News from the front:
Jeremy Rose has been awarded a six-month summer vacation by the stewards at Delaware Park for “extreme misuse of the whip” in the third race on Monday.
I don’t remember ever having seen a horse hospitalized as a result of having been abused by a rider, but the five-year-old mare Appeal to the City is at the New Bolton Center today after returning from her unfortunate encounter with Rose, who bloodied her eye with the whip during the stretch run.
Six months is too short a suspension for a blatant act of cruelty and there is no way to construe Rose whipping this mare across the face as less than blatant or something other than wanton cruelty. Some owners would be consulting with lawyers this morning. Some law enforcement agency might look into charges of cruelty to an animal, which is a felony in some places. The replay is more than ample evidence and Rose should also be heavily fined by both the stewards and a Delaware judge, who might also consider a bit of time in jail.
Rose has appealed. Idiot – and a nasty one at that.
The streak lives
Rick Dutrow, whose main client, IEAH Stable, has announced that its horses, including Big Brown, would race without drugs or steroids – but not until October – will serve a 15-day suspension resulting from a positive test for clenbuterol in Kentucky, where the legal threshold is about a gallon and a half.
Seems, according to the New York Times, that Salute the Comet, who finished second in a race at Churchill Downs on the day before the Kentucky Derby, was found to have run on twice the legal trace level of clenbuterol – the highest level chief steward John Veitch said he has seen in four years on the job. Owners Michael Dubb and Robert Joscelyn must also return the portion of the purse earned by Salute the Comet.
Dutrow has served at least one medication-related suspension in each year since 2000 and still has a license. That’s impressive. Or, scary.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
No surprise about a Dutrow suspension...Don't ask him what the drug does - he would not know! ;-), ;-)
It's such a joke that IEAH is going to be drug free...It's like the fox watching the hen house...
I am surprised that he didn't blame the clenbuterol mishap on Desormeaux.
Now it makes sense why IEAH came out with that statement, fittingly, it was after Dutrow was informed of the positive. Plus, the made sure to not include LASIX.
These guys are real shisters, but you know what half the idiots in the media fell for it and didn't even question them. Includeing your replacement at Newsday who is the chief IEAH cheerleader. HAd to have the A.P. gives the article on the web.
From Sunny Jim in New Jersey
Dutrow's drugs, Rose's horse abuse, horse slaughterers, breakdowns in big races, the lack of superstars, racinos where there used to be pastoral race tracks....Horse racing is in a bad funk these days, at least in the U.S. It's almost as if the deluges during the Breeder's Cup at Monmouth Park last fall - which began right at the start of the two big racing days and ended right at their conclusion - were omens from on high.
Who will put the sport back on the right path? Horse racing needs a powerful commissioner of some sort, one who will even overstep his or her authority if it means improving the sport, a modern-day Kennesaw Mountain Landis or a David Stern.
But how will this happen? Unlike major league sports, where there are a finite number of teams with owners, racing has no authoritative body, only those that make recommendations, which the Dutrows of the industry promptly ignore and receive hand slaps for. So don't expect things to change any time soon.
Enjoy your handicapping. The sport of racing is what it is.
Cheers.
Post a Comment