Replying to James Robison:

Explain to me how professional boxing is a joke? because it's a sordid underworld based on men pulverizing each other for the bloodlust of the mob and the exchange of millions of dollars in bets? And this can't be a description of horse racing? You must think that there was once upon a time when food fell from trees and people lived forever? The horror!

Where is the bloodlust in racing?? Gillette no longer sponsors the Friday Night Fights. Who is the heavyweight champion now? Boxing is a joke, and horse racing may head that way soon.

When the dishes get dirty, we wash them. When the races get dirty, someone better clean them up as well. Punish criminal activity with criminal justice, and horse racing may have a chance. Maybe a suspended sentence may be better than a suspension of privileges; serious time for serious crime.

Replying to Todd Daugherty:
Really, did you just say that by cheating, Big Browns loss in the Belmont, made some people "Thank God." ? I can't even begin to explain how screwed up thinking is. Bottom line people, if we don't fix the things that are wrong with racing, from cheating at the sales to cheating in the barn. This sport we love is going to end up like professional boxing, A Joke. If you break the law, either iby embezzling money from a client at the sales, or administering illegal narcotics in the barn, you should go to jail.

Explain to me how professional boxing is a joke? because it's a sordid underworld based on men pulverizing each other for the bloodlust of the mob and the exchange of millions of dollars in bets? And this can't be a description of horse racing? You must think that there was once upon a time when food fell from trees and people lived forever? The horror!

Replying to binky mcfadden:
A classic example of pure Jimmerish!

Really, did you just say that by cheating, Big Browns loss in the Belmont, made some people "Thank God." ? I can't even begin to explain how screwed up thinking is. Bottom line people, if we don't fix the things that are wrong with racing, from cheating at the sales to cheating in the barn. This sport we love is going to end up like professional boxing, A Joke. If you break the law, either iby embezzling money from a client at the sales, or administering illegal narcotics in the barn, you should go to jail.

Replying to James Robison:
Maybe because it's impossible to determine what causes the "outcome" of a wagering event; favorites win less than 30% of the time. In other words you can't "prove" that "cheating" caused the horse to win. And in further other words maybe "cheating" caused, for example, Big Brown to lose the Belmont Stakes. Many losers think they were cheated and many winners think God is on their side.

A classic example of pure Jimmerish!

Replying to James Robison:

Maybe because it's impossible to determine what causes the "outcome" of a wagering event; favorites win less than 30% of the time. In other words you can't "prove" that "cheating" caused the horse to win. And in further other words maybe "cheating" caused, for example, Big Brown to lose the Belmont Stakes. Many losers think they were cheated and many winners think God is on their side.

Many losers believe that God is on their side; irrelevant nonsequiturs seem to be your specialty, James Robison. You don't need to prove that cheating causes a horse to win. You simply need to establish that cheating has occurred. Slightly missing the point, and slightly failing to make a point are at best the same thing.

Make any drug violation a criminal act. The intent to defraud is apparent, as is the act of animal cruelty. Using drugs to influence the outcome of a sporting event is stupid.

Replying to Rick & Sharon Waller:
I am a TB owner racing on the So. Calif. circuit. Last October I started a thread in this forum About "Trainers That Cheat". Why is it not a felony to defraud the public by intentionally changing the outcome of a wagering event? When My horses get beaten by certain trainers there is always a question in my mind: " Was I Cheated ?" I am not the only owner that feels this way. It is just as important for the owners as it is for the general public that cheating trainers, vets, and conspiring owners are eliminated from TB racing.

Maybe because it's impossible to determine what causes the "outcome" of a wagering event; favorites win less than 30% of the time. In other words you can't "prove" that "cheating" caused the horse to win. And in further other words maybe "cheating" caused, for example, Big Brown to lose the Belmont Stakes. Many losers think they were cheated and many winners think God is on their side.

Replying to James Robison:

Not since the first Central Asian got on the back of a horse has racing been "clean."

The public is not straying from racing because it's not "clean" but because there are easier ways to lose the milk money or the railroad pension these days.

All the handicappers I knew from my youth were guys who assumed horses were being "helped" and just read the form. They liked to hang out at the track or the betting shop, smoke and drink and kibbitz and look for a nugget of information from a jock, an agent, a groom, a railbird. What's killing racing partly is all this mania about no class louts winning races and going through drug rehab and the like.

I don't know what world anyone is living in that thinks horse racing was ever "clean" or could be made "clean." If you take away "drugs" from racing you wouldn't have any, racing that is. If Richard Dutrow, at the end of his appeals(to my mind the process reminds me of the "Law west of the Pecos") is found "guilty" he'll have to suffer the penalty and that's that but that won't save racing or make it "clean".

What could help to "save" racing is more of an emphasis on the marvel that is the thoroughbred despite the ignobility of her human helper. I personally think nothing can save horse racing because really hardly anyone cares about it. And soon racing will revert back exclusively to the landed gentry and their minions and the whirlwind will be off to chase another bit of ephemera.

Well, sure. The horse is the product, not the gambling; but the byproduct of gambling pays for the amazing animals.

As for all the guys you knew, pick a better crowd. Most people don't want to hang out with those guys anyway. Nobody cares about racing because nobody wants to hang out with the sort of people who think that because some other person cheats, everyone does. Racing is already the sport of the "landed gentry", and those aren't the two bit cheats like Dutrow; they are way more sophisticated: Biancone and cobrotoxin.

Just because something is hard to do, like keeping racing clean, doesn't indicate that we should embrace cheating. And whether stealing milk money or railroad pensions, the thief is a criminal. Animal cruelty is criminal, also. Taking your point that racing is cruel, corrupt, and everyone does it, then maybe you are correct after all. No one should care about pervasive cruelty and corruption. But the perpetrators are not in sports;they are in criminal activities around a sport. Lock the perps up, don't suspend them, and then eliminate the "sport" itself.

However, the racing industry goes to great lengths to avoid just those sort of conclusions; your comments about the noble steed, the marvelous thoroughbred, indicate that you see something else in racing.

And, binky, it may be better to never use big words; or colons; or even semicolons.

Cheers!

Replying to James Robison:
Who said anything about tolerating dishonesty? You, sir, can't see the forest for the trees.

Jimmy:

You asked me how you could be more clear. I did. You didn't answer.

Don't worry about trying again.

Platitudes are not answers.