Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

Almost every participant in the panel discussions at the Congressional hearings on Thursday implicated everyone in the industry for the abuses that have gone on much too long. Breeders. Owners. Trainers. Vets. Racetrack management. The cycle is complicated but deeply connected.

You buy or breed a horse and you hire a trainer to train the horse to win races. The trainer suggests the use of some combination of some performance enhancement drugs, coupled with lasix to "remain competitive." You balk. The trainer asks you if you want to win.

Well of course you do, because you have invested a lot of money in this horse and you hope to either make your name as a breeder by this horse's racing career, or set yourself up for a nice residual in the form of stud fees when this horse retires from the track. But if you don't win, none of this is even remotely possible.

So say you agree. Then the trainer asks the vet for some kind of performance enhancing cocktail that can't be detected or is legal in certain states. The vet balks. Well, the trainer will find another vet who will cooperate and get paid, often twice. Once by the trainer (who bills the owner) and perhaps once by the drug company whose cocktail he is using.

So we have a hyped up horse who may be masking an injury. The horse runs, finishes in the money but sustains a stress fracture that goes undetected. The trainer usually rests horses three or four weeks between races, but the racing secretary appears in his barn the next day and says there's a race in two weeks that looks very weak and perfect for this horse. Can he count you in?

Well of course. You want to win don't you? More drugs, more injury to an already injured limb and pretty soon, it is too late to go forward and much too late to go back. Time to retire the horse and pass on all the complications fostered by all those medications to the next generation. And so it begins again.

Everybody's hands are dirty and the argument of "That's the way the game is played" is not going to cut it any longer. I think the game is over unless we start promoting an industry that takes care of its own.

Am I right or wrong?