Not exactly what racing needs at the moment…especially a year removed from his Triple Crown victory. Maybe this will finally be the last straw for drug reform?
Not sure why folks would be shocked that this whole ordeal was mishandled.
God forbid anyone says or does anything against Baffert:rolleyes:
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I can’t read the article unfortunately.
Sorry about that LaurieB…it seems the industry reads are just catching on.
http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/report-justify-failed-drug-test-before-triple-crown/
So he should have been DQ’d from winning the SA Derby? Would he have then had enough points to get into the KY Derby?
I am SO DISAPPOINTED in racing and the CHRB and Stronach.
Shit is so going to hit the fan. This is so bad.
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I had a horse finish second in a race at Laurel and several weeks later I received a letter indicating the first place finisher had a positive test and I would be informed of the outcome. A while later I received another letter letting me know my horse got put up and hooray The purse was being redistributed. I’ll have to check the dates, but it sure wasn’t 4 months.
No, according to the article. Would not have qualified.
This is just so nasty.
Now, this horse may be fantastic and wonderful and all that. And hopefully he won the three Triple Crown races without any help from a chemist. We should believe that because he would’ve been blood tested but at this moment in time Hell I don’t know.
But this is so bad at so many levels that it’s hard to comprehend. You have Santa Anita not addressing this according to Hoyle. And then, you have people paying enormous quantities of money for a horse who was raced minimally, that should not have qualified for the derby, and then won the Triple Crown.
Buckle up.
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All the Commissioners and the entire CHRB need to be banned from racing forever. They are worse than the crooks they are supposed to be policing.
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Anyone think this was a big factor in his being whisked to the shed before they finished cooling hm out after the Belmont? No need to give days to a retired horse. Despicable
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Wow.
I haven’t googled, but have there been any studies of scopolamine levels in horses fed jimson weed-contaminated feed? It seems unlikely to me that a contaminant known to be unpalatable would result in such a high test. (”He said the amount of scopolamine found in Justify — 300 nanograms per milliliter — was excessive, and suggested the drug was intended to enhance performance.”) The decision by the board to lessen penalty is concerning. Is there data to support environmental contamination causing such high levels? Could the board require feed samples to be taken and retained? What is scopolamine’s half life?
Would think there could be a way to differentiate environmental contamination vs intentional drugging…
ETA I don’t know much about racing, so sorry if my questions are daft!
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Holy $#%t!
In Kentucky, when you have a positive test, you are guilty until you appeal and prove otherwise. That’s the part that takes time. The horse would have come down right away here.
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Baffert… doesn’t surprise me. Got me shaking my head that Justify (through no fault of his own) “got away” with a failed drug test that ended up having no impact on races that he ran (both the SA and KY Derbies) at the time of the failed test.
Not Justify’s fault other than it was his failed drug test because he ate Jimson weed :rolleyes:
And why is this article appearing now… more than a year since the original failed drug test???
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Why the quotes? Why wouldn’t you be concerned if a cheat won a qualifier? And as to why now: why do you think it’s too late? So are you saying you don’t care about cheating? Honestly curious.
ETA: I am confused because you say “Baffert… Doesn’t surprise me.” That statement implies a lot to a lot of people here but your subsequent comments don’t mesh. I am confused.
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This may be the biggest case of race fixing in the history of the sport. Honestly there should be prison time for those stewards who decided the rules don’t apply to everyone.
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It does not matter what the source of the drug is/was. The horse should not have had it in his system at race time, period.
That said, I love how the CHRB so readily accepts any reason for the positive besides the glaringly obvious one.
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I think we are saying the same thing. I am saying there is no reasonable justification. Sorry if I didn’t articulate well.
There are threshold levels for many compounds such as this that can be ingested accidentally through their environment. When you quadruple the threshold the accidental ingestion argument goes out the window however. For the record, no I do not think it was scopolamine that turned him into a TC winner. I saw him up close and personal in Maryland and New York, his talent is evident for everyone to see. That’s not the point though. The point is you don’t get to pick and chose which positive tests are punished and which aren’t depending upon who the connections are or which race the horse is pointed towards next. Just like this year’s derby proved, if it’s a foul in a $2500 claimer, it’s a foul in the Derby.
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They use out of competition testing as well as the so called super tests for the TC races so I feel confident that his negative tests in those races were actually negative.
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