Chief Stipe

Yep as long as you don't go off piste......oh....you have already!

Then where does the Club get the dosh from? Sponsorship? That would blow Guerin's tax expense idea out of the water because with major sponsors the slot holders couldn't argue that they had a marketing cost. The concept has merits as it has proven in other jurisdictions but if the industry has to put money in I can't see how it will get a return. Hopefully it doesn't go down the Karaka Millions path where NZTR invests significant amounts each year.

Forbs.....although this is off the current topic you must admit that young Ben is getting better with time and experience. Nice to see him training a winner in his own right.

Are they? Where did you see that?

No it actually wasn't a quiz question. It is the mare I owned a share in.

Only the best get a 30 yard handicap!

If The Race is worth $900k and the slot holders put up $750k where does the remaining $150k come from? I see Mick Guerin has added Tax Advisor to his CV. He was saying on Box Seat that the slot holders can claim a third of their $75k back as a tax expense!!! Doesn't sound right to me!

I got I got. Maree Lyndon is holding the Adelaide Cup 1987. Lord Reims?

Mr Lomondy (horse).

Adelaide Cup?

Proactive? Really? This Maylin is an 81 year old dinosaur who judging by his public utterances is past his use by date with modern science having passed him by. Scollay has been equally disappointing in her public utterances and she heads the Kentucky Thoroughbred testing regime. I give Maylin less than a year in his current job. Scollay might get a bit longer as she has done some reasonable work on equine muscoskeletal injuries. Fishman and Robinson the suppliers were conmen who peddled common readily available drugs as something special. Now all the anti-racing media, the click bait merchants like Paulick and Butterfly and all the failed owner, trainer and punter conspirators have been thrown a good few sacks of nothing more than chaff to chew on.

I've attached the relevant indictment papers from the Navarro et al case. From what I've read all the mislabelled and adulterated PED's are known existing drugs. The rHuEPO is a known brand name EPO which has been repackaged. The only "compound" that I can see that would be "unknown" is the product sold here https://sgf1000.com/vecta-sgf-1000-activation called SGF-1000. If true to its specifications then it is a sheep placenta extract. Ironically I sold sheep placenta extract about 15 years ago to the Chinese! It would have any EPO effects - the theory the Chinese had was it rejuvenates injured or damaged tissues i.e. anti-ageing. I doubt it would have any therapeutic effect on a horse. Fishman and co bought it and repackaged it just like all the other named drugs and that is what they were convicted on. navarro_et_al._indictment_-_usao_sig.pdf robinson_et_al._indictment_-_usao_sig.pdf grasso_et_al._indictment_-_usao_sig.pdf

The following comment by Maylin is also odd. I've looked through the indictments and all the so called PED's are recognised drugs that should be tested for. Any "unknown" ones can be picked up via modern testing techniques. Asked why the performance-enhancing drugs described in the federal indictments were not caught by his tests, Maylin said he can test for some of those drugs, but not all. He is not familiar with some of the compounds described the indictments, and therefore cannot test for them. He has requested samples of those drugs from the Justice Department. "I don't believe anybody doing drug testing knows what the heck these things are, if they're anything," he said.

As for the "Who are you kidding?" section of the article at https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/horse-racing-doping-new-york-16771265.php. The following comments by Maylin is absolute bullshit. Why he would make such comments publicly astounds me as there would be numerous scientists that would say he is wrong. But the New York Equine Drug Testing Lab and most similar facilities across the U.S. can only test for three varieties of EPO, while scientific literature cites 82 kinds of EPO worldwide, he said. “Are they being used? I don’t know,” Maylin said in a recent interview. “But they’ve been synthesized; they’re available. So if you’re testing for EPOs and you’re only doing three and there are another 70-plus out there, who are you kidding?” Mary Scollay, executive director and chief operating officer of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC), said she's heard allusions to a "rainbow" of EPO varieties, but she hasn't identified all of them and doesn't know where one would get them. Maylin said that his lab is working to develop more EPO tests, but the research is difficult, time-consuming and expensive. It can take months or years to identify a tiny trace of a substance showing up in a horse’s hair, urine or blood. More time is required to develop a reliable way to test for that compound. Research needs to be conducted to determine the effect of the substance on the horse and in what concentrations, if any, it should be permitted.

Don't you find it odd that all through this NY doping saga that the testers have access to samples of what was used and yet there has been nothing published? Instead we get the line "there are undetectable drugs" which is absolute bullshit which means one of two things - they tested the stuff and couldn't find anything because nothing was there or they are incompetent. I politely suggest it is the former. Anything that was in the snakeoil that Fishman was peddling was not new under the sun. It costs $1billion to develop a new Biopharmaceutical. Do you seriously think that has happened? As I've said repeatedly the charges were for mislabelling and adulteration - nothing to do with a new fancy high tech drug. You'll probably find that if Fishman had put the ingredients on his snakeoil that it was made up of vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Navarro has already admitted using mislabelled Clenbuterol.

Another ageing science academic trying to source funding for his research. As for the cost of testing doesn't his lab do the testing and the cost is a charge to the industry?

No I fall into the group that logically looks at the science using the formal education that I have acquired and recent practical experience with modern testing techniques.

@the galah I've read the article you refer to. It has numerous inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Most of which I've already covered above. Two points: Every drug is detectable using today's technology; The reference to micro-dosing at 4,000 UI being undetectable is incorrect. The Kentucky funded study commissioned by Scollay used 10,000 UI but elicited NO increase in the blood parameters that would result in an improvement in performance. The statements made about EPO are incorrect. If EPO is to be effective then it needs to have a longevity longer than minutes or hours. Hence all the research by Pharmaceutical companies on extending the half life. However the constituent parts of EPO don't disappear with minutes as shown in some of the research I posted. Yes blood cells have a life of 120 days but the body self regulates - if it doesn't have enough it produces more, if it has too many it stops producing them. The trigger is the amount of oxygen that is detected circulating in the blood. So although there might be a boost in the number of blood cells when EPO is administered the body quickly self-regulates back to normal. 10,000 UI in the Kentucky study wasn't enough to increase the number of red blood cells.

Not as humid today but still warm and a good breeze. Track should keep improving at Ruakaka.

MEETING NEWS Whangarei RC | Wednesday 9 February Tuesday Morning Weather: Cloudy Track: Dead 5 Rail: True | 8mm Rain Last 24 Hours Weather and Track updated at 8.59am Tuesday 8 February

Of course it isn't working. "Oh you are just being negative. Be positive and get with the programme." "Yeah but hang on you're describing how beautiful the rain looks while I'm drowning!"

That's because there isn't any leadership amongst stakeholders and there may not be until self-interest bites them in the arse. The other aspect that is deferring action is something that a lot of New Zealanders are weighing up - Australia as a horse racing destination looks so much better! Hell even if you were a hobby five horse trainer imagine the lifestyle of touring the Ozzie bush and country meetings for 6 months of the year with a chance to make some real money!

You only have to look at the so called champion of positividdy and what that has done to the country. Such is the danger of believing the propaganda.

Pointing out where the propaganda spouted from the likes of NZTR and TAB NZ is blatantly wrong shouldn't be construed as negative. I prefer the term realistic. Otherwise you end up joining the drummers like @JJ Flash singing in front of Nero has he plays his fiddle. How long will the BGP phenomena last? I think what is missing is leadership amongst the mass of stakeholders that are being ground slowly into the dirt. What is required is a co-ordinated effort of positive action putting aside self interest and focusing on one issue/constraint at a time until it is fixed. The first issue is - a to fix the tracks NOT close them. The second is to fix the handicapping system the forces good average wager earning horses out of the game. Forget about whips. Forget about bigger parties at key days - the crowds will come when you fix the grass roots - pun intended and the excitement comes back into racing.