I have been in racing for approximately 50 years. I have been involved with horses my entire man, growing up on a dairy farm with various ponies and colts, fox hunting, three-day eventing, display hunters, etc. From the start, my merely ground for ride has been my love for mares. I’ve ever affection being around them at all levels. My first recollection of a race horse was looking at pictures of Swaps in the Blood-Horse publication and thinking he was the most beautiful horse in the world.

As children we went to the Timonium Fair to watch the races, and dreamed of either owning, practice, or travelling a race horse. Little did I know all three of those dreams would come true! But, ever, my first contemplates is a matter of the knockout, blessing, and magnanimity of the colt himself, and I felt it was my responsibility to treat him with the greatest respect and give him the best possible care. I came into scooting at about senility 21 as an exercise rider and then a manager. I thank scooting for the very best minutes of “peoples lives”, from starting a pony in the Preakness( 1980, second woman ever to do so ), to having the honor of training for a few of the greatest calls in American Racing( Calumet Farm, Greentree Stable, John Franks, etc ).

In racing I acquired my husband and some of my closest friends. Racing has a camaraderie which is impossible to explain to the layman. In a business where we spend most of the day, every day , no matter the weather, our health, or any possible extenuating events, with the mares, it isn’t hard to understand the closeness of its parties. So, a play which has given so much to me, and to which I have given almost my entire life, is cracking my nerve with what it has become. I is a well-known fact that, in any business, when coin is involved, things can become very complicated. Racing is no different. People have enormous amounts of coin endowed, and, understandably, would like to see some return on investment.

Unfortunately, when dealing with a living, breathing animal things don’t ever get according to plan. I think that many of the owners and teach have forgotten what the game was intended to be about. Which is, first and foremost, the passion and respect for the colt himself, and, furthermore, the adore of the play itself. Love for the mare and cherish for the boast could easily go hand in hand, but it would intend putting the well-being of the pony firstly and understanding that the result might not ever be the proposed one. I have always admonished prospective owners to invest exclusively as much money as they can afford to lose. Look at it as video games , not as a business.

It seems to me that tutors, succumbing to stres from owners who are looking for return on investment, often follow rehearsals that they know are wrong in hopes of a better sequel. From a lifetime of know-how I can say for certain, it really doesn’t work that way.

When I first came around, we would call a veterinarian for a mare who was either hurt or sick. Period. Trainers cared for their horses through training programs chores, feeding platforms, and lots of hard work on their legs. There was no Lasix , no Bute, and very few other treats permitted to run on. We relied on our ability to read the pony, figure out what he needed, and enter in the “right spot.” The rest was between the equestrian and the pony. In today’s world of super trainers with hundreds of ponies, most of whom they never even check, relying on auxiliaries to tell them what’s what, owners expend thousand of dollars looking forward to that fifteen minutes of fame, and bettors becoming increasingly leery of the whole business, it is no wonder we are in so much trouble!

Sadly, there are still so many of us who really care for our ponies. Sad because we are getting crushed out by the ones who may indeed adore the play, but have altogether forgotten the colt. In conclusion, with around the world breathing down our cervixes, it corresponds to us to clean up our routine. I would beg the authorities in all hastening prerogatives to hold the hoof of every coach, owned, rider, bridegroom and red-hot baby-walker to the fire. No stuff the esteem of the scoot or the prevail bonds, everyone must be treated equally. No one is outside the law.

– Judith Natale, Thoroughbred owner, breeder, trainer

The fantastic efforts of the Water Hay Oats Alliance, the Coalition for Horse Racing Integrity, the Humane Society of the United Government, Animal Wellness Action and Representatives Paul Tonko and Andy Barr are paying bonus a full time ahead of the establishment of a Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority( HISA) place. I see it in the forceful decisions( temporary or permanent) by the New York Racing Association, Churchill Downs and the Kentucky and New York hastening fees. It’s not too late to get on the right side of record before dealing with an investigative organization that will operate under the aegis of the federal government. An oversight mas is to be able to have nationwide clout and every bad actor in our game- no matter how large-scale, as we’ve seen this week- should be terrified.

If you’re waiting for this to go away, it won’t. It’s as if 2021 is a last chance to start fresh. Crooks, think twice. It’s clear to me that precisely the existence of HISA will utter horse hastening safer for ponies and fairer to the people who bet on them.

– Allen Gutterman, Member, HSUS Horseracing Integrity Act Council

The May 14 news article, “Horseplayers Sue Baffert, Zedan Racing Over Medina Spirit Drug Test, ” illustrates how the colt hastening industry has failed to clean up its act even after Congress passed the historic Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act( HISA) in December to curb the unrestrained abuse of performance-enhancing drugs.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has finally defended for first disavowing( vehemently) that the corticosteroid betamethasone was administered to Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit- the fifth era one of his colts miscarried a drug test since May 2, 2020. Meanwhile, HISA is facing legal challenges by hastening business interests and the states of Oklahoma and West Virginia; all resist stricter drug-monitoring standards. Yet performance-enhancing narcotics push thousand-pound animals to compete past their physical restrictions while masking agony, irritation and other warning signal that predate cataclysmic failures. Surely, the number of race horse deaths in the United State far exceeds that of other hastening districts around the world.

The public must challenge more transparency and accountability from the scooting industry.

– Joanna Grossman, Ph.D ., equine planned director and senior advisor for the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C.

I am writing as a lifelong fan of colt racing. I fell in love with the boast when I was six years old when I picture my first Kentucky Derby on TV. Even on our age-old black and white set in 1969, Majestic Prince was a magnificent creature. I was in first evaluated and really learning to read, but I craved my dad to buy me Turf and Sport Digest every month because of the wonderful dye photos on each month’s cover.

Love occasions with endorses like Secretariat, Ruffian, Forego, Slew o’ Gold, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Easy Goer, Personal Ensign, My Flag, and Elate have intensified my love of the mares and its own history of this lovely sport.

I then began writing on a freelance basis-in The Blood-Horse, Thoroughbred Times, SPUR, the Thoroughbred Heritage website, and chapters for the book Great Thoroughbred Sires of the World( 2006 ).

This love for these wonderful men has become me livid at the antics of Bob Baffert. In my opinion, he shall not be required to be be called the” face of Thoroughbred hastening” as some scooting pundits announce him, but he should be called the” blight on Thoroughbred hastening .”

When racing went through such scrutiny because of the dire fatalities at Santa Anita, the exclusion of Maximum Security in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, it did not need the litany of drug irreverences and outrageous apologizes from the sport’s highest-profile trainer.

Leaving aside Justify’s scopolamine positive exam debacle, the fact remains this man has had nearly 30 reported medication breaches in his career. It is outrageous, and the fact Baffert has had only slaps on the wrist, is disgusting.

Let’s take the forgives. Gamine and Charlatan were being handled by an aide employ a grief spot and the colts were “contaminated” that behavior. Merneith tested positive for dextromethorphan and his apologize was beyond belief. He had workers who had had COVID and were taking cough medicine and she had to have been polluted from that.

And now this? We extend from we never held Medina Spirit any medication to self-pitying why is this happening to me, to it’s part of the” nullify culture” progress, to” I’m a Hall of Fame trainer and beings are jealous and resentful of me ,” to, oh yeah, we contributed the mare the remedy for a skin rash and we were not aware what was in it.

If I were an owner and had a horse I had paid a million dollars for, it and had it in his care, I would want to know what medication that horse was being given and why. I would be very leery of a soldier who gives meds without supposedly knowing “whats in” it. I would be unsure of a humankind who supposedly has a groom so disgusting as to pee on forage and feed it to the horses. I would be cautious of a human who promised to do better on national TV and then failed to follow through.

And I would be cautiou of a somebody who does not have the character to admit that the horse stops with him and that everything that goes on in his stable is his responsibility and his alone.

In short-lived, I would remove my colt from that man’s care, which I hope proprietors do, as Spendthrift Farm has done.

Baffert thinks he is so prominent that he is above the rules and regulations of the sport, and unhappily, the powers that be have reinforced that by simply granting him minor penalties. Churchill Downs may have restricted him- for now- but it is a given he will be back at the Derby next year.

We need the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Act implemented immediately. Baffert can complain all he wants about what he feels is the absurd testing of picograms of prescriptions. But these rules were put in place for the security of the mares and the unity of the athletic. If Bob Baffert thinks this is ridiculous, then he has no respect for the integrity of the athletic and he got to find another line of work- perhaps expended gondola salesman.

Racing is not just about wins and losses and speculation. It’s about beings like me who love the animal and the elegance of them and the history of the great ones of the past and present. Racing is a glorious athletic and does not deserve to be sullied by people who care only about acquiring at all costs and not the equine athletes in their charge.

– Elizabeth Martiniak, racing fan

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