to be had. Without gambling there is no horse racing industry. Doping is just the tip of this Titanic style iceberg.

RELATED READING

– Second British Trainer Admits to Steroid Use; The Blood-Horse; 29 Apr 2013

Baffert horses big part of sudden death spike

PHOTO BY ROB CARR/GETTY IMAGES
Thoroughbred racehorse trainer Bob Baffert.

Cross-posted from BloodHorse.com

Written and Reported by
ERIC MITCHELL

California racing saw a sharp increase last year in the number of fatalities due to cardiac failures. Eleven horses were reported as having died in this manner during fiscal year 2012 (July 1 through June 30) compared with six for the same period in 2011 and four in 2009, according to a California Horse Racing Board postmortem annual report.

Equally concerning is that a reported seven out of the 11—or 64%—of the horses that died from cardiac failure statewide had been stabled with leading Southern California trainer and Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, according to several trainers and exercise riders who watched the horses drop during training hours.

Baffert did not respond to questions by e-mail or return phone calls. The identifications of the horses that died have not been released by the CHRB.

Cardiac failure in Thoroughbred racehorses is a relatively rare occurrence, according to trainers and racetrack veterinarians. A study published in 2010 in the Equine Veterinary Journal on sudden death in racing Thoroughbreds found it was responsible for 9% of fatalities in California. This same study showed 96 reported sudden deaths between Feb. 1990 and Aug. 2008 in California among Thoroughbreds while they were exercising, or an average of five per year. During the 18-year period, a total of five were reported in Pennsylvania; 23 in Victoria, Australia; 16 in Sydney; four in Hong Kong; and none in Japan.

“It’s disturbing and unnatural,” said one trainer based at Betfair Hollywood Park, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the number of sudden deaths he’s seen. One of his own horses nearly collided with one of Baffert’s horses that collapsed in front of it while galloping in the morning at Hollywood. “I’ve been in training for 25 years and not had one. I don’t know why it’s happening but it can’t continue. It is putting horses and riders at risk.”

Read more on BloodHorse.com
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/77448/baffert-horses-big-part-of-sudden-death-spike