Chief Stipe

Well the top stables are injecting Pentosan on a regular basis to prevent wear and tear. About $80 a week in cost. They do it before the problems occur. The reality is in all codes we are asking animals to do what athletically they are not physiologically designed to do. Now they wowsers and greenies will jump up and down but it is the same with human athletes. How do you think the Greatest Of All Time rugby player kept going? I bit he is stiff in the mornings

What about the drug in question? Clenbuterol? An approved drug used for respiratory disease. The "case" has so far come to nothing. Zip nada nothing!

Shall we have a debate about Pentosan?

You post a reference to a USA Thoroughbred trainer who allegedly doped horses but you don't post the whole story. What has been the outcome? You should know given you are obviously on top of this. The drug in question was Clenbuterol whch is a medication that can be used therapeutically to assist horses with respiratory difficulties but is suspected to have been abused due to its muscle-development properties.

But I thought you said our sport was the cleanest it has ever been?

Exactly but the ALLSTARS MUST BE CHEATING because..... THEY WIN ALL THE TIME! In my opinion they win all the time because they are very very smart. That doesn't mean cheating but they are always looking for legitimate things that make the horse healthy and happy. I had this debate with a horse trainer in a private conversation. The leading Thoroughbred trainers all supplement their horses with Vitamin B (full complex), Vitamin C and Pentosan. NONE of those substances are illegal. But are essential to getting optimum performance and longevity out of an athlete. However your average trainer is not up with it nor can afford it nor have owners that are willing to pay for it.

It was "assumed that the horse had been injected with etorphine" - what did the autopsy say? With today's testing technology it would have been picked up straight away as an irregularity. You guys are living in the past. You need to catch up with modern technology. There is an upside and downside to that technology and as I've been saying on the Thoroughbred forum the industry protocols and penalties are not aligned. When tests are run (this is an assumption based on what they do in Hong Kong) they know what the normal legitimate chemical profile of either horse urine or blood is. The test will throw out any exceptions. They then have the ability to drill down and determine what is causing the spike on the chart. Something like this:

Woah! Ease up! There is no way that you can prevent idiots being idiots. It isn't the responsibility of racing to protect idiots.

Shall we run a poll Thomarse for BOAY'ers. See who runs with my ideas and who thinks yours are the real deal. Isn't that how the world operates now?

I understand what you mean. I watched the head on shot of a recent meeting at Riccarton in a large field. All I could see was unbalanced windmills and horses running like drunken sailors. The senior jockeys (about 3) stuck out like the proverbial balls.

I've been watching as well. OZ judiciary are a bit more circumspect than our lot. Keep things close. They've been burnt a bit recently when not following procedure.

Not correct. Covid Plan B which is a group of scientists not just Thornley are part of a substantial group of scientists globally who believe that pandemic management should have been more focused (focused on protecting the vulnerable) and that Lockdowns and Quarantines have done more harm than good. They also support the pandemic management plans developed over decades of research, supported and recommended by WHO, CDC and many Governments prior to Covid-19. Those plans were based on viruses much more deadly and transmissible than Covid-19. Yet they were thrown out the window not based on evidence based science but for political reasons. If you want to live under a China like regime then fine. I don't.

Cite the article. Name the two sources. Explain what an "anti-covid" campaigner is. Is that the opposite of a "pro-covid campaigner"?

What's the point of having them other than to eat sausage rolls?

Interesting article in the Covid forum. Seems that 5 of the 26 people who have died from Covid-19 in NZ were never tested for Covid-19 either before or after death. What's more it is unlikely that the cause of death of the other 21 people was not primarily Covid-19. The most recent death of the person transferred to hospital from MIQ was sent there with a serious illness unrelated to Covid-19 with a poor chance of recovery BEFORE they were even tested for Covid-19. Yet they were classified as a Covid-19 death!

It happens. 40 years ago we all used to have a pee at the back of the stall. But it doesn't have to be human pee either. Who knows what the previous horse occupant of a raceday stall or yard had in its system. Hence many major stables on a very regular basis workplace test their employees. More cost of course that is passed onto the owner. When travelling precautions that should be taken include thoroughly cleaning or covering the feed bin with a liner or providing your own. The potential for environmental contamination is everywhere. The Nicky Chilcott case where a positive to Tramadol (a synthetic morphine) was returned is a good example. The measured level was the equivalent of 1 second in 320 years and no chance of it affecting a horses performance. Result - disqualification of horse, loss of stakes and large fine. Unfortunately Owners and Trainers that get caught just pay the cost and move on. The RIU won't attempt to change to rules or protocols because it is easy to have a zero tolerance and an "open and shut" case. "Sorry positive. Zero tolerance, fine, disqualification." They then churn out the same decision and the same precendents. Next time - "um this has happened before - disqualification, BIGGER fine". Third time - "um colossal fine, disqualification of horse and suspension of Trainers license." If it happened to me as an owner and I had the financial reserves I'd appeal through the courts. In that respect maybe the Owners and Trainers Association should pick up the baton and finance a case.

Rule Number(s): 869 (3) (b)Mr J Hay was charged with a breach of careless driving r 869 (3) (b) following Race 8. The Stewards alleged Mr Hay (Rebel Kibbybones) shifted outwards in the home straight with resulting interference to Navara, causing that horse to break from its gait and lose its chances. Mr Hay admitted the breach ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 869 (2) & Whip/Rein RegulationsMs P Wakelin was charged with excessive use of the whip r 869 (2) & Whip/Rein Regulations following Race 6. The Stewards alleged Ms Wakelin used her whip in more than a wrist flicking action in the home straight. Ms Wakelin admitted the breach and appeared at the hearing. Mr McIntyre, with the aid of ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 868(3)Mrs J Young-Grant was charged with failing to drive her horse out to the finish r 868 (3) following the running of Race 7. The Stewards alleged Mrs Young-Grant stopped driving Perfect Cut out to the finish line when it had a reasonable chance of finishing in fourth placing. Mrs Young Grant admitted the ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Oh she didn't turn her head at any stage? Geez you come on here supposedly as an expert horseman but you know SFA about them. It is not even worth explaining a horses vision to you. When you worked on the stud you say you worked on were you the "re-inforcer"? It would figure as it is would be an obvious extension of your persona.

She had bloody blinkers on! Do you think that was a factor it what you could see? Blinkers reduce a horse's range of vision down to 17% of their normal range. No wonder she couldn't see the fence!

I thought you "watched every trial"?! But knowing how devious you are you probably have watched the video and know the answer to your question.

Because that is the rules. There is no other option. Morphine has a zero tolerance on raceday. Doesn't matter what the source is. Not only a fine but the loss of $32,000 in stakes and black type for the mare. Arguably there should be the option for common-sense to prevail when it is known that there wasn't intentional administration ofnthe substance in question. Especially when the levels are so minute that they offer no performance enhancing or therapeutic effect. There is no way to know as it is impossible to inspect every slab in every bale of hay. One option but as per my previous comments it wouldn't necessarily identify the presence of the substance as it could be very localised in a paddock and therefore in only a small number of bales. Randomly sampling the hay for testing would be unlikely to identify contamination. Perhaps the only options is to not feed hay to horses in work or in a certain number of days before a race. From a small number of opium poppies present in a meadow during the hay making process. As a weed they are quite common and have been present in the NZ environment for a very long time. The seeds were no doubt imported when Chinese gold miners arrived 150 years ago. In my opinion the zero tolerance protocol needs to be reviewed in line with the advances in the sensitivity of testing technology. There should be agreement on what levels of a substance that is common in the natural environment can be present before determining a positive. We do that for Bicarbonate and Cobalt. Also the testing is so sophisticated today that once a substance like morphine was identified further tests could be undertaken to identify its source. Morphine from Poppies will be present with other chemicals that occur naturally but which are not present in commercially synthesised morphine. That is there will be a unique chemical fingerprint that could be identified. All the RIU do is test against a range of known prohibited substances and then when one is identified retest for that substance alone. Why not determine the level and the source when doing the testing? The technology exists. I project managed a nationwide project to identify the chemical fingerprint for manuka honey. Through a relatively quick process we were able to determine whether the honey was legitimate (i.e. artificially sourced actives hadn't been added) and even determine the region that it had been produced in.

Owners though.