Asmussen Suspension
 

Looks like he is in pretty deep.

http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=34154

Steve Asmussen, North America's leading trainer in 2004 and 2005, is facing a six month suspension for a medication infraction involving the Class 2 drug mepivicaine, a local anesthetic.
According to the Louisiana Racing Commission, Asmussen's appeal on a May 18 ruling was rejected when stewards reviewed the issue June 23. The trainer was fined $2,500 and must postpone training July 10 through January of 2007. He has 30 days to make a court appeal on the decision.

Asmussen's suspension follows a March 24 optional claiming race at Evangeline Downs in which his starter, No End in Sight, tested positive for mepivicaine. The trainer is also appealing a ruling on an Acepromazine positive at Sunland Park in New Mexico that would suspend him for six additional months. That ruling was handed down along with a purse redistribution demand and a $1,500 fine after traces of the prohibited substance were found in the Asmussen-trained Boots Are Walking following a victory in a March 4 stakes race. The trainer was granted a stay on the issue in June and is scheduled to go before stewards Aug. 30.

Asmussen is North America's second-leading trainer by earnings and wins this year. His horses are stabled at Arlington, Belmont, Churchill Downs, Lone Star, and Louisiana Downs.

No big surprise that Assjuicen gets caught again. What is funny is that he is facing suspensions in both LA and NM, pretty much throws the "oops, it was a mix up" excuse out the window.

What is a point of a suspension!!!! He will just move his stable to another track. If you are going to suspend a trainer, it should be nationwide, it should also mean that you can't race horses under your assistants name etc etc. Asmussen will just laugh at this.

Except that Ace is a tranquilizer that calms horses down... Not "juice" them up... And Mepivicaine is nothing but a local that is used whenever you do minor surgery on a horse like dental work. Both can linger in a horse's bloodstream at varying rates. If Asmussen, and I'm no fan of his, is doing "something" it ISN'T with the likes of Mepivicaine and Ace.

Following the Buff Bradley/Brass Hat situation tells you everything you need to know about these situations. Manufacturer guidelines said that the product would be in a horses system for up to 23 days. Buff gave it to Hat 28days out. The 3 vets that testified on the Bradley's behalf tested on a variety of horses and found that the detectable trace amounts could linger UP TO 44 DAYS in a horse's bloodstream... So I guess Buff is "juicing" Brass Hat in your mind too?

Whatever we may think "supertrainers" or "move up" trainers are doing, it's NOT the things that these suspensions (Asmussen, Pletcher, Dutrow) are citing...

This is the same exact substance(mepivicaine) that Pletcher is fighting a 45 day suspension for and that Dutrow got a suspension for. Its absurd to give him 6 months, ridiculous to say the least. Its a local anesthetic. Its used in dental work(which horses do have) and after giving a horse stitches. Todd is about the sharpest guy I know of in the game and Asmussen is right there next to him. Everybody with a brain knows that the "caine" family is the easiest drug family out there to test for. Its presence even in minute doses is detectable in testing. Several trainers fought against suspensions for cocaine in the 90's and won. It was contamination most likely caused by grooms who had been using. Everyone is aware of how sensitive "caine" drugs are and when you are talking about Pletcher, Asmussen, and Dutrow you are talking about three guys that I can assure you are extremely intelligent. I know two and have talked to the other and these guys are not idiots and would NEVER give a caine family member to their horses on purpose. Its also simply not something you would ever give a horse to "hop" him. Its absurd. Asmussens's case is most likely no different than Pletchers or Dutrows in that I would guess it was caused by stitches given to teh horse and having the substance linger in the system in small amounts. As far as Ace goes, everyone uses it. Its a tranq that is given often to horses. Again, it probably lingered past the number of days it usually leaves the system, and as Stev says, why the **** would you give a tranq to "hop" a horse, thats just insane.
Asmussen is getting the shaft here. And now like with the Pletcher and Dutrow postives we will be treated to nitwits crying "I told you he juices"!!! all over the internet and in the papers. Of course the folks who yell loudest and most often will be the folks who know as much about medication and training as I do about rocket science, not a whole lot.

So can he race at Saratoga this summer?

I agree 100%.

He will appeal it Tim. This is such nonsense that it makes my blood boil. There are about 50 guys out there training that I could guess with a high degree of certainty are using something and they rarely if ever get caught. When they do get caught they get a handslap.
Then you have three guys who between the three of them saddle like 5000 starters a year(I'm not kidding) who get one postive for mepiv and they get federal cases. Its a joke really.
Tim Asmussen is able to manage that number of horses because he has an eidetic(photographic) memory. If you ask him about any one of the 500 horses he has under his care he can tell you all about the horse without having to look it up, thats how smart he is. He also makes a lot of money. Do you really believe that he went to great lengths to "juice" an ulra cheap claimer in Lousiana? Do you really believe that a guy like Todd who makes millions went to great lengths to "juice" up a 75 claimer(thats what the horse was who got him his postive)? Do you really think that Dutrow went to great lengths to insure that Farmer Jake(the 30 claimer that got him his caine postive, the other one was clenbuterol in a 14 claimer) would win?
The funny thing is that all of these guys compete at the grade one level with horses where there is supertesting and surveillance and they win those races all the time. IF they are indeed juicing why do they not test positive in races like the Travers or BCC or Met Mile when their horses win? Its just absurd. When you saddle that many horses there is going to be occasional vet error, its a numbers game.

It is kind of stupid to think a guy like Asmussen would do something illegal to win a 75 claimer when he is constantly competing in huge graded stakes, especially at Saratoga with his babies. It would really stink not having this guy around for the meet up here, I like him. Hes very nice to me in the mornings when I ask my stupid questions. I was a big fan of Lady Tak.

Horse racing has gotten as bad as baseball. They might as well just legalize all these drugs. They have ruined the breed with all these drugs anyway. Top horses need months between races now when they used to race every two weeks. I am convinced these guys running the testing programs get paid off by trainers and when the trainers stop paying the tests start coming up positive.

Tim if you knew Todd you would say the same thing. I can assure you that he isn't just "smart" in terms of the racing game, hes just plain real smart period. No way would he jeopardize his reputation and income so he could win that 75 claimer. The owner of the 75 claimer was Coolmore. You telling me that Coolmore was sweating winning that race? Give me a break. Dutrow is his own worst enemy because of his attitude and demeanor at times. He is often referred to as a punk at the racetrack because he is ****y and hes not real good with the media because he tells it like it is and doesnt posture his responses to win favor. But he is really a brilliant guy and actually sensitive about how other trainers he respects feel about him.
These suspensions are a glaring example of whats wrong with testing and penalties these days. Its kinda like when Zito and Mott got suspensions for lidocaine(note that it was yet another caine family drug). Both trainers had horses with cracked feet and at the time the salve that most vets were using contained Lidocaine. So basically they treated cracked feet and got ten days. Shoot, all they did was take the salve that the vet gave them(vets dont come by every day to administer something so easy as that, groom rubs it on) and cut it off when the vet said to cut it off, and it lingered. Meanwhile someplace in America today a horse will improve ten lengths after being claimed last week and win off the screen and not test positive for anything. Great huh?

Ruler that may have been the craziest thing you ever wrote. You really are talking trash here. Lemme ask you something ok? WHen you go to the dentist to have work done do you refuse novaCAINE(same family)? When you had stitches did you refuse the shot the Dr, gave you before he sticthed you up? Thats all this is. I'd think as smart as you are in real life terms(but not horses yet) that you would see beyond the hype and actually think about this. So we have horses getting cuts stitched up and thats juicing? Please.

I think it makes perfect sense to cheat in a low level claiming race. Get the horse juiced up to win a $7500 claiming race--next time out run the horse in a $12500 claiming race and hope the horse gets claimed. Low leveling claiming races are perfect for cheats. But I do not think that Pletcher, Dutrow or Asmussen cheated.

Exactly Euro. Those guys arent sweating those kind of horses, they'd like to lose them.

Most of the time these big time trainers are training these low level horses as a favor. They could care less if they win. They just want to get rid of them and go work on the Flower Alley's of the world.

I don't think he can move his stable to another track. If you are suspended in one state, the other states will also honor the supsension. It's the same with jockeys. If a jockey gets days in California, he can't ride in New York either.

Really, I did not know that. Thanks for the info.

These guys are sharp. There is no way they would knowingly administer something that could be caught in a test. It was either a mistake or a false positive. They may be using something on their horses, but it isn't tested for yet.

Here's what I think. I think it's going to get worse, much worse.

There's a few dynamics that make me think so. First, drugs in any sport are a problem and with what's gone on in baseball; those running racing (and other sports) have a price to pay in terms of defending the PERCEPTION of their sports. Right or wrong, that's how it is and politicians and career bureaucrats who feast on this kind of "crisis" will do all they can to ensure their continued livelihood. Second, the stakes are higher and different with slot machines. These things generate so damn much revenue that there has to be comensurate "oversight." With the horseracing industry morphing into the slot machine/horse racing industry, there's more political capital at stake and with this comes, yes, more career bureaucrats making and applying uninformed policy that insults common sense and adversely affects racing's interests. I have so concrete numbers on this, but I'd bet my last dollar that slot machines at racetracks result in a direct and positive correlation of the percentage of state racing commission positions filled by "non-racing industry" people. Third, Spitzer. Other states will see more Spitzer-esque type of actions and decide to make "bold" statements with impunity. Too bad all of us are not able to do our own jobs so recklessly.

I think it's fair and reasonable to have and apply the "absolute guarantor" responsibility rule to trainers, notwithstanding the fact that they may have hundreds of horses under their supervision. After all, a trainer with that wide and deep an operation has obviously made the decision to work that way. But 45 days for Pletcher and 180 days for Assmussen? That's ridiculous. Whatever happened to 10 day or 14 day suspensions?

Think it's bad now? Just wait until they get close to putting slot machines in the NYRA tracks and the politicians see how much more revenue will flow through the tracks and the state. The pols and career bureaucrats will be coming out of the woodwork to "protect the public interest" like trained pigs.

Nothing worse for racing than slot machines. Instead of reducing the number of tracks and racing days, instead of spending money on improving track surfaces and jockey health care costs, instead of thinking mid and long-term, track owners are scrambling to run and build just for the sake of slot machine revenue. It's the wrong way to do business, but that's how the game is now played.

Sure there are innocuous uses for Mepivicaine, but there are also sinister uses for it such as to nerve-block a horse. That is why it is illegal. For those of you that don't know that means, when you nerve-block a horse, you inject a nerve in the sore area such as the knee or ankle so the horse won't be able to feel anything in the area that is nerve-blocked. Not only is nerve-blocking a horse totally illegal but it is one of the most unethical things you can do. When a horse can't feel anything, this greatly increases the chances of a horse breaking a leg.
I know that some people think that most of these trainers are angels and would never do anything illegal but the truth of the matter is that trainers cheat all the time and the penalties are not severe enough.
For those of you that believe these trainers' innocuous explanations for why their horses tested positive, I have some swamp land I'd like to sell you.

The best way to explain it is this way--a NFL running back twists his knee--he goes to the locker room to get a shot. Next thing you know he comes back out and runs for 2 TDs and 200 yards. After the game he gets an MRI and he has a torn ligament. Huh--how did he not feel the pain?

That's like saying that a multi-millionaire would never cheat on his taxes because he has too much to loose. It's a good argument but it's not true. People lie and cheat all the time even in situations where there is a good chance that they will get caught.
Much in the same way that cheaters are always getting more sophicticated, the testing is getting more sophisticated too. I would imagine that one of the ways guys get nailed is when a new, more sensitive testing method is used. A new test may be able to detect a drug that the old test could not detect.
One of Doug O'Neil's horses just came in above the legal level for bicarbonates. All of his horses are now going to have go to a detention barn. Do you think that he didn't do it?
By the way, when it comes to milkshaking it is usally not a huge secret as to who is doing it. Grooms are not great at keeping secrets. The grooms are at the barn and witness horses being milkshaked. It's not like they don't talk to their friends. You know the old expression that when there's smoke, there's usually fire. That is why every time I've heard rumors about a certain trainer milkshaking, it always turned out to be true. It's hard to keep secrets on the backstretch.

With a football player, I think they usually give them a shot of cortisone. That is quite different from a nerve-block. Trainers use cortisone too.

Yeah cortisone is the drug. I couldnt remember that. But doesnt it do the same thing as a nerve blocking agent?

Rupert,
Pain-killing shots are a way of life in the NFL. Every team, every game. I remember Bettis had to miss a playoff game a cople years ago when a shot in his leg hit the wrong nerve and his entire leg went numb. If they did use nerve-blocking pain killers in the NFL, a lot of games could not be played.

I agree.

There aren't too many trainers (especially high profile ones that stand to lose a lot) that won't have a "completely reasonable explanation" when they get a positive. The tendency to not be accountable is rampant.

Cortisone itself does not act as a pain-reliever. Cortisone is used to reduce inflammation. It's true that reduced inflammation will often result in reduced pain, but pain relief is not the primary action of cortisone.

Aww got cha. That makes sense.

A shot of cortisone is not nearly as severe as a nerve-block. A shot of cortisone can take away pain but it won't make you completely numb. A nerve-block will make you completely numb so you can't feel anything.

First off I'm not a Doctor or a Vet, But when ever my horses were winning races the Vet bill was pretty high in those months. I would always wonder if a horse is fit to win, then why was the Vet seeing him before and after he raced?

I will tell you guys this...Right now, I have a partially torn calf muscle, if I step on it the wrong way, it shoots a pain all the way to my lower back. the Doc shot me with something yesterday and I could have ran the 40 in 3.9 if I wanted to that is how good I was feeling, not today though, feels like it is going to fall off again....

Misconception about Drugs
 

To the casual racing fan and even the not so casual (which i would put myself in that category) and except for the experts and insiders like Oracle 80, etc. this whole issue about drugs legal and not so legal is both confusing and obviously putting a cloud under the sport....

I, first believed that there was widespread drug abuse when i first came to this board just a few weeks ago amongst the high percentage trainers. It now seems obvious that i am wrong. Trainers like Pletcher, Asmussen, Dutrow are winning at the higher percentages most likely because:

1) They get the better horses (well bred and higher price yearlings, etc.)
2) They are just plain smarter than their peers
3) They go the extra mile and spend an additional $40-$50 per day using the best food and vitamin supplements available.

I guess suspensions like the ones being talked about with Dutrow, Pletcher and now Asmussen are just making this issue more confusing and somewhat unfair by not testing for the real so called "milkshakes" on a national level.

Yes, like baseball there will always be cheaters who are one step above the detectors. Not sure what has to be done, but something should be done to get rid of the real cheaters and make the playing field level for handicappers.

Paul

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that you were wrong about suspecting cheating. I think that if you asked most people in the business, a majority would say that they think many of these top trainers are cheating. Now that doesn't mean that these people are correct. I have no idea whether Pletcher or Dutrow cheat. I can make an educated guess but I can't say with certainty. By the way, I think it partly depends on how you define cheating. If you milkshake a horse the day before a race, it is technically legal as long as the numbers are below the the threshhold when the horse is tested. You can't give a horse anything on race day. If they catch you giving a horse anything on race day you can get in trouble.
I'd rather not talk about any current trainer today because I don't want to offend anyone but let's talk about a trainer from the 1980s. I don't know if you remember thr trainer Oscar Barrera from the 1980s. He passed away several years ago. He would claim a horse for $25,000 and the horse would lose that day. Then he would bring the horse back 5 days later ina stakes race and the horse would win by 5 lengths. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this guy's horses were not improving by natural means. This guy would improve horses by 10 lengths overnight. Nowadays you usually don't see anything quite that extreme but you still see some stuff that is pretty amazing. If it looks too good to be tue, it usually is. However, even if you see a horse improve immensely for a new trainer, you may be correct to assume that some type of drug played a role, but it may very well be a legal drug. The good trainers have the best vets and they make the best use of their vets.

The bottomline here is that the guy is spread out with half a thousand head all across the country, and I GUARANTEE you that he would never have authroized that cheap $10K claiming filly to have any sort of meds that would jeopardize his liscense...PERIOD. She is a ten claimer at Evd and she ran last...it didn't even hep her...this is an obvious mistake by a vet there and now Steve will unfortunatelyt held accountable for it because that is what the rule says...he probably hadn't even seen No End in Sight for several months.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is the suspension that they hung him with - 6 months.....this is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous and it really makes you wonder what the real agendas are behind the EvD stewards....I smell some Cajun cooking that the horsemen down there probably are sending a message that they don't like Steve coming in and stealing all of their money.....a damn shame...

I asked one of my trainers this morning about Mepivicaine and about its uses. He said that if a horse tests positive for the drug, there is no doubt that the horse was given a nerve-block. I asked him if there was even a small chance like even a 5% chance that the drug could have been given for something else such as dental work or something else. He said that there is absolutely no chance of that. He said that Mepivicaine is not usd for dental work. Horses are not like humnas when it comes to dental work. They are not given Novacaine or Mepivicaine. Horses are tranqulized when they get dental work done.
You would have to be very gullible to believe that a Mepivicaine positive was the result of dental work since the drug is not used for dental work.
With regards to Asmussen specifically, I have no idea if he knew what was going on or not. When you have that many horses, that many vets, and that many assistant trainers, you can't be involved with every little detail of what is going on with every horse. It is impossible. However, it is the trainer's responsibility to make it very clear to his assistants and his vets what it alright and what is not alright. If you use aggressive vets and give them carte-blanche to do whatever they think is necessary, then this type of thing can happen. Many of these trainers have a sort of "don't ask/don't tell" policy with their vets. They trust their vets to take care of problems and they don't ask them how they do it.