By Barry Irwin
Regarding T. D. Thornton's Op-Ed Sept. 19: in a sport that sees weekly (if not daily) flaunting of current rules in which arrogant trainers appear to be using the known illegal drug EPO to gain an edge, I for one find it nothing short of comical that we are all up in arms over this silly video that served only to highlight the type of arrogance on display at America's major racing venues.
If those who play our game really gave a hoot, they would get deadly serious about cleaning it up, instead of paying lip service to the notion of clean sport and getting their knickers in a wad over this little sideshow. If cheaters are using EPO as many suspect, the best and perhaps only way to catch them is to have cops or surveillance. Hong Kong is able to thwart cheaters because they are on lockdown. Lockdown upset too many horsemen so it was abandoned in New York.
With our wide-open stable areas and few, if any, cops on hand, cheaters are going undeterred in their quest of robbing our game of its treasure, relevance and legitimacy as a sport.
Barry Irwin is the owner of Team Valor International.
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
