Horse racing commissions should throw the book at horse-trainers-turned-cheaters
It’s time to pull horse racing out of the slop. As 2006 mercilessly shuts down, the nation’s leading trainers have been suspended and several jockeys banned.
Horse racing officials must try to make their rules more consistent, along with the penalties for violating them. They’ll realize how unfair it seems and how downright stupid it appears when Hall-of-Fame and award-winning trainers received race bans left and right for using banned drugs to their horses.
A trainer in Louisiana (Steve Asmussen) gets a six-month suspension and a trainer in New York 
(Todd Pletcher) a 45-day suspension for the exact same offense.
A 45-day suspension and $3,000 fine were meted against leading trainer Todd Pletcher after one of his horses was found with a banned substance following a 2004 race at Saratoga.
Meanwhile, 2006 leading trainer Scot Lake was suspended for 30 days, to be served Dec. 24 through Jan. 22 of 2007, by order of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board.
Lake is already 19 days into the fulfillment of a previous 30-day suspension handed down from the Delaware Park Thoroughbred Racing Commission when one of his horses, Secret Run, tested positive for the drug after winning Delaware’s fifth race on June 7.
But suspensions have become virtually meaningless.
We prefer to see racing commissions rely more on extremely heavy fines to truly punish trainers. By doing so, racing commissions would protect both the wagering public and the racing participants.
And that benefits all of us.
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"Horse racing commissions should throw the book at horse-trainers-turned-cheaters" was posted on 5 January 2007 4:02 AM under Belmont Stakes, Horse Racing News, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Owners & Breeders, Preakness Stakes, Trainers, Triple Crown
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