Did he and Shuman have a falling out? Or did they just grow tired of each other/
I believe that there wasnt as much butt to lip contact with Shuman and Gill as Gill would have liked…
As far as the leg being sawed off, yes it happened (I know the vet that was involved)… it was known that Gill was using SWT on horses before they ran (which is now banned)…so that leg would have been the proof.
Somewhere there is an article citing the details of Gills suspension from NE… it was for a postitive test. I’ll have to dig around for it. This happened years ago.
Laurie, I had the pleasure to gallop Sylvester when he was a youngster, he was a super cool horse!
A good read…
Gill created a small racing stable in New England in the mid-1980’s, and his early days on the racetrack were largely uneventful. But in the summer of 1995 he fired the trainer Edwin Vazquez Sr. and began to train on his own. One of the first horses that ran with Gill as the trainer tested positive for the drug clenbuterol. Shortly thereafter, investigators found injectable drugs and hypodermic syringes when they searched his barn at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H. Gill said he had continued to share a tack room with Vazquez and that the drugs belonged to Vazquez. (Vazquez could not be reached for comment.) New Hampshire racing officials barred Gill for 80 days. But his suspension was extended to three years when he failed to pay the $1,000 fine that accompanied the initial penalty.
Gill maintains that he has been able to achieve significantly improved performances from his horses not because of illicit drugs, but because he spares no expense in their care and pays attention to every detail. His methods include giving every acquisition a myectomy, a minor throat operation, to improve the horse’s breathing. He is adamant that he plays by the rules.
I don’t know that clenbuterol tests and myectomies and nerving well above the heel are really illicit drug use as much as teetering dangerously on the side of abuse. But that is far from playing by the rules. More bad press we don’t need. We’re never going to find a really good story that negates all of the bad press, are we?
My former vet actually worked for Gill for years in MD. Every horse got injected,feet, knees, ankle, hocks or stifles. What ever was deemed appropriate every week until they started having site reactions. Then he hired a new vet but same happened you can only stick so much stuff in before mother nature says enough. Plus run the risk of infection no matter how careful or skilled.He ran a chop shop deluxe and besides his Elk Creek ranch had lay-ups spread every where. Alot of those horse got abandoned when he went shall we say bust and underground for while. everyone knew the end was coming when he started paying payroll in cash before any anouncements were made to public regarding the mortgage industry.
The barn @ Elk Creek Ranch is long dark and dungeon like. Sure no medical enhancement cost or experimant is spared but regular care was so so.
Being caught w/ clembuterol was just luck of drawl for him, not every race gets a “Super Test” most go for Bute and Banamine an basics. Super Test cost to much and when you start as many has he does its a matter of precentages if you are going to get caught.
I was cautioned not to take anything from his barn even if it was gorgeous and free!!!
One has to wonder if the lovely drug Epogen is or has been used.
You make a good point though and I’ve said it before on this forum. The sport will never have a good image until associations bite the bullet and pay for more expensive tests. I don’t think they need to spend $5,000 on every race, but why not pay for the more expensive test 4-5 times a night on winners and 1-2 random specials? It would find the cheaters.
One will never know… in the past it was well known that Gill gave nothing away… we went to Kentucky and met the people who were running the TRF, they were desperatley trying to “save” some of Gills horses at Suffolk and at that time he was not willing to cooperate with them… it wasnt hard to imagine why, no horse, no testing…
The also sad thing about this is every circuit has a Gill. He is so far from the only one.
And it is so hard to compete against them. Can be so hard to train with ethics and win races when you have to run against the 30% trainers who cheat, drop horses down the ladder at huge margins, an are generally un- ethical.
If they pulled a “Super” test on the winner of every race every night and beside 2 and 3 have short test pull out 2 random runners it would make for some interesting racing. Especially if it were point blank announced this was to be the policy W/O further notice. And blood not piss.
Actually if every horse had to give a blood sample after the race, whether it was run or not would make alot of trainers crap in their drawers to be sure.
But what about foot freeze, standing in white gas, Ice boots for hours??
Snake venom in feet.
How do they enforce zero tolerance in Japan and Europe???
Epogin is tough near impossible to test for and once the horses bone marrow Hormone ? Epopuetum? stops telling the marrow to produce the red cells because the Epogine interrupts and screws it up the horse crashes and dies. Steroid withdrawl is nothing compared to seeing that happen.
There is also blood doping IVing w/ Pac cells full of oxygene enriched blood and possibly other hormones the body synthasizes that won’t test??
Where does it begin and end.
Some places do pull blood in the receiving barn on every horse. But not every sample is tested.
Post race we do winner and a random horse. The place I started out at was first and second placings and a random horse if they so choose.
I wish the racing boards would develop a spine on their rulings. How many times do certain individuals get a “get out of jail free” card. So and so had a bad test, gets a reduced sentence, with a clause that the reduced ruling is dependant upon not getting another bad test for a year. How often do they ever enforce that?
There really seems to be very few repercussions for the same people who consistantly have bad tests.
Zero tolerance. Bad test= days and a fine. For each overage, the penalty increases. It’s not rocket science. Start placing the individual’s horses on the sidelines as well. No transfer to the assistant. Make it hurt. The horses under the care of a suspended trainer barred from the entry box for the duration of the suspension. Trainers, owners might maybe clean up a bit if their ability to function was taken away.
Why should anyone stop cheating when they get a slap on the hand? There are so few consequences for the people who make their living pushing every envelope.
They all know the rule of thumb for the tracks they frequent and just go by the precentages of when a super test will be done. which is usually after a Major race not the pedestrain every day ones. And fly in the face knowing they will get caught eventually, and they will get out of it or suffer thru and take a vacation while their assistants run the string.
If it were unilateral and all states recipricated then once you have a suspension in Pa you can’t run in MD or CA. Plus the horses sits which makes the owners squawk.
In horse showing suspended is suspended and banned is banned. Names in neon lights lists posted on the USEF site, where in Racing does one go to see who and how many times they have they gotten days.
you are right the fines should be much stiffer and that money set back in to fund more tests. Also if you were dirty your next X amount of runners automatically get tested @ trainers/owers expense!!
I look at the board at Penn National. One trainer has had (4) clen buterol positives this year, (9) steroid positives after April 1, and others (robaxin, et al). They have not had even a one day suspension.
There was another horse, you can look him up, named Rico West who won and was DQ’s for a Dex positive. Then he ran a few weeks later and finished on the board and was DQ’d again for a Dex positive. 3rd time he ran back the horse won again. That trainer never got suspended. How is a situation like this possible?
Someone has to have the balls to put it up in black n white in the Racing Form, Blood Horse, Thoroughbred Times or MidAtlantic.
Like USEF do the crime get you name up.
Owners should look @ this and consider if they really want to be associated w/ that trainer. When applying for a license in any state trainer needs to show his fines and suspensions frmm every state. Like in Motor Vehicle to may points and DENIED.
I recently got 2 horses both had been thru the same well known claim of fame trainers stable. both when shoes were pulled showed sign of Dex induced lamanitis. Not the end of the road but if left unchecked would have made both useless in short order.
Pressure needs to be applied and not in the form of bleeding hearts but repeals to for states to take a tough “Zero” tolerance.
we all want or schools and campuses to be that way and in industry like airlines. you want to fly w/ a junkie pilot. but its OK to race your horse on drugs.
the Olympics, the Tour D’ France we publically humiliate and show dirty linen, why is this sport so tolerant of abusive unacceptable behavior. And yes I realize it really a money making industry but its not a Fuedal fifedom unto itself.
We have influential owners like Will Farrish w/ never ending pockets who could fund a “Super Fund” along w/ other equally rich owners/breeders for Super test and place pressure inforce stringent escalalting penalties.
I know a guy who got a bute overage on a good horse. Pres of the HBPA in his area. The next start he shipped out of country and the horse ran in someone else’s name. Again a bute overage. The two place have different rules. In was 48 hours and the second was 24.
Their defense was that the horse metabolized the bute very slowly.
BUT, the horse, who was an older horse came from Hollendorfer, and in his years with Dorfy, he never had a single overage… so how does the arguement hold any water? And why was this “defence” allowed? The guy got off scott free. No purse redistribution, no fine and no days. Ridiculous!
There are some horses that don’t metabolize according to the norm, but they are rare. I was stabled with a guy once who couldn’t win a race if he had the only horse in it (nipped at the wire by the ambulance perhaps?) anyway, this poor guy had a horse in for $2500 in the last race at Penn on a blustery night. The horse ran last, got specialed and came up positive for banamine. This horses’s third banamine positive in his career, most likely because he had only been tested three times. He got 30 days but I felt bad for him.
I can see if the guy was the only one with the horse, but the horse had had a lengthy career and not a bad mark on his record. He never had a problem metabolizing anything when Hollendorfer had him. Wins 2 for the new connections and metabolism is suddenly slow? I do have a hard time buying into that scenario.
So to answer the original question…I vote yes, Gill is no good for racing… I watched what happened here and in Fla… people were very leary to run their horses where they belonged, you just knew where they were going to end up.
In Maryland, the racing sec loved him… he filled races, so IMO they let him get away with murder. (Pun intended).
[QUOTE=GollyGee;3702994]
Someone has to have the balls to put it up in black n white in the Racing Form, Blood Horse, Thoroughbred Times or MidAtlantic.[/QUOTE]
Dont they still post the fines and suspensions in the DRF? I know they did for years and years, it was like reading the “gossip” column lol. But now I just use the puter and the race program instead of shelling out $5 for a drf every racing day.
I agree with you Blink - it’s hard to train against a guy who is willing to tap whatever he thinks MIGHT need tapped and hop & block the rest, one who is willing to use high end “medical therapies of questional legality” such as epo and snake venom, and who is willing to run a 10k horse at you for 5k because if he wins and loses the horse he comes out ahead. It makes it rough. We have a few of those here at Mounaineer.
I know the DRF used to have a page or two dedicated to fines, rulings, suspensions… I think it used to come out weekly, I havent bought a form in who knows how long now though…
I don’t know Michael Gill, but have been reading as many articles about him as I can find lately. And I don’t think Michael Gill is good for the future of horseracing at all.
Here’s another very sad morsel to throw in to Mr. Gill’s resume:
Last Saturday, as many of you know, Wanderin Boy went down at Aqueduct and was euthanized.
Also last Saturday, but not covered in any newspaper I could find, Mighty Beau, winner of $646,000 in his racing career, owned by Michael Gill, went down at Penn National and was, per the track vet, destroyed.
A little background to give you some context:
On 5/10/08, Edwin Vazquez, Sr., spent $25,000 to claim Mighty Beau for Michael J. Gill, from trainer Scott Lake
Mighty Beau didn’t run again for 4 months. On 9/2/08, he was dropped into a $16K claimer at Philadelphia Park - he finished 4th - the description of his race was “steadied; drifted out.”
Just 12 days later, Gill drops him into a $20K claimer - at Delaware Park. Mighty Beau led, fell back to third at the turn, and continued to fall back - to last place - in the stretch despite strong urging from his jockey. The description of his race was “Stopped.”
Two and a half months later, on 11/29/08, Mighty Beau ran in the 3rd race - ]a $4K claimer - at Penn National. He broke down in the stretch. He’s gone.
A champion racer, winner of $646,000, ran the first half of 2008 for tags of from $25K to $32K as a 9 year old - and they drop him in a $4,000 claiming race when he’s clearly reached the end of his running career?? Exactly what was it that was so important to “win”??
I cannot for the life of me figure out why the hell that horse was even in that race.
