Op/Ed | Horse Racing Free Tips

Letter to the Editor: Horse Racing Needs a Commissioner’s Office

by Armen Antonian Ph.D

As the 2021 Breeders' Cup approaches, there is much for horse racing to celebrate. New procedures put in place at racetracks to prevent horses with pre-existing conditions from racing have reduced fatalities. And the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) will be implemented next year to standardize medication of horses.

But from California to Kentucky to New York, horse racing is still under a magnifying glass. In the absence of national leadership, individual racetracks struggle to manage ongoing issues and each, on their own, is responsible for promoting a positive image for racing with the general public.

Thoroughbred racing needs a commissioner's office to help address emerging problems and enhance racing's image. Other sports have such an entity. Horse racing needs one, too. Why add another layer of authority? The existing, truncated structure of individual track management of pressing racing issues is insufficient because problems/solutions go well beyond the framework of a single track. What would such an office be involved in?

Take the controversy about the recent Kentucky Derby. The Derby is so important to racing nationwide (revenue, breeding, fan interest, etc.) that any major decision involving the Derby would have a commissioner's office oversight looking out for the general interest of the sport. A commissioner's office would have addressed the slight medication positive of Medina Spirit (Protonico), the Derby winner, while, at the same time, standing by the race result. Whether the win later technically holds is a legal matter. Churchill's response had no such subtlety as it called into question both the authenticity of Medina Spirit's performance and his fitness to run in the Derby.

Trainer Bob Baffert was abruptly suspended from Churchill for two years. What ensued was a (predictable) outpouring of accusations from all directions about the horse, the trainer, and, yes, the sport of horse racing. The sport of racing was not enhanced by Churchill's response. Some in the general public have been led to think that a smidgen of a legal medication can make a horse win the industry's signature race, the Derby. It is very hard to win the Derby! Ask any trainer, jockey, or owner.

Medina Spirit's trainer, Baffert, has been the face of racing. A commissioner's office would have stepped in to add balance to any official pronouncement about the trainer. A two-year ban appears excessive both to the average racing fan and the public at large. The positive reception of both Baffert and Medina Spirit this month at Santa Anita indicate the feelings of the average race fan. Of course, penalties would have been proposed based on a commissioner's office interaction with Churchill for the positive test result (pending investigation) but not without a nuanced view of the circumstances. The last thing horse racing needs is doubt about the sincerity of its response to one of its most noted figures. The public understands the need to give an ointment to a horse for a skin rash (the plausible reason for the drug overage pending the test result). The public would even approve of such a medication for Medina Spirit.

Contrast Churchill's one-sided response to Medina Spirit's positive test to the balanced approach of the Breeders' Cup board of directors. The Breeders' Cup board acknowledged Baffert's predicament (“totality of the circumstances”) and are requiring his horses to undergo additional testing and scrutiny before racing in this year's Breeders' Cup. The board acted in the broad, constructive manner of a quasi-commissioner's office.

There are a host of other issues that demand industry-wide attention. A commissioner's office would already be addressing the purposeful doping of horses with illegal drugs charged by the FBI against trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro (Navarro has pleaded guilty). An industry-wide investigation (apart from that of the FBI) would be underway, coordinated by a committee that would reach out to all racetracks to verify how widespread such doping might be. The horses who may yet be subject to such treatment deserve a rapid response. The racing and general public need to know. Instead, discussion of illegal drug use on horses just festers in chatter among race fans and then filters out into the general public fueling the dark notion that the entirety of horse racing is a dishonest enterprise.

The most visible of racing issues today is the riding crop. To the public at large, the riding crop appears to be a negative, archaic feature of racing. A commissioner's office would help to create a nationwide riding crop standard, after consulting with the jockeys' representatives themselves, and then educate the racing and the general public as to its proper and expected use. The public will understand–if the reasons the crop is needed are explained. But instead, having different crop rules in different states, and no crop at all in New Jersey is incongruous and again feeds into suspicious views about horse racing.

And finally back to the Derby. I was at the 2019 Derby and what struck me about the disqualification of Maximum Security (New Year's Day) was that three local stewards alone were making the decision for the industry's biggest race. No input from a central office like other sports existed. Let us have a seven-person stewards' team for the Derby, with a member from a commissioner's office and with a handicapper/fan on it as well. Horse racing: its people, its fans, and its horses deserve the consideration of a national racing office like any other major sport. From whip rules to public relations and more, today's issues require immediate action that go well beyond the capacity of individual tracks. A first “tip” for a press release from the new office: I know of a horse that originally cost $1,000 that won the Kentucky Derby. Now that is a story to run with!

Armen Antonian of Pasadena, California holds a Ph.D in political economy and political philosophy.

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Letter To The Editor: It’s Not Too Late To Shut Down The Slaughter Pipeline In The U.S.

Thanks to The Paulick Report's excellent coverage, readers are familiar with the slaughter pipeline where U.S. horses, including many off-track Thoroughbreds, are inhumanely transported to Mexico and Canada for slaughter and butchering so their meat can be sold for human food.

(If you're not familiar with this issue, you can learn more in our previous reporting here.)

In case you're a new reader, the slaughter pipeline is the legal practice where “kill pens” across the U.S. buy, hold, and transport horses to slaughter. It's a lucrative but unimaginably cruel business. Tens of thousands of horses, donkeys, and mules are shipped across U.S. highways and sold by the pound each year. Their journey and slaughter are particularly shocking. Unlike cattle, it's difficult to stun or sedate horses, so some are still conscious when they're strung up. Many slaughtered horses were young, healthy, and adoptable. Some were pregnant. Some were straight off their last race. Kill pen buyers are not picky.

Paulick Report readers know — and hate — all this. But what they may not know is that there is yet another chance to make the slaughter pipeline illegal. House Resolution 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (yes, the infamous $3.5 trillion Infrastructure Bill) is now back in the House of Representatives and it holds that chance.

While the Infrastructure Bill was debated in the House in June, Representative Troy Carter of Louisiana offered a simple amendment that promised to finally end the horse slaughter pipeline in this country. His amendment, which became Section 4406 “Transportation of Horses,” passed the House with bipartisan support. However, the bill's text, including the horse amendment, was stripped when it arrived in the Senate. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey stepped in and offered an identical amendment, but it was never voted on.

So after two noble, but failed efforts, Congress now has another chance to stop this horrible practice and do something Americans agree on.

But Congress' plate is full of urgent business and protecting horses has never been a priority. Make it one this time by contacting your representative and urging him or her to offer an amendment to ban the transport of American slaughter-bound horses, or to support such an amendment if offered by a colleague. Not sure who your representative is? Check here https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

–Kathy Stinson Hessmer
Volunteer at Circle A Home For Horses
Virginia Beach, VA

If you'd like to submit a letter to our editorial staff, please click here.

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Brothers: Don’t Let ‘Perfect’ Get In The Way Of ‘Good’ National Leadership By HISA

In a piece published on the Paulick Report Aug. 16, I talked about what's right and what's wrong with horse racing. Today's Part 2 of that commentary is a little uglier.

In the midst of reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, I was struck by a simple fact: homo sapiens rose to the top of the food chain because of our unique ability to cooperate in numbers greater than a hundred. There is no other mammal that can maintain a colony, herd or otherwise cohesive group once their numbers exceed a hundred or so members.

Yes, the ability to communicate helped. But lots of species have a language of their own, some that we understand to some extent, others that we know nothing about.

Fire helped. A lot. As did the advent of farming. But our rise to the top of the food chain some 50,000 years ago occurred because of our unique ability to cooperate in large numbers. Quoted from Sapiens:

“Ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That's why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.”

Until you get to the unique sapiens in American horse racing.

Everyone has a stake in this, and, to our credit, each and every individual has tried to get others to see things their way. We've even formed several organizations over the years that were intended to bring everyone to the table in the spirit of cooperation. Sadly, it seems that each new entity that is formed spurs the formation of another special interest group to protect their agendas and assets.

Disparate groups: can we learn from benchmarks?

We have national organizations such as the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), the Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau (TRPB). And then a national owners' and breeders' group (TOBA), along with regional owners' and breeders' groups in every racing jurisdiction (CTBA, KTOBA, NYTB, etc.). We have a national horsemen's organization (HBPA) and then, of course, a regional HBPA in each jurisdiction. In 2019 we saw the formation of the Thoroughbred Safety Coalition, comprised of the Breeders' Cup, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, New York Racing Association and the Stronach Group. I could go on.

All of these organizations have been formed with the intention of making horse racing better, getting people to the table, and/or protecting their own interests. To be sure, they have all achieved some minor or major successes. But we have not been willing to set our differences of opinions aside and agree upon a uniform set of rules and codes of conduct.

The Olympics and the International Olympic Committee

I've long been a fan of the recently-concluded Olympic Games as they embody all that I love about sports. If the Olympics — an international competition, currently comprised of more than 200 countries and numerous sports — has managed to achieve a consistent level of success through cooperation, how is it possible that we cannot do the same? We are only one country, one sport. Thirty-eight different jurisdictions. Thirty-eight different sets of rules.

The modern Olympic Games began in 1896 after the formation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, and today, the IOC remains the governing body of the Olympics. In terms of growth, the 1896 Olympics consisted of 14 participating nations whose athletes competed in 9 different sports. Today, more than 200 nations compete in 35 different sports, and there is one set of rules for each discipline.

From country to country, these various disciplines were often played with at least slightly different rules and nuances. Yet, 200 nations have shown us that not only is it possible to agree on the rules of these 35 different sports, it's also possible to agree on how they should be adjudicated.

Example: drug use.

Therapeutic drug use has been a point of contention in both horse racing and the Olympics. The IOC handled it by allowing the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to create therapeutic drug use exemptions that are fairly straightforward. The three criteria that must be met to grant a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) are:

the athlete would experience significant impairment to their health if the medication was withheld;
the prohibited substance would not increase the athlete's performance other than from restoring their health to normality;
the athlete could not use a permitted alternative

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If we had kept it that simple when it came to the use of furosemide (commonly referred to by its trade name, Lasix) this would not have turned into such a contentious issue in U.S. racing. Three simple questions/criteria. Not really that complicated.

That's sort of how it started with furosemide. In nearly every racing jurisdiction in which it was initially permitted a trainer had to prove that the horse had bled via an endoscopic exam and a subsequent veterinary report or state veterinary observation that the horse had bled substantially enough to require furosemide. And then, somewhere along the way, the floodgates opened. By the time the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Act was passed, something like 90% of the horses competing in United States horse racing were competing on Lasix.

The arguments for and against are, quite frankly, pointless. Yes, some horses need it. Yes, the use of Lasix was wildly out of control. No, we could not agree in numbers in excess of a hundred about how this needed to be handled.

And that is really the point: can we finally agree to agree/disagree in numbers over 100? We are at a watershed moment in horse racing where we have to decide if we will cooperate. Organized horse racing has existed since the beginning of recorded history. Unsanctioned horse racing first sprang up in the United States in 1665 and in 1868, when the American Stud Book was first published, it became much more organized. Between 1665 and 1868 horse racing grew through cooperation, not division. The Breeders' Cup, the brainchild of the late, great John Gaines, was birthed into fruition through cooperation and has grown by the same means.

The Roman Empire reigned for 500 years and no one alive during that time could have predicted its collapse at its peak. Horse racing has been taking a steady downward slide from its apogee for at least the past 20 years. In 2000, $14,321,000 was wagered on horse racing in the United States. After a steady decline over the past 20 years, that number fell to $10,930,000 in 2020. Adjusting for inflation this is a 50% reduction in handle in 20 years. An unsustainable hemorrhage.

Getting back to the Olympic Games, without cooperation and the leadership of the International Olympic Committee and their agreed-upon set of standards, the Olympic Games would never have survived. They faced many challenges along the way, including two world wars, the Cold War boycotts, doping scandals, a terrorist attack in 1972 and the COVID-19 pandemic postponing the 2020 games. But they have managed to cooperate and, at the end of the day, rise above the mayhem.

Horse racing cannot survive without leadership and cohesiveness either. The Horseracing Safety and Integrity Authority may not be the perfect answer but right now is not the time to let the unrealistic ideal of “perfect” get in the way of good. If we, the sport of horse racing and all of its participants, cannot cooperate we will fall the way of the wolves and the chimpanzees. Individually, we will survive. But our sport will not.

Donna Barton Brothers is a retired jockey, award-winning sports analyst, author, and chief operating officer for Starlight and StarLadies Racing. She serves on the executive board of the TAA and TIF, and is on the advisory boards of Boys & Girls Haven and the University of Kentucky Research Department's Jockey and Equestrian Initiative.

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July 30 Insights

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

WELL-BRED FILLIES DEBUT AT ELLIS

3rd-ELP, $51K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1 1/16mT, 2:46p.m.

Brad Cox saddles a well-related firster in Godolphin homebred ALREADY CHARMING (More Than Ready). Her dam Alluring Miss (Shamardal) is a half-sister to MGISW and top sire, the late Scat Daddy (Johannesburg); GSW & GISP Antipathy (A.P. Indy); and stakes winners Grand Daddy (Johannesburg) and Lovestruck (Tapit). Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas also unveils a nicely bred juvenile filly in Surprising (American Pharoah). Out of SW & GSP Harriett Lane (Giant's Causeway), the dark bay is a half to SW Heiko (Mr. Greeley) and SW & GSP Street of Gold (Street Sense). Harriett Lane is a half-sister to GSW sire Cactus Ridge (Hennessy). Surprising enters off a pair of bullet works, most recently covering three furlongs over this venue's main track in :35 2/5 (1/22) July 25. TJCIS PPs

LOBO UNVEILS PRICEY INTO MISCHIEF

6th-ELP, $51K, Msw, 3yo/up, 5 1/2fT, 4:10p.m.

Paul Lobo sends out the latest expensive offspring of Into Mischief for Larry Best's OXO Equine in OP ED. The $750,000 KEESEP purchase is out of GSP Poof Too (Distorted Humor). This is also the family of Grade I-winning sires Bluegrass Cat (Storm Cat), Girolamo (A.P. Indy), Super Saver (Maria'a Mon) and Imagining (Giant's Causeway). TJCIS PPs

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