Interesting discussion
 

There is an interesting discussion taking place about possible cheating with illegal drugs and trainers defending themselves.

Click http://www.valentoraces.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=85
if you want to chime in.

Thanks for posting the link. Racing certainly needs drug standards, certified labs for testing, and stiff punishment for offenders. Hopefully we are getting closer to a level, safe, playing field across the country.

I've always said that I refuse to come to a conclusion on this topic until I've heard (or at least read) words that may or may not be from Jamie Ness.

I almost have to get a log on to start **** with Ness.

Ok, I just did :)

I would love to see Ness respond to your question, but somehow, I doubt he will answer it directly. The other defender on the thread named Webgems, or something like that, is Ness's biggest owner so of course he is going to defend.

I'd like to believe his hard work, reading the form, watching replays and training method are the keys to his success, but as you said, the instant move-ups can't possibly be "training methods". Ask Cannon how much a horse can be "trained" in the 7-14 days after a claim. Then you get the move up in class and bam, a easy winner.

Another question for Chuck:

How proprietary are training methods, are there really legitimate "secret" things some trainers do that others know nothing about? In other words, why can't a guy who is getting ridiculous results, and being accused of nefarious methods, just come out and say, this is what I do as far as training methods are concerned?
Because, it would seem to me, that this would be the best way to answer the critics, with specific, concrete examples of what is being done with individual horses.

Scott Lake told Andy Beyer his success was from NOT training them after he claimed them. This guy says that his success is from "getting them fit" which I would take as training them harder. LOL. There may be a rare occasion that you find something out of order like a bad tooth, bad shoe, abcess, ulcers, ect. that can turn around quickly. I doubt that 41% of his claims have such issues.

We all train on the same track, with the same help, feeding pretty much the same feeds, using the same vets. There are no "secret" training methods.

My question to the 'great' Jamie Ness.....
 

As Bigs said, I doubt I am getting a response

Well said.

I'm not sure why these guys feel the need to speak out and proclaim their innocence. When they do speak on their own behalf, they just sound silly.

Just shut up and keep winning 50% of your races until the test man catches up to you.

I had heard that he about s*** his pants when he found out that they were talking about freezing some samples at Tampa

So did Tampa:
1) Freeze some samples?
2) If so, were those samples tested?
3) If yes, what were the results?

1) Don't know
2) Don't know
3) Don't know

I would guess not since they've been closed for two months and there has been no word yet.

I would think that if Tampa wanted to "catch" Ness with a positive, they would have taken the samples and tested them. Even though the track has been closed, samples would have sent to a lab for testing and a report would have been issued. Since there is no report, I would come to the conclusion "these samples" were probably not taken.

They can test blood till the pigs fly and they won't find the good stuff that some of these guys are using. At least they won't find it yet....

I dont know if a racetrack can "freeze" samples because they arent the ones doing the testing, the state of Florida is. Though the Tampa is proactive on many fronts i dont know if they are prepared or even able to do this. And in the area of freezing samples, it is not as easy as it sounds because they still have to know what they are looking for in order to find it.

Question for anyone:

What are the testing procedures for tracks like Belmont, Hollywood, Churchill versus tracks like Tampa, Canterbury, Penn National?

So what's the answer, make accusations that Ness is a cheater until technology catches up with him?

Ness went on the other forum and gave an explanation for his success. Okay, until proven otherwise, it is what it is. Just maybe, the man is a very good trainer. I don't know the man, nor anyone who is affliated with him, but his record speaks for itself.

I hope he does respond to your post on the other forum, but in reality, I don't know what he could say that would cause you to have a different opinion of him.

:rolleyes:

there was an interesting piece on Real Sports about this cycling team that in an effort to attract sponsorship, randonly tests their cyclists like once a week. Since cycling is a mess with drugs (much like horseracing) the sport is on the verge of collapse. No companies want to be associated with cheaters and drug users thus they've experienced a severe decline in sponsorship dollars.
So this team decided to go overboard proactively in testing to try and insure the sponsors would be safe entrusting them to police themselves.

The interesting point of the story was that the first thing they determined was there would be no way to effectively detect every drug, much less designer drugs and desinger masking agents, so rather they test overall blood chemistry and note any major changes in the chemical makeup of the individual cyclist - anything that would signal a change in chemisrty that improved performance would be considered a positive, even though they have no idea what they are positive for