Rick Englander

[hobbes]

Englander Making A Claim to Fame
By Andrew Beyer
Thursday, August 9, 2001
Rick Englander's ambitions were modest when he indulged his lifelong passion for horse racing and claimed a mare at Laurel Park for $14,500. "I hoped," he said, "to get a winner's circle picture and a pass to the track." That transaction in late 1998 was unremarkable -- Englander never won a race with his first horse -- except for one thing. It marked the beginning of an almost unprecedented success story.
Virtually unknown in thoroughbred racing two years ago, Englander is now ubiquitous. A 41-year-old from Westchester County, N.Y., he has more than 150 horses in the care of 15 trainers competing in Maryland, Delaware, New York, California, Louisiana, Canada and other locations. Englander has collected 261 winner's circle photographs this year, and by the end of 2001 he will have won more races in a single year than any American owner in the last quarter-century.
Of course, many owners have made a splash by spending lavishly on racehorses, but rich newcomers typically enter the game with dreams of winning the Kentucky Derby. Englander has chosen to deal almost exclusively with claiming horses. Instead of seeking a horse who can achieve glory at Churchill Downs, he is thrilled when he claims a $50,000 horse who can step up and win in allowance company.
This is an unusual approach for a big player in thoroughbred racing, and many people would question whether it is financially sound, but it suits Englander's temperament and background. He is a stock trader, and the cardinal sin in his profession is getting locked into a bad position. He wants faster action -- and found it in the claiming game.
Englander loves the challenge of studying the form and selecting horses to claim. He will gamble on taking well-bred first-time starters; he likes horses bred to run on turf who haven't tried it yet; he tries to find horses who can move immediately into allowance races.
Englander hired trainers at various tracks (choosing them on the basis of high win percentages) and asked them to approve a horse's physical condition before making the claim. Like most owners, Englander was having fun and losing money. Owning racehorses is a bad economic proposition because expenses are high and purses too low. Making money with claimers is especially tough because they eat as much as stakes horses but don't have the upside potential of, say, a Fusaichi Pegasus.
But Englander is a man who plays to win. He analyzed his results and concluded, "If we could win 20 percent of our starts and finish in the money 50 percent of the time, this could be profitable."
In pursuit of that goal, Englander hired two old friends and his father-in-law as full-time employees so that he could operate the business as professionally as possible -- using a computer system to monitor all of his stable's activities. He acquired more horses and hired more trainers. "It just snowballed," he said. "It started as a hobby, but now it's a business."
The scope of his operation gives Englander some strategic advantages, enabling him to shuttle his horses from track to track in search of an optimal spot. When he claimed a 6-year-old named Clever Actor at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans this winter for $17,500, he shipped him to Lone Star Park outside Dallas and the horse won an allowance race. Then Clever Actor went to Delaware and captured a $40,000 claiming race. The horse didn't have to improve much to win; Englander's team already knew that he would fit well in these spots.
Englander's success rate increased when he made one significant addition to his already formidable roster of trainers. Almost as soon as he asked Scott Lake to manage one horse for him, he discovered that he and the trainer were kindred spirits. Lake is as driven to be the No. 1 trainer in the United States as Englander is to be the top owner, and both approach the game with passion.
Lake said, "Rick is fantastic to deal with. When he picks out horses, he's done his homework. Then you've got to look at them in the paddock and weed them out."
A year after their relationship began, Lake now trains some 50 horses for Englander. "I think Scott is the best horseman in America," Englander said. "He's pretty much the captain of the team. When we have a horse with a problem, he advises us. And when we send horses to Scott, 90 percent of them move up."
Englander employs many other high-powered trainers, including Steve Asmussen, Dale Capuano and Jerry Hollendorfer, who rank second, third and fourth behind Lake in total wins this year. One might suspect that there would be some jealousy and rivalry when horses are taken from one and shipped to another. But Englander has managed to keep the trainers functioning as a team. "If Scott sends a horse to Rich Schosberg [in New York]," the owner said, "they'll talk to each other and let each other know everything that's going on. There's no animosity among the trainers."
With his operation running at high efficiency, Englander has achieved one goal: His horses are winning at a 21 percent rate and finishing in the money 50 percent of the time. He also has compiled formidable statistics in another category: money.
The top money-winning owner in the country is almost always one who seeks success in the traditional fashion, dealing with high-quality stock, winning the 3-year-olds classics or Breeders' Cup races. But this year, Englander's runners have earned $6.2 million in purses, putting him No. 1 in the nation and proving that an owner who plays the claiming game can get bottom-line results in addition to the stimulation of nonstop action.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company

[hobbes]

"If bettors are so sensitive about the drug issue, it is not because we are looking for excuses every time we lose. (For that, we can always blame jockeys.) It is because we pay close attention to the performance of horses and trainers, and in recent years we have seen too many that defy historical precedent or handicapping logic.
When Scott Lake led the nation's trainers in victories, winning with 32 percent of his starters, he accomplished a feat unmatched by any trainer in the Hall of Fame. I would like to believe his success is the result of skill and hard work and I voted for him for the Eclipse Award. At tracks across the country, many other trainers have similarly emerged from obscurity, improving horses sharply and winning at phenomenal rates. One unknown got his first job as a trainer and proceeded to win with 18 of the first 36 horses he saddled. Great trainers accumulate their wisdom over decades, and it is inconceivable that a legion of training prodigies has suddenly appeared in America. The miracle workers create such skepticism that they cast doubts on the achievements of every successful trainer."
from beyer also -- is he implying what i think he is implying??
in fact just reading the englander article did not create any doubt in my mind but combined with lake's 32% winners plus englander's trainers ranking 1, 2, 3, 4 in the country re number of wins absolutely screams "juice" does it not.

[hobbes]

Maestro Gets B Flat Major to Change Tune
By Andrew Beyer
Monday, July 9, 2001
Scott Lake has won more races than any other thoroughbred trainer in the last two years, and he has scored many of those victories by claiming horses and improving them dramatically. But none of his feats can match the performance by B Flat Major at Delaware Park on Tuesday.
The gelding had failed to finish in the money since October, making five starts and losing them by a combined total of 72 lengths. Yet in the most recent of those races, on May 27, Lake boldly spent $62,500 to claim the 6-year-old. After training him for five weeks, Lake entered him in a stakes race against a solid field.
B Flat Major didn't merely win; he overpowered the competition, leading all the way to win the $55,000 Shecky Greene Handicap by nearly four lengths. It was the kind of form reversal that makes many people in the sport wonder if Lake possesses some magical elixir. In this case, the explanation might be less exotic: Lake knew his horse.
Lake first came into contact with B Flat Major in 1999; one of his owners, Rob Orsanelli, was fond of the consistent runner and kept pestering the trainer to claim him. Lake would reply, "No, he's sore, he's got a lot of problems," and B Flat Major would keep winning. Finally, Lake relented and took B Flat Major for $18,000, then watched with chagrin as the jockey pulled up B Flat Major in mid-race. The injured horse was vanned off the track.
Lake was relieved to learn that the injury was not career-threatening, but when he put B Flat Major back into training, the horse promptly went lame. So Lake sent him to a farm to recuperate, and B Flat Major did not return to competition until eight months after the claim.
When he did, he amply repaid Lake's patience, winning five of six starts, including a stakes race, establishing himself as the star of the stable. "He's got a ton of ability, and he's all heart," the trainer said.
Lake planned to run B Flat Major in the $200,000 Maryland Million Classic and gave him a tuneup in a $75,000 claiming race. But New England-based owner Michael Gill also saw the possibility of winning the Maryland Million, and he took the horse. When Lake learned that his star had been claimed, he said, "I wanted to throw up."
How B Flat Major felt is uncertain, but he did not fare well in his new stable. He finished last in the Maryland Million, the start of a string of poor performances for two of Gill's trainers, Gamaliel Vazquez and Michael Taglianetti. Lake watched the horse before most of his races and recently observed, "I thought he was 150 to 200 pounds underweight. In the paddock, he was moping around. When we had him, he had been like a bull. But he was still sound. He was hitting the ground okay."
When B Flat Major was entered in a Delaware Park claiming race, Lake spent $62,500 to reacquire him -- a hefty price considering his dismal recent form. Then he proceeded to employ his favorite method for dealing with old campaigners: doing very little.
Lake believes that battle-scarred veterans thrive on minimal training. So after B Flat Major arrived at Lake's barn at Pimlico Race Course, he didn't have hard workouts or even strenuous gallops; his daily exercise usually consisted of an easy jog. As Lake shuttled among his training operations in three states, he didn't see the horse every day, but his assistant Tim Hooper regularly reported that B Flat Major was playful and energetic -- just as he had been a year ago.
The horse's progress encouraged Lake to enter the stakes race at Delaware. B Flat Major took the early lead without a challenge, set a moderate pace and drew off to a decisive victory, producing the type of form reversal that bettors have come to expect from Lake's runners.
It is a widespread presumption that Lake (or any trainer) would have to be doing something illegal to improve horses so suddenly. That suggestion has been made in this column many times, but Lake's success with B Flat Major is obviously due to factors besides a magic potion.
The trainer had the patience to wait eight months to let the horse heal before he scored his first string of successes last season. After losing him via claim, he watched the horse for months to judge if he was sound enough to recapture his old form. He had a plan to make the horse physically and mentally sharp again. And then he picked an optimal spot in which to run.
If Hall of Famers such as Bill Mott or Allen Jerkens had done the same things, the racing world would be extolling their good judgment and superior horsemanship. Perhaps judgment and horsemanship have something to do with Lake's phenomenal success, too.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company

[hobbes]

DRF 16/11/01
"You ARE joking, right? The guy ADMITS that he messes around! Here is a quote: "If the rules say that the legal limit is 5.0 mg, MY JOB IS TO MAKE SURE the horse is at 4.9.""

[hobbes]

DRF 29/09/01
"I will not bet a bad horse from a hot barn (unless it is a first-time off the claim for Scott Lake, in which case you can toss out everything that happened prior to the claim since we know what happens once a horse enters his barn--last year he claimed a loser out of a $25,000 claiming race and went on to win two or three stakes with the horse)."
=================================================
"usually the barn which gives the best dope wins races.the barn that has the best doctors working for them,and prescribing the perfect level of dopage factor(ie not getting caught when they do the pee test)is the one to go with."
=================================================
"Or even if they do get caught...Who cares? (The pee test is done after they post the prices, not before.) How many races did Scott Lake win during his "suspension" with the trainer listed as S. Krebs, M. Pino, or someone else? I think the %age was somewhere around 20-25, just like it always is with that guy.
Suspended jocks can't ride, but suspended trainers can still run their horses."
[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: hobbes ]

[hobbes]

Gill Arrives With Confidence, Controversy
By Andrew Beyer
Friday, October 20, 2000
A year ago, Michael Gill was virtually unknown in the mid-Atlantic region. Saturday the owner may be a major force in the Maryland Million. His horse, B Flat Major, will be one of the favorites in the main event at Laurel Park, the $200,000 Classic; three other members of his 120-horse stable are entered on the day's program.
Gill's horses arrived at Delaware Park this spring and started winning at an extraordinary rate for a succession of different trainers. The latest of them, Gamaliel Vazquez, had never held a head training job before, yet he has been sensationally successful, too. As a result, Gill ranks as the second-winningest owner in the nation this year. Bettors who have observed the performance of his horses are asking: Who is this guy?
That's a very good question. Is the 44-year-old New Englander an able manager who makes shrewd decisions about claiming horses, or a kook who hires and fires a trainer almost every month? Is he is a horse lover who has had a passion for the game since his youth, or a figure so shady than the New Hampshire Racing Commission banned him from the sport for three years for drug-related offenses?
Gill grew up in Salem, N.H., the home of Rockingham Park, and he was hooked on the game at an early age. He was coming home from an after-school job when he stepped through the ice in a brook near the track and got himself soaked. "I went into the track to thaw out," he recalled, "and while I was there I bet $20 on a horse--and won $360." When he got home and related the story, his father nodded and said presciently, "So it starts."
Gill's passion for racing did indeed start on that day, and by the mid-1990s he had made enough money in the mortgage business to begin buying racehorses on a serious level. He decided he would deal principally with claiming horses, and he didn't want to depend on a trainer to make the key decisions about choosing and managing his horses. Gill ran his own show and attracted attention because of his frequent claims and his sometimes turbulent relationships with trainers. When he fired one trainer, he took out his own license and started his first horse on July 24, 1995. The horse tested positive for the drug clenbuterol--which at the time was banned by the Food and Drug Administration--and security officers subsequently searched Gill's barn at Rockingham. They found syringes, hypodermic needles and bottles of illegal drugs.
Although Gill insisted that he was framed--he had made many enemies in racing because of his aggressive claiming of other people's horses--the state racing commission threw the book at him, suspending him for three years. Gill disappeared from the game.
"It was the best thing that ever happened to me," Gill said. "I put my entire focus on the mortgage business--and my company took off." Even after the three-year suspension was over, Gill was directing all of his energy into running Mortgage Specialists. But by mid-1999 he was itching to get back into the game and, he said, "If I commit to it, I've got to be the biggest."
He got back into action in New England, but he also saw a golden opportunity at Delaware Park, where revenues from slot machines have increased purses so much that it is feasible to make money with claiming horses. Once again he attracted attention with his aggressive claiming as well as for his relationship with trainers. Gill changed trainers the way Zsa Zsa Gabor used to change husbands. He has employed seven trainers in New England this year, and five in Delaware. Gill cites reasons for making these changes, and usually it's the trainer's fault. (Asked why he replaced one particular trainer, the owner replied: "He was Satan.")
But even the most demanding owner would have trouble finding fault with the record of Gammy Vazquez, who will saddle B Flat Major Saturday. Gill has known Vazquez since he was a kid--he is the son of one of Gill's former New England trainers--and gave him a job as a mortgage broker. But Vazquez wanted to be a horseman, and struggled to establish a career at the track until Gill needed yet another trainer. Hired by Gill in August, Vazquez proceeded to amaze everybody at Delaware Park by winning with 18 of the first 36 horses he saddled. Many of the horses improved almost miraculously the first time Vazquez ran them.
An owner with a drug violation on his record, an unknown trainer working miracles--you didn't have to be a paranoid horseplayer to be suspicious. But Gill insisted the reason for the "miracles" is his management and his trainer's diligence.
"Gammy is being scrutinized," Gill acknowledged. "His barn was raided three times in four days. They looked at all his vet bills." But all the investigators found, Gill indicated, was evidence of the stable's professionalism.
"People think this kid came out of the blue, but his father's a trainer, his brother's a jockey, and he worked!" Gill said. "The first thing we did was to start taking blood tests of all the horses we claimed; 23 out of 25 were anemic. A lot of the horses we claimed have had a poor thyroid or some sort of infection. We take blood tests on every horse every month. My vet bill last month was $42,000, but that's the cost of winning."
With 170 victories and earnings of $2.3 million in purses this year, Gill has been a winner, indeed. There will be continued speculation about the nature of his operation, but there is nothing ambiguous about his results.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company

[hobbes]

Comments
DRUG USE? HORSEMEN KNOW
By STEVEN CRIST
NEW YORK - You don't have to walk too far at a racetrack to hear one or more of the following opinions:
"Medications are obviously being used that are undetectable."
"When a trainer suddenly raises his winning percentage above 30 percent for an extended period of time, something is wrong. It should be called to attention and close security and testing done for all the medications."
"Trainers and owners who have enough power and money can use any kind of medication they want."
If you guessed that these were the sounds of disgruntled horseplayers assigning blame as they tear their tickets, guess again: These comments are among the hundreds made by working, licensed trainers who responded to a survey on medication conducted by the Race Track Industry program at the University of Arizona.
Trainers, along with owners and veterinarians who received similar surveys, were not required to provide their names with their responses. Dozens, however, took the opportunity to go beyond the basic questions and write extended comments. While some sentiments can be attributed to professional jealousy or paranoia, there are many reasoned and measured responses with the common theme that illegal medication is an ongoing problem at every level of the game.
Among the trainers, 73 percent thought that there is a problem with medication, and 64 percent of those characterized the problem as moderate or severe. A constant theme was perceived inequity between trainers of different income or status levels.
"If a trainer is a 'big name,' everyone is looking to absolve them of responsibility," said one respondent. "There is always a lead time when trainers, usually big trainers, get away with using 'new' drugs that do not show up in the tests. When they are caught, do they get a serious penalty? The news media always runs to their defense - how about being concerned about the trainers running second and third and fourth to these medicated horses? It's always said, 'Well they are a really successful trainer, why would they cheat?' - well, maybe that's how they got successful."
"If you notice on big days," wrote another trainer, "like Breeders' Cup Day in New York the NYRA posted guards at all the barns for the entire day and if you noticed the top trainers who usually do well, their horses did very poorly. The problem is this can not be done on a daily basis (cost too much). Therefore there can never be a level playing field in racing."
Owners were even more concerned as a group, with 78 percent saying there is a medication problem and 94 percent of those characterizing the problem as moderate or severe rather than slight.
"It's obvious that some stables are using illegal drugs," wrote one owner. "When trainers win at a 30 percent clip, claim horses for 5-15K and routinely win allowance races with them, it makes the playing field very uneven. It also chases the honest owners out of the game."
"Is there a drug problem in NY - you bet there is!" said another owner, who said he had led the circuit in races won more than once. "Since Lasix has been allowed, claiming horses is a nightmare . . . Lasix is not the problem, it's what it hides and what is not tested. There is way too much painkillers (not Bute) and hormones used today. Eighty percent of what I claim falls apart within a month . . . When a vet says you can't win unless you pay $700 per horse per month, something is very, very wrong. I only hope something will be done before I lose everything."
A few things can be done. A giant first step would be uniform national medication rules, consistent from state to state. No other sport operates amid such inconsistency, and many medication issues and problems are simply the result of conflicting rules depending on whether you run your horse at Penn National or The Meadowlands.
The second, to be incorporated into the first, is industrywide agreement of what constitutes a true positive finding. Testing technology is so advanced that microscopic findings below the level of pharmacological effectiveness are being flagged as crimes rather than incidental environmental contamination. Surely the academics can agree on the difference and a state such as California can abandon its so-called "zero tolerance" standard.
Perhaps the best thing the rest of the industry could do is simply admit that there is a problem instead of reflexively feigning surprise when fans and the news media suggest that there might be. The quotations above came not from frustrated bettors or uninformed reporters but from owners and trainers - the closest you can get to the horse's mouth.

[cheesebeast]

Scott Lake Q & A
Talent vs.Drugs
Hi Scott. Congratulations on all of your success on the NY circut.
Many people say that the only reason you do as well as you do is that
you use substances which are banned from use in horse racing. Please
use this forum to set the record straight on this matter and let
everyone know that success doesn't just come from cheating. Thank you
for your time and continued good luck with all of your horses.
charlie horse 2/12/2002 18:33
• RE: Talent vs.Drugs
I have heard that comment for five or six years now. They still have
yet to come up with anything. In Maryland they did a three-month
study where they had cameras in the stalls and watched us when we
shipped to Pimlico. We didn’t know about it. I was irate that they
singled us out just because of rumors. If we are doing something then
I have to be the biggest magician in the world. I can’t be at every
track all the time. We run our business under the same rules as
everyone else, we just run our business better than everyone else.
Scott Lake 2/14/2002 17:00
http://www.racing.saratoga.ny.us/posts/44015.html

[cheesebeast]

From: Jon Tannen
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:46:14 -0500
Subject: Entertainment...
>I don't know where this will lead but if we actually get Schosberg
>and his vet on the list standing toe-to-toe with the anti-drug
>advocates on the list it's going to be entertaining!
>
>Thanks, Dan.
>
>Cal
That's a great idea! I hope he can be articulate and shed light
on a fascinating subject [and make it entertaining for Cal]. In
the meantime Cal or Dan, please expend some energy here and
entertain us with your detailed thoughts on each of the subjects
below.
- "I'd rather run with no medication because IT'S GETTING CRAZY
AROUND HERE. I want to play on the same field as everyone else
and let the horsemanship come through." - Trainer Bobby Frankel
- The steroiding of young horses to prep them for the Two Year
Olds In Training Sales...
- The many steroid scandals involving Olympic cheaters...
- The outrageous steroid scandals of widespread abuse at Ohio
racetracks cited by the Cleveland Plain Dealer a few years ago...
- The controversy over clenbuterol...
- The "tubing" incidents involving Dr. Michael Galvin in New York...
- The incredible, almost James-Bondian steroid implant scandals
in Australia...
- The suspension of trainer Patrick Byrne at Saratoga last year,
which exposed the typically problematic relationship between
trainer and vet today whereby one hand didn't know what the
other hand was doing.
Since Cal is eager to go "toe to toe," ask Schosberg and other
leading trainers to meet you, me, Cal, others, perhaps some NYRA
stewards and a bunch of our friends at the NYRA offices somewhere
where we can all sit down. I'll spread out the sheets of horses
whose performance explosions are curious and unsettling to a lot
of us. [For example, explosions that occurred when horses from
certain trainers have shipped to Kentucky for the first time.]
The purpose of the sheets, obviously would be to quantify these
enhancements in tangible terms. [This way, we avoid talking nonsense
about how "respectable" MIL KILADES is!] Next, we'll ask them to
show us, or GET for us, in conjunction with NYRA authorities,
all the vets bills - the REAL ones - of every horse we've pointed
out on the sheets. We'll go side by side, line by line, date by
date, performance by performance, start by start, injection by
injection, medication by medication, carrot by carrot, peppermint
by peppermint, therapy by therapy, and track the progress and
development of every horse. By examining the real, detailed vet
bills in tandem with the sheets and Racing Form, maybe we can
learn something, instead of getting text from the vet lobby
handbook. For example
Reference is made to TESTAFLY's sheet at:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jtannen/Testafly.html.
Why did his ThoroGraphs go south after trainer Dale Mills was
suspended for a clenbuterol violation at Monmouth, and the drug
was thereafter withdrawn?
http://www.racing.saratoga.ny.us/posts/44011.html

[cheesebeast]

From: Jon Tannen
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:40:31 -0500
Subject: Rethinking the rethinker...
I've put MOSSFLOWER's ThoroGraph sheet online at:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jtannen/Mossflower.html
Mossflower's Hempstead was unusually spectacular. She ran a
negative ThoroGraph! I indicated the race with a red arrow
and the word "Wow!" If you're familiar with the sheets as a
true, tangible measurer of a horse's performance and form
cycle, then I'd welcome a meaningful discussion. But when
you talk about immortals like MIL KILATES, I suspect we're
on different wavelengths.
> To this observer, Robbie D. [who had just won the Aqueduct
> spring rider's title] decided to let the girl run through
> the turn [as he did in the prep], as in pursuit...
The telling passage above reminds me of the scripts from those
schlocky CAVALCADES OF SPORTS documentaries from 1958 narrated
by Chris Schenkel!
As to the text below, it's gobbledigook. Quotes from the vet
lobby handbook confuse people and miss the point. Quote Consumer
Reports.
>The more publicity as I remember was 120 days for ergonovine [the
>three horses, apparently, were not all aware of what, how was it you
>termed it?..."superpop" "cereal" they "were fed that day" - only one
>horse of three finished first. The other two had the audacity to
>finish third and fourth.].
>
>Maryland had several ergonovine positives around this time as well.
>Their racing board, after reviewing the results from a committee
>formed to look into ergonovine usage & Lasix adjuncts, decided not
>to penalize the positives nor redistribute the purses, while still
>openly, wisely debating whether or not ergnovine, among others, is
>an acceptable use as a hemostatic agent as an adjunct to Lasix.
>[It's hard to imagine any ergot alkaloid in a sufficient therapeutic
>equine dose to not have side effects that would seriously compromise
>any intended adjunct benefit to Lasix usage, or for that matter, any
>"superpop" "cereal" value. But the debate is instructive. Long live
>the First Amendment.]
>
>Backing up for a moment, reference is made to Tannen quoting 'Nash':
>>Reference is made to Steven Nash's Feb. 3 post about new drugs:
>>>"Prediction: look for more inexplicable form reversals, horse
>>>winning off long layoffs, inexperienced trainers winning with an
>>>ungodly high winning percentages, and more horses mysteriously
>>>dropping dead from heart attacks and strokes."
>
>According to the American Association of Equine Practitioners,
>"performance enhancement has not been demonstrated" in the use of
>erythropoietin [EPO] in horses. According to the AAEP, EPO
>instead...kills:
>
>"Performance enhancement has not been demonstrated ...the "human"
>foreign erythropoietin is detected by the horse's immune system as
>not equine and consequently the horse begins to build crossing
>antibodies not only against the foreign erythropoietin, but also
>against its own erythropoietin. The bone marrow no longer has
>sufficient erythropoietin stimulation to produce red blood cells and
>the horse eventually becomes anemic, severely enough in some cases
>to result in death."
>
>http://www.aaep.org/PressReleases/erythropoietin.asp
>
>Apparently, though, our supposedly 'drug-free' brethren find EPO
>abuse of great concern in Britain and Oz [a 10 on the irony meter
>for those pumping England's laudable/laughable "no drugs" 'rule'].
>
>So much concern, in fact, that a test to detect EPO usage in
>Thoroughbreds was developed last October and implemented soon after
>in Australia.
>
>http://www.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=6677
>
>Britain brags they have a test as well: "Jockey Club PR director
>John Maxse said: "An Australian laboratory said recently that they
>were close to developing a technique able to detect it, but the
>Jockey Club has been working with other turf authorities. In fact,
>we are ahead of Australia and did not want to make a song and dance
>about it when we were close to cracking the problem."
>
>http://sport.guardian.co.uk
>
>Arasnesp, by the way, is merely a slightly-improved version of EPO.
>It stimulates erythropoiesis by the same mechanism as endogenous
>erythropoietin [EPO]. Any equine usage of Aranesp is likely to be
>more deadly and more detectable, as Aranesp has a three-fold
>half-life of endogenous erythropoietin.
>
>http://www.aranesp.com
>
>Tannen, thinking out loud:
>>Of course, when trainer Smith shipped down to Delaware, his horses
>>woke up and curiously exhibited the pop they had in previous years.
>>Guess which vet treated them at Delaware Park? Dr. Jones! The
>>doctor was seen betting early, and cashing tickets late."
>
>Hopefully Dr. Jones found his losing rate of 65% adequate compensation...
>
>Howard Dennis chimes in:
>"Problem is most horseplayers are so happy with any winner they
>thrive off of the 1-1 or 4-5 winner...destoying value in racing..."
>
>I'm sure that Tannen would have to disagree, given that Mossflower
>won at 9-2 in the Hempstead...
http://www.racing.saratoga.ny.us/posts/44009.html

[cheesebeast]

Billy Isomoto, the veterinarian who was suspended, was at a Saratoga
party I attended a few years ago, shortly after a mare he treated,
Rick Schosberg's MOSSFLOWER, ran an unexpectedly sensational race to
win the Grade 1 Hempstead. I wanted to ask Isomoto what cereal she was
fed that day. But I ended up asking him what vet school he attended,
and he said he'd never been to one. That surprised me, but I ultimately
concluded it was perfectly all right, since other good people I met that
worked as vets in the backstretch also had no formal schooling. [I did
wonder however, why they were still referred to as "Doctors." Some vets
without degrees told me they learned their trade when they apprenticed
at what they termed "the University of the Meadowlands - Harness
Division!," where behind closed doors at America's top buggy track,
larceny reins supreme.]
Isomoto has been Schosberg's vet for a while. Over the last decade,
Schosberg has been a horseplayer's dream - a solid percentage winner
with many predictable trainer moves that have clicked like clockwork.
Lately however - for months even - Schosberg's barn has been sour.
He's not been winning. Recent Equibase stats show him to be,
uncharacteristically, only a 3.9% winner over the last three months.
[Just by the way - no big deal - even Schosberg's star old gelding,
AFFIRMED SUCCESS, summoned to perform on Aqueduct's inner dirt track,
couldn't get the job done at low odds.] Why has his barn had trouble?
Could it be, that Isomoto, feeling the heat of NYRA's warnings and
watchdogs since his Summer infractions, has taken a cautious, much
less aggressive approach to his work? Schosberg's horses, lacking
the usual punch they've previously displayed, have performed like
those from your everyday 8% trainer.<

[hobbes]

Eclipse Award >
Outstanding Owner: Richard Englander, 2; Juddmonte Farms, 1.
i used to get high on life until i discovered life was cut with idiots.
[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: hobbes ]

[cheesebeast]

The latest article from Joe Takach
5-----DRUGGING
The 5th reason that a bad-looking horse could and sometimes does win a race is because he’s drugged.
Drugging can be legal, illegal or a combination of both.
If you ever spent anytime of consequence as a groom or a hotwalker etc., you know the actual word “drug” is never heard from a backside worker’s mouth to include a trainer or assistant trainer. It is all part of the backside mindset that the “frontside”, to include every single owner and $2 punter, should always be kept in the dark, even if nothing illegal is being administered!
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them” is usually the reply of these condescending hardboots!
Of course from a wagering standpoint, even legal “drugging” is quite important if for nothing more than to know how another horse beat you, or perhaps to explain how you were bright enough to capitalized on a momentary situation where a horse was “legally” going 1st or 2nd lasix while adding “bute”.
These two legal panaceas (bute and lasix) and a host of other little legal “goodies” are not supposed to “enhance” performance. (If you still believe that nonsense, contact me at once. I have “swampland” in the middle of downtown Del Mar I can let you have for 20 bucks an acre).
By now, every serious horseplayer alive knows that 1st and 2nd time lasix does enhance performance and frequently in a big and winning way. And if you continue to believe the horse manure fed you by racetrack chemists, vets, officials, etc., you deserve to lose your money.
I offer fuller treatments of legal drugging in my earlier books if you’d like deeper explanations of the interaction of these 2 legal drugs (bute and lasix) and their undeniable ability to “mask” virtually anything that most racing jurisdictions are testing for.
Not every single horse put into this lasix scenario is necessarily cheating thru illegal and undetectable additives, but surely enough of them suddenly run so well that to deny the performance enhancing benefits derived from theses drugs is to insult everyone’s intelligence.
Horses simply don’t knock 2 to 3 seconds off their fastest races because they were offered just lasix.
On the other side of the coin, banned substances (that track officials know about) are plentiful and far too many to discuss in this writing. Even more numerous are the “designer” drugs that flow on backsides like water over Niagara Falls. Simply put, if any racing jurisdiction doesn’t have a test for a specific substance, metabolites of that illegal substance will show up in the post-race state urine test as an unidentifiable or indistinguishable metabolite----much the way a food metabolite would show up. That being the case, nobody did anything wrong as far as the state is concerned, even though these metabolites haven’t been identified. You can’t blame the state for not finding something that they aren’t testing for and therein lies the problem.
If in the Olympics, they can tell you what specific drug is in any and every participant, why can’t racetracks have more sophisticated tests geared toward their specific problems.
In a word, money!
And even if offered unlimited funds capable of detecting everything and anything in a horse’s system, what’s the point in possibly catching the majority of your revenue base cheating while in search of purse money? If the state caught too many, racing would slow down or stop and the state would lose a nice piece of tax revenue, not to mention untold unemployment compensation given to all the displaced backside workers.
Catch 22, no?
I hope I didn’t make you paranoid about illegally drugged horses, but in writing a piece like this, I have to show you the many different sides of this drug coin. To skip the topic would be misleading at best and still leave you in the dark as to why a bad-looking horse runs a winning race.
If a horse doesn’t “feel” that enlarged front ankle or blown knee due to “a little help from his friends”, he’ll run as he did before acquiring his problem until the ankle snaps or the knee shatters. And that just might be fast enough to win any given race depending on the state of affairs of the other contestants!
Suffice it to say that somewhere in your horseplaying career, a poor-looking drugged horse (legal or illegal) with zero energy and one who couldn’t get his head over his shoulders in the paddock, beat you. Maybe by only a nose, head or neck, but you ripped up your losing ticket nonetheless. Accept it as it’s never going to change. The bad guys will always be one step in front of the good guys until the good guys discover exactly what the substance is. But by that time, the bad guys are on to something new

[hobbes]

You have probably been reading about the 'new' hormone dope that supposed to be getting around the UStrks??? that is giving some trainers a SR that would make JSize's SR look average.

Read some sports stuff that was suggesting that the greatest worry for the doping auth was designer engineering of the dope keeping normally detectable dope out of play with slight modifications to the molecular structure.

Only mention as usually this sort of thing sprds thru big/successful stables reasonably quickly. I've seen 3 shrt priced horses src at the gates including 2 in consecutive races. i thought they looked perfect although v.toey but in a v.dominant way, not overcooked, and v.focused; no doubt, ready to run. the solid support inside the last 5min seemed to confirm this but appr. didn't pass muster at the gates.

stewards might be making a statement as could be something showing up that can't be ID'd yet so they pull them out once they trk where the bets were coming from - similar tactics used in OZ.

might not get out of the US as Lasix must be giving a good mask as from what I can gather, this is happening in lasix states. Seen a couple last week that would have given Rocket Racer a run for his money.

probably seeing things that aren't there but of the 15+ i've marked can only remember a few that weren't v.competitive. had a few $ @ 60/1 with BFr (14s Tote) about one of them ... get home you good thing --- deadset jumping out of its skin like the old EJuice days --- just couldn't pass.

So now all they have to do is clone Symboli Kris, DWhyte and JSize and they might be ready for a bet.

kevin --- you can post there if you like.