Dutrow

Originally Posted by Samm

Dutrow did say he would rather have had a $50,000 fine than the days...

Well, of course!! If I went out and stole a car today and got caught, I'd rather pay a fine and get it out of the way than go to prison for a few years!!! In my opinion, paying your way out of a predicament is hardly any punishment at all... If they wanted to get Dutrow where it hurts (especially given his track record), they'd take him out of the game for a SUBSTANTIAL length of time. And by substantial I don't mean days or weeks; I mean months or years. I would not be in support of permanant disbarment because I believe people can change. But, a two week suspension is nothing. Kids get suspended from school for 2 weeks for fighting. Trainers that cheat and fail to play by the rules (knowing full well what the rules are) should, IMO, get stiffer suspensions every time they break the rules (blame it on whatever you want... false positives, assistant trainer error, whatever) until eventually they get shown the door for a LONG suspension (all ties to the game cut).

I think until something like this happens, we'll continue to see this blatant disregard for the integrity of the game.