Reactions to macular degeneration Mane Attraction

Our latest Mane Attraction spawned some interesting replies from both sides of the aisle…but not what the “both sides” anticipated.

The two sides here were from participants in the sport that, on one side, are everyday horsemen and women and, on the flip side, the ones that have supported the sport for decades at the “windows” and now, have quietly abandoned harness racing.

To read the latest Mane Attraction, click here.

One horseman stated that this problem in our industry is no different than the drug problem throughout the country and the cartels supplying drugs to the perpetrators.

“You can catch one here and there…but there are 1000 others in the same game and there’s not enough personnel to find them, “weed” (now mostly legal) “them out and stop them.”

Our industry isn’t the only one having a drug problem.

Just a few days ago, an Olympic Snowboarder has been accused of running the largest cocaine operation into Canada—-16 TONS.

He—and 15 others—were charged with running a massive international drug trafficking ring to smuggle cocaine into our neighboring country up north from Columbia through Mexico to Los Angeles.

Performance enhancing drugs are found in football, baseball, lacrosse and cycling, which has the highest level of doping findings in the Olympics (3.6%).

The NFL is considered the be the most strict while BASEBALL uses a program called the Joint (no pun intended) Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

In HOCKEY, there are two random drug tests per player per year.

In SOCCER, each country has its own testing procedures with a two year ban for any first time offense.

Nobody knows how many athletes use PED’s (Performance Enhancing drugs) in sport with usage estimated at 14% to as high as 39%.

It is found in high school athletes, recreational use and, of course, the elite…so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that harness racing has the problem, too.

Many hate it as it keeps the playing field—the racetrack-from being level (except for the banks around the turns!)

“For every GRAM or OUNCE that’s caught and taken off the market, there is 1,000 KILOS OR 2,204 POUNDS that are making its way through. Who knows how much?

“It’s impossible to catch it all.”

Yet another trainer said that “the problem is ‘TIME,’

“I work hard to make a living in this business—to keep my head above water. I love every minute of it but, don’t get me wrong, it takes TIME and devotion to take care of my horses—my family.

“I can’t afford to hire that many people to help—I love to do this myself, anyhow—but, when I started, we won races in 2:05 and, now, while my some of my stock can go in 1:54 or 1:55, that doesn’t earn you too much these days…so I race for the lower end of the purse money.

“And, another thing, I don’t have the time to fight this drug stuff. I am against it, sure, but I’m here at the barn at five in the morning and, sometimes, don’t get finished until it’s dark at night.

“This is an all consuming business and I just don’t have time to get into this fight.

“Most of us—the biggest majority—are in the same boat and, while we’d like to fight for equality, it’s just not in the cards. We all work for ourselves.”

Yet another horseman lauded the article but said, “You’re up against a war that you cannot win. They caught some a few years back but, lemme tell ya, I think there’s so much more out there that you’re trying to find a needle or two in a haystack…again, no pun intended by the ‘needle,’ either.”

On then flip side, we have the shrinking membership of the BDHC—Broken Down Horseplayers Club—who have either abandoned the sport or curtailed their participation.

One veteran BDHC member from the Chicago area said, “When I started way back when, there were lines of sellers windows all with long lines of bettors trying to get their action in.

“We even had a separate private window for the $50 or $100 bettor.

“There were a lot of tracks that could handle the action and where a sizable bet could hardly budge the tote board.

“Hollywood Park, Roosevelt (Raceway), Sportsman’s (Park)…then The Meadowlands.

“Only The Meadowlands is still standing.

“You can get a little action going at Hoosier and Northfield, which is surprising to me, and Scioto on certain nights, but, by and large, the glory days are gone.

“Why? You ask?”

“I’ll tell you why.”

“There are two things that have destroyed betting on harness racing and, I must say, at some thoroughbred tracks, as well.

“One, there are just too many things on the menu…win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, superfecta, pentafecta, daily double, pick-3, pick-4, pick-5, pick 6, pick eight.

“Sometimes there are five or six different bets available on one race!

“That’s ludicrous.

“The pools are so diluted and, at some tracks, the handle is so weak, that a bet of any significant size—even $50—can thank the tote-board price.

“I’ve seen odds go from 6 to 1 to 8 to 5 in a flash.

“If you don’t think that takes the steam out of the players, you’d better open your eyes.”

“The Meadowlands has some dilution but not a lot with $3 million handles and up.

“Heck, if I bet $100 at The Meadowlands and my horse is, say, 6 to 1 ($14.00-$15.80), the next flash I know is going to be 6 to 1 or, at the very least a high 5 to 1 ($13.80).

Yet another “punter” of significance chimed in…”I don’t play the ‘ponies’ anymore because of the drug problems in the entire industry.

“I’m no expert, mind you, just a guy that loves to play the game, but they (trainers) have things that can make a horse go real fast and they also have some things that can make a horse go slower.

“Wherever there’s money involved, there’s going to be some hanky-panky going on.

“It happens in politics…it happens in all sports…it happens in racing.

“You see a horse look like a CHAMP one week and, the next, looks like a CHUMP.

“There is inconsistency in a horse’s performance from start to start…and I say that because the harness goes every week and the thoroughbreds every month or six weeks.

“You bet $20 on a horse that looks the part on the form and a horse that shows little might get juiced and pop at 15 to 1…and giving no past performance hint.

“Hey, I will bet a longshot here and there—the (tote) board doesn’t scare me at all…but I’d like to see a hint in the PP (past performance) line…maybe interference or parked all the way.

“What’s it take, 10 seconds to stick a needle on the way to the track where nuthin’ shows up?

“That’s why I don’t play much anymore.

“I’ll play the (Kentucky) Derby and take a shot on winning a few thousand on some wild combos but that, and a few other races with 10 or more starters where there might be a little value.”

Upon asking the punter how many times he’s won that “shot” bet, he said, “Never…in 40 or 50 years…never!”

“And that brings me to another thing…

“On Derby Day, I went to my simulcasting joint and hardly found anyone younger that me…and I’m pushing 80.”

A recent Mane Attraction column pointed this out when, in an interview with owner Ted Hirsch years ago, he said that “every year, we get new FOALS…and now we need new FOOLS to bet on those foals.

When we brought this point up in conversation, he said, “THAT’S MY POINT…THERE AIN’T NONE!”

With the lottery, sports betting, proposition betting, casinos offering slot machines, craps, roulette, different poker games and historical racing games offering action, literally, second by second, the bettor has no patience waiting gobs of time between races.

And there’s less competition these days on racing days with short field…that surely doesn’t help!

Yes, racetracks on the simulcasting menu offered try and stay away and not step on each others toes but, as our punter resides, “Hey, we’re all old men here and we can’t handle going from track to track. Just about all of us have our favorite track when we bet and stay with that!

“That, in a nutshell, is why I don’t play much anymore.

“But the main thing its the drug problem, I really believe that! No consistency in racing performance and you never know who ‘gets’ and who ‘doesn’t.

“In racing’s heyday,”—(or should, that have read “hay-day,”) we never ever even thought of that problem.”

Since it has been stated that many of the “powers” have “Macular Degeneration” or turned a “blind eye” to the problem, there seems to be no solution to the problem.

But one horseman does have a solution—and a radical one, at that—and he says, “It’s all about the ‘Benjamins,” slang for the $100 bill.

“This could be curtailed if the casinos and legislatures supporting the tracks would demand a clean-up of this problem or, if there is no compliance, take away the support to those tracks by diminishing the amount of the support directed to purses.”

Harness racing’s major entities are dependent on this support and, for the most part, cannot be supported by pari-mutuel handle, as in days-gone-by.

Maybe it is all about the Benjamins!

That horseman then continued, “Maybe those Benjamins saved could be used to hire personnel to get to the bottom of the drug problems in our industry…kinda like securing our own borders!”

May the horse be with you!

by John Berry, for Harnesslink