cheating in horse racing | Horse Racing Free Tips

Irwin: What Satisfaction Is There For Owners Who Employ Cheating Trainers?

In this Olympic year, when athletes and officials braved the scourge of COVID against difficult odds to conduct the Summer Games in Japan, I think a lot about what drives these individuals to achieve excellence and from where their satisfaction is derived.

I love and have loved the Olympics since childhood, reveling in the stories of such greats as Jesse Owens, Bob Mathias and Jim Thorpe. Their drive, their talent and their stories live within me and have done so since I was a little kid.

While Track and Field is my favorite sport, horse racing is a close second. I participated in T&F in high school and college, as did my father and brother. The gratification and excitement I felt from competing in athletics, however, pales in comparison to the thrills and satisfaction I have experienced in horse racing.

Watching a steed you are involved with roaring down the stretch on the lead generates a high that beats the short pants off of Athletics.

Satisfaction, however, is more difficult to achieve in horse racing compared with almost any other sporting enterprise, because so many people are involved in racing a horse and the animal itself cannot communicate in the traditional sense with its human caretakers.

On the other hand, when a horse does win a race, the satisfaction is greater because it is so difficult to achieve, especially at the highest levels of the game.

As I have been involved in racing, one way or another, for more than half a century and now am in my seventh decade, I have been struck by a change among owners that is not only profoundly disturbing but possibly a sign that the game may not survive as we have known it.

What I have noticed is not peculiar to horse racing, but to many other aspects of modern society as well, particularly it seems in Western Civilization.

Today we live in a society that cares less for rules and more for winning at all costs. We see this trend not only in sports, but in the financial and pharmaceutical communities where ethics have been stretched to the limits. And the crossover from members of these businesses into racing and their great impact on the track, in the sales ring and at the windows has been something only a blind person could have missed.

I question where the satisfaction comes from in winning races for these owners in this modern era. I question where the good vibes are derived.

I know exactly where it comes from for me. When I am involved in a winner, especially one that achieves a great victory as a result of developing a horse and following a game plan that was months in the making, the satisfaction comes from a job well done with a horse in which I believe.

When our homebred Animal Kingdom won the Kentucky Derby a decade ago, the satisfaction was even greater than that of a usual winner of the Run for the Roses, as his victory was not diminished by connections of the also-rans complaining about troubles in the race.

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To achieve complete satisfaction in winning an important race is very, very difficult. I will never stop thanking my lucky stars it happened in the race we all want to win the most. For me it was a miracle, a blessing and a moment of sheer satisfaction.

In today's environment I wonder where the satisfaction comes from for those owners who have chosen to be involved with trainers that cheat. It seems obvious to me that certain owners gravitate to certain trainers because they share the same “win at all costs” attitude. They share the same disdain for the rules. And they look at themselves as “sharps” in a world of “chumps.”

In this regard, I am a true chump. A chump is a poor bastard that follows the rules, even knowing that if you take an edge your chances of success will increase dramatically.

Today's “enlightened” owner, as a now deceased ex-trainer referred to trainers who cheat using modern methods that include Performance Enhancing Drugs, either knows that the trainer he chooses is a cheater, strongly suspects he is a cheater or is an outright enabler of the cheating trainer.

The satisfaction for these owners comes from a) having pulled off a stroke against horses trained and owned by chumps, b) cashing bets based on information that their steeds are juiced to the gills, c) knowing that the improved form of their horses will translate to big prices at public auction or d) the cherry on top of the cake, a lucrative stallion syndication deal.

The normal, garden-variety satisfaction that Little League parents and coaches feel when their team wins or their kid safely runs out a bunt is not what motivates today's modern owner, who relies on trainers that cheat to win.

I fear that the modern dilemma will lead to the demise of the sport for a few reasons. First, owners that do not cheat are fed up with losing to owners that do and could leave the sport. Secondly, until HISA is up and running, I see absolutely no prospect of positive change, because there is no major racetrack or regulatory agency in any locale that is actively investigating cheating on their grounds.

Racetracks want the horses that cheaters train so they can fill their races. Regulators are like politicians in that their only motivation in life is to keep their jobs.

With no racing press to speak of, save a couple of online outfits, there are precious few journalists remaining to keep the cheaters' feet to the fire.

If my fellow chumps continue to be robbed by owners that employ, sponsor or enable cheating trainers, we chumps may just come to the sad conclusion that not enough satisfaction remains to be had in order to continue to underwrite the sport of horse racing in North America.

And I write this as an owner who has been winning most of the year at a 25 percent clip in major races around the globe. I am not complaining as a loser, I am complaining as a winner.

Barry Irwin is the founder and CEO of Team Valor International

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What It Takes For A Reporter To Call Out A Cheating Trainer

We received a frustrated letter to the editor this past weekend with a familiar tune. A horse had won a graded stakes race in impressive fashion, continuing a trend of improved form that had started after the horse left the barn of one trainer for another. Why, the reader asked, did they not see coverage of the race dotted with warnings or aspersions about the trainer and his horse's meteoric rise?

It's a question we've heard before when a trainer has what a horseplayer considers an unusually high win percentage or when a horse turns in a dominant performance.

'Why are you too scared to just say the guy is cheating?' people will ask, usually with too many exclamation points. 'Why do you promote these trainers all the time?' they'll write at the end of a race preview or recap.

There are a few reasons we elected not to run that letter, and a few reasons we're not going to put out articles accusing someone of illegal activity based on suspicions or statistics.

First of all, it's important to understand there are different types of coverage on this and other publications. In our case, stories fall into the basic categories of news, features, and investigations.

If a trainer who readers are suspicious of wins a big race, we cannot pretend they didn't win it. We have to report on the results of that race. Likewise, when a trainer has a top contender for an upcoming race, we have to acknowledge that. These types of stories tend to come with quotes from owners, jockeys, and yes, trainers. Quotes may or may not ring as genuine to us or to our readers, but our job as reporters is to report those quotes and that information accurately. It is not for us to opine on them in those spaces.

Secondly, we get a lot of questions about why we don't “expose” a trainer for what a reader may believe is obvious cheating. Many readers may not realize how difficult that is to do – or how much work goes into an investigation of any kind. For us to report on an illegal drug program, we need details. What substance is being given, how it's given, to which horses, when, and where it comes from. We need proof of all those details, and we need to be able to verify that proof independently. There are relatively few people with access to those details in a barn. Probably, it comes down to the trainer, the trainer's supplier, and some number of staff.

There's a reason it took FBI wire taps to reveal the web of connections between indicted trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis and their alleged doping rings – it's because they believed they were giving horses a performance advantage that would benefit their connections financially, but only if they kept their programs a secret.

One section of the government's evidence included in the March 2020 federal indictment included a mention that Servis warned Navarro via text message about the presence of a racing official in the barn area where the two trainers allegedly stored and administered performance-enhancing drugs to horses. In a call later intercepted between Navarro and co-defendant Michael Tannuzzo, Navarro said “[H]e would've caught our assess [expletive] pumping and pumping and fuming every [expletive] horse [that] runs today.”

But he didn't catch them.

Trainers who are giving horses an illegal edge know how to evade testing, and they know to avoid being caught red-handed by the racing investigators who walk the barns daily in some (but not all) states. Their careers depend on keeping that a secret. They and their suppliers have financial incentive to make sure they leave no proof – in sales records, in the feed room, or, as we saw in the indictment, in veterinary records. They have power over their staff members, who would certainly lose their jobs if they reported their bosses and who may legitimately fear they'd never find work on the backstretch again if they crossed someone powerful.

A reporter like me – with limited access to barns, no subpoena power, and no wire taps – has two choices: call and ask a trainer if they're cheating, or hope someone on the inside can help me get the proof I need. The former isn't likely to help much, since they will either truthfully tell me they're not or lie. It will put them on notice, and if they're doing something they shouldn't be, they're probably going to take that activity more underground than it already was, making it harder for me or anyone else to catch them. The latter is extremely unlikely, but my inbox is always open.

I like to think the Paulick Report has gained the reputation it has for investigative reporting because of how carefully we verify our information before it's published. When pursuing something controversial, we try to not only report the story as fairly as we can, but to verify and reverify every detail to ensure our confidence in the facts we have. Sometimes that means leaving out salacious details, and sometimes it means passing on stories altogether if we can't get the evidence we need. We approach stories this way, yes, partly because we don't want to be hit with a libel suit, but also because we believe these standards foster trust in our readers.

None of this is to say that we don't have our own opinions about what we see out there – just that we can't base a true investigative story on an opinion and a win percentage. Opinions, after all, are like … well, you know the phrase.

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Irwin: With Horseracing Integrity And Safety Authority, Will The Culture Change?

Sixteen years after I first suggested in an Op/Ed in The Blood-Horse that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) should be hired to oversee drugs in American racing and eight years after like-minded horse folks founded the grass roots organization named the Water Hay Oats Alliance (whose mission statement mirrored my original suggestion), the sport of horse racing in the United States is on the verge of seeing this goal at long last come to fruition with Monday's announcement that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will push for the creation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

USADA supremo Travis Tygart will not be beaten in his attempt to rein in cheaters, just as the current investigations that have led to the initial arrests of accused trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis have shown what can be accomplished when real G-men go after rule breakers.

To me it is a given that systems, protocols and policing practices will be put in place by USADA and dedicated investigators will be hired to put a stop to cheating with the illegal designer drugs that have turned hitherto unknown horsemen into trainers with Hall of Fame credentials.

As far as I am concerned, the hard work that is to come is finally in the hands of those who can be trusted to make this happen.

We are now ready to focus on the next elephant in the room: the culture of the North American backstretch community, which includes those trainers, owners, veterinarians and other assorted enablers and misfits that do not want to follow the rules.

I look at the past decade as a time in racing that is reminiscent of the Black Sox Scandal in baseball. While our scandal in some regards is still unfolding as the investigations continue for the next year or so, it is time for all of us to take a strong look at the culture that made it happen, because unless this culture can change, racing cannot hope to turn the page and seek recognition as a clean sport.

Cheating by trainers, vets and owners with illegal and unknown Performance Enhancing Drugs has until very recently gone largely unchecked because those agencies charged with regulating the sport have shown no interest in addressing the problem.

Horsemen's organizations, State regulators, racetrack operators, racing boards and the media with few exceptions have not done their job of creating a positive culture. Trainers bent on cheating come up with any number of reasons that are as lame as the unsoundest horse in the barn to be able to keep their candy. State regulators will not rock the boat for fear of losing their jobs. Racetrack owners have been operating under the false notion that exposing cheaters will hurt their business. Racing boards are peopled by political appointees that want to defer rather than regulate. The media has enough clued-in writers and analysts to make a difference, but instead of being real they have made a light industry of glorifying trainers that cheat because that is what is expected of them.

OK, so now that a rejuvenating breath of fresh air is about to be ushered into the sport thanks to installing USADA to oversee drugs in racing and the horsemen's pleas to retain all of their drugs has been silenced, will those movers and shakers in racing agree to play the game on the level?

I am extremely worried the answer may be “no” given the history of the sport and the unbridled energy of the worst aspects of human nature. I do believe that plenty of horsemen and owners seek an edge only because they think everybody who is winning does the same thing. I think these people can and will adapt to a more normal way of doing business. I know plenty of them really appreciate the change.

The ones I fear are those horsemen that have seen the awesome power of illegal drugs and no matter what happens will always seek an edge because they have been emasculated by the power of drugs and think their skills will never be good enough to allow them to win on the square.

While most horsemen outwardly behave as though they have confidence in themselves, the truth is that very few of them really do and they live in mortal fear of being found out as a fraud.

I reckon that many of these will fall by the wayside, because if they are forced to stop cheating, their stats will reflect the new normal and fewer owners will supply them with horses. Others who are smarter than the average fellow will continue to cheat and, for a time, may continue to get away with it. But eventually the axe will fall not only them but their enablers—the owners who supply them with drugs, the money to buy drugs and expensive horses.

My hope for racing—and it is just that, a hope—is that those individuals who have enjoyed phenomenal success because of their cheating and only play a game they can dominate if they can cheat—will fade from view and go back to other money games on Wall Street or the corporate jungle and return to swindling their peers, while leaving the rest of us cases of arrested development to conduct our silly contests of equine speed.

Once the landscape has been cleared, racing in my fantasy world would take place on a level playing field for the first time in an entire human generation and those folks who really like the horses will produce a product that can be embraced by all of those horseplayers, fans, owners and trainers who love the greatest game played outdoors.

It could happen.

Barry Irwin is the founder and CEO of Team Valor International.

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