Coming at this from a somewhat different angle (I don't know Kellyn or bet his horses)...

I'm a licensed owner, small time via a group, but nevertheless my license affords me unfettered access to the backside.

Half the reason I got into ownership is sometimes what I need to keep me sane (day job is intense) is to spend some time in the barn area with my daughters, or a friend, or alone wandering around...chatting casually with our trainers and grooms and assistants...feeding a couple carrots...picking up a curry comb for a few minutes...

The other day I was with a first timer at the track and I took her back to the barns and we came upon a farrier doing his thing and the groom waved us over as my friend was fascinated. We asked, and the groom allowed her to feed the mare a carrot (we had a bag with us). It was then I saw the name on the bridle and if it was really that horse, my friend was feeding a Grade II winner.

My point to this story? What other sport allows this kind of access? Literally a few hundred people backside who have an almost unchecked access to screwing with another person's horse out of spite or some other sick stupid motivation.

Are we ready for and/or would we welcome changes where access is heavily restricted or in some cases eliminated? Who'd pay for that and is it even feasible? When my daughters were born, the hospitals used various wristbands and keycards to control access and that's for a small floor in a secure building with maybe 20 babies at once. Not a huge backside open to the air with upwards of 1000-2000 horses.

Great point. When Dee Tee had Sumwonlovesyou with Cannon virtually every person on this board along with friends and family had access to her and fed her daily. I remember someone actually baked her a cake and wanted to feed that to her. :zz:That mare got fed so many mints Chuck made a joke about her developing diabetes.

It's simply impossible for a trainer and his workers to watch every horse 24/7.

Bottom line with Kellyn in particular is if the horse was administered meth as a race enhancer it would not have been shown in the minute quantity it was and if it had been administered in previous days it would have limited the horse's performance. Ever see a meth user come down?

I'm not doubting you for a second, but I do have to ask if nobody gives meth to horses, why are they testing for meth?

:tro:

isn't it a form of 'speed'. just like adhd meds, that they test athletes for?

The only things I know about Meth come from viewing the entire run of Breaking Bad three times.

have only seen a couple of those, and don't trust a show to get it all right (just like csi, apparently fbi crime labs can't do nearly as much as what is portrayed on there). i just know i was surprised to find that adhd meds are a form of meth-but legal when given by a physician. but it explains why it's a controlled drug, and why they test for it in athletes. friend of mine has a son that just got put on it-you only get a month supply at a time, and you have to go back to the doc each time for a refill. very controlled. she said a friend of hers took one of her sons pills, and it gave her a ton of energy and she cleaned her whole house.

I think an interesting question to ask, forgive me if I missed it in the longest DT thread in years, is the amount found reasonable to the amount you would want to give a horse to run fast. Is 21 the magic number or close.

I mean if you are going to do it, you would know how much, so if the amount is 1/1000 effective dose or 1000 X effective dose (OK that would kill the horse) it should be meaningful to the guilt and intent.

If an expert could say that was the correct dose, then we're not in Kansas anymore, someone gave it to the horse for one reason.

If it's way low, your roasting the guy for nothing.

My 2 cents

Spyder out

Longest DT thread in years? It's only the 3rd longest on the current front page!

Forgetting the meth part, what is the defense for the other stuff, mislabeled meds, syringes, etc?

Wonder why his stats have fallen off this year. Must be another one of those strange horse racing coincidences.

Apparently the guy is just really unlucky. Yeah...that's it.

I know one thing, in my business, the buck starts and stops with me. If something happens under my watch, whether I did it or not, I am the one held responsible.

In racing we want to make excuses for everything and then we wonder why bettors are angry. We wonder why bettors are fed up and then when we speak up "industry insiders" tell us how dumb we are for questioning the status quo.

Sounds like a business model that has nowhere to go but down even further.

Contamination?

There is no excuse for this.

My stats have fell off this year. Certainly i haven't changed anything. The crop of babies i got last year haven't panned out. Some horses break their maidens and get stuck at the next level. Could be he just doesn't have the same stock this year. I know i don't.

The old 'stats have fallen off' argument is always precious.

Tom Proctor, 17-20% any year, went 3 for 58 (5%) in November-December last year. Must have stopped 'using'.. Or as he said, 'didn't have a 2yo that could run and the good ones retired'.

The defense is that some was left over from antibiotic treatment of a horse earlier in the year.. not that that excuses it.

Regarding the unlabeled products (not mislabeled), acknowledge that Barbara Borden of KHRC made clear that they were legal therapeutics.

Please. No more facts from an industry insider who just wants to talk down to us angry betters and keep the status quo.;)

^^^^^^ now that made me laugh!

Has the KHRC released any of this as public record (thus far all I've seen is the Stewards Ruling which validates none of this), or do we need to continually shroud client's accounts ("20 picograms detected") and 3rd party hearsay as unmitigated fact? To whom did Barbara Borden make any of that clear to? I've look high and low, and can't seem to find it.


What's precious is comparing Tom Proctor's off-year 2yo record in November-December to a guy who's win rate in the 5 months preceding an investigation has plummeted in half.

But whatever. Saratogadew is cool with it, so who am I to ask questions

Careful now. The old "stats have fallen off" argument actually IS precious. Now, I will admit, 106 starters in a year is not a good enough sample to prove against a five year record, and perhaps one could find a 12 month period during that five year run that was comparable, but those numbers are surely not meaningless.

It would be interesting to compare the speed figures of the runners in that 106 start sample to their numbers from the prior year.

I understand the side you're taking, and there is much to be said for it, but being dismissive of stats, especially when they come from someone like Doug, is at best defensive on your part. Stats are actually a very strong argument for the other side of your arguement.