Where There's Smoke...

Call me naive but the recent furor that Rick Dutrow and Steve Asmussen's high profile owner, attorney Maggi Moss, have created trying to debunk their respective (in Moss's case, the charge is against her trainer Asmussen) charges of doping horses, has only added insult to injury and totally missed the point.

In saying that they have not done anything out of the ordinary (merely gotten caught) Dutrow and Moss refuse to accept an attitude of zero tolerance for drugs of any kind in the sport. Dutrow called a press conference to say he made a mistake--actually one of his employees made a mistake--and didn't take the horse off the drug clenbuterol soon enough before the filly Salute the Count raced. Moss has decided to come out of legal retirement to defend Asmussen against the "antiquation of testing labs and the lack of uniformity in rules and testing."

Guess what? It is not the rules of the system that are broken; it is the system itself. One would hope that a defense of "technicalities" would not cut it in a universe where all drugs are illegal. Period.

Of course Dutrow has serious egg on his face once again because his clenbuterol overage was revealed on the coattails of Michael Iavaronne's announcement that IEAH Stable would be drug free by Oct. 1. And Moss looks equally foolish with statements like this: "Being the leading trainer in the country and having Curlin, it would be ludicrous for him to give lidocaine to a 2-year old filly who is going off at 1-5 odds. Nothing about this makes sense."

Neither does her statement. What does Curlin have to do with the 2-year old filly racing on pain killers? Ironically Moss is right about the antiquation of drug testing and the lack of uniformity of rules regarding medication across state lines but the answer is NOT to institute MORE rules but simply eliminate ALL drugs. This is not rocket science. Nor is it discriminatory. It is leveling the playing field for all concerned for the benefit of the horses. What about that does not make sense?

I think what we have here is two people very scared about changing the way racing has always done business. What they fail to see if that it doesn't change, there will be no more business for anyone involved.

Bickering over the timing of suspensions and the validity of drug tests is just detracting from the larger issue. I sincerely hope that for once the public is smart enough to see through the smoke.