The famed Blue Ribbon Kentucky Derby Analysis is up on the Horse Racing page.
To say that the nascent days of the Trump Administration have been marked by chaos and ineptitude would be a major understatement. In the more than two months between his election and inauguration, no significant work on policy priorities took place – or, if it did, it was completely incompetent. Thus, we had a hastily conceived policy on banning Muslims, and no leadership – unless you count bluster – on a health care bill.
Then there are the idiotic tweets. Anyone who was capable of thinking even one step ahead – let alone several steps – would have known that alleging wiretapping by your predecessor could not possibly survive even the first day of scrutiny. But this week brought two more instances that are simply staggering.
The first was the traditional Easter egg roll at the White House. Now I acknowledge that no President’s biography will ever mention this event, but it has been going on since the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. Last year, 37,000 attended Barack Obama’s last one. It is an event with no down side. It is a feel-good, if meaningless, event that allows citizens to attend an event at the White House and walk away with good feelings and a souvenir wooden egg.
I could organize it, but the Trump Administration was in over its head on even this. The maker of the wooden eggs could not find anyone at the White House to order them, and had to resort to Twitter – what else? – to get attention. The event drew about half the crowd as the one last year.
There are some who suspect that one of Trump’s biggest concerns – after adoration – is size. Facing another debacle in which something he did was compared to Obama, Trump did what he always does in the face of possible embarrassment – find someone to blame. This time he nobly picked out his wife, Melania. While he ostensibly praised her for her work on the event, that was merely a hedge against the anticipated negative comparison with Obama.
As truly trivial as this matter is, the other event is on the opposite end of the spectrum – i.e., the risk of nuclear war. For days we read and heard about the Carl Vinson carrier group “steaming” toward the Korean peninsula in advance of an anticipated nuclear test by North Korea to mark the anniversary of the birth its founder. As the President of the United States said, “We are sending an armada, very powerful.” This occurred in the context of increasingly bellicose rhetoric and the United States’ bombing Syria and Afghanistan.
Tension was high. We are, after all, dealing with an unstable and unpredictable autocrat – and also there is Kim Jong-un.
It turns out that the much-hyped carrier fleet was actually sailing away from the Korean peninsula and was meeting up with the Australian Royal Navy to conduct exercises. As Charlie Pierce wrote in his blog, “Who among us has not misplaced an aircraft carrier?”
It was not until news reports surfaced – you know, what the President calls “fake news” – that officials at the White House acknowledged that, indeed, the Carl Vinson had not been deployed as a deterrent to North Korea.
Just what is going on here? Is there not a single person in the Trump Administration who might think it is not a good idea to ratchet up tensions in a volatile region over something that did not happen?
The New York legislature has approved a new law to replace the temporary “reorganization” law from 2012, but it guarantees that Andrew Cuomo retains control of racing at Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct. While the legislative leaders and various media sources proclaim this is a glorious return to private control of the New York Racing Association, the reality is far different.
Under the budget law for the new fiscal year, signed by Cuomo, the governing board of NYRA has been dramatically restructured. The Board will remain at 17 members, but allow two entities that represent horsemen and horsewomen, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and the New York Thoroughbred Breeders, to each have a vote. The Senate gets two appointments as does the Assembly.
The remaining 11 seats are controlled by the Governor. The NYRA CEO and President – currently Chris Kay, who is effectively a Cuomo appointee – will be on the Board. The Governor makes two direct appointments. The remaining eight seats, however, will be appointed by a current NYRA Board committee that is dominated by Cuomo loyalists. Cuomo also appoints the Board Chairperson from the members of the new board.
It is that NYRA committee that permits the fiction that NYRA will be under private control. Of the six committee members, three are appointees of Cuomo, one of the Senate, and one from the former NYRA Board. The sixth member of the group, and the chairman, is Michael DelGiudice. Although he was appointed by the Assembly, if there is any doubt about his allegiance to Cuomo, he has said “Andrew is like a younger brother to me.”
Now it is true that all six of the committee members are private citizens, although five of the six are appointed by the state government. Indeed, of the fifteen members on the Reorganization Board, there was only one government employee. Nonetheless, the agency committed to overseeing New York’s public records law and open meetings law, the Committee on Open Government, concluded that the appointment of a majority of that Board by government officials was an important factor in deciding that it was a public entity.
Perhaps you think that appointees of Governor Cuomo are capable of exercising independent judgment and will select Board members who are independent and competent. You must also be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Easter Bunny this weekend.
The only truly private members of the new Board are from the organizations representing the breeders, owners and trainers – the people responsible for ensuring that New York has horses that enable it to have horse racing.
So we have gone from a “government-controlled” Board in which 12 of the 17 members were appointees of the government to one in which 15 of the 17 are either appointed directly by the government or are controlled by the government. This is privatization?
The Reorganization Board that is being replaced had five truly private members from the predecessor NYRA Board. In all candor, those five did nothing over the last five years to provide a check on the Governor. They were, after all, part of a toothless board that rolled over and allowed Cuomo to seize control of racing back in 2012 following a brief campaign of threats, intimidation and baseless allegations of inappropriate behavior. They will not be missed.
New York had a unique opportunity to come up with a different approach. While it already has the best racing in the country, it could also have innovative and thoughtful leadership that would grow the fan base and lead to sustainable growth. Instead, we have the small-bore leadership of a Chris Kay and now a structure that will remain a patronage haven for hacks and campaign contributors that will not move the sport forward.
It is a shame.
I went in to NYRA’s web site today and was intrigued by an item on their home page. If this is to be believed, they are selling former items that were given away for free on “giveaway days.” Perhaps I am underselling this. It is from the “NYRA Vintage Giveaway Store.”
You can buy the 2017 Calendar – “only 12 left in stock” – or the Aqueduct thermal mug, of which only 11 remain. The best value, however, may be the “Belmont Park Barbecue Set” for a mere $8, but hurry, “only 12 remain in stock.”
I eagerly anticipate checking this out tomorrow morning to see if I was duped.
“Honest people have a hard time making money.”
— A backstretch veteran
If you want to curtail the use of illegal drugs in racing, you need an effective program of out-of-competition testing (OCT). While New York State has regulations authorizing OCT, it appears that it does almost no testing.
In response to a request for records going back to 2014, New York’s Gaming Commission cited six examples of OCT for Standardbreds racing at two of the state’s harness tracks. The records for Thoroughbreds showed the only testing may have been in the three days preceding $1 million Grade I races.
Out-of-competition testing is not to be confused with the standard post-race testing that occurs following every race for some of the entrants. Rather, it is done at random, at tracks and off-track facilities, to identify illegal drugs that may not show up in the post-race test, or for which existing testing is inadequate. Surprise is an essential component of an effective program since it makes it more difficult for cheaters to hide their conduct.
By contrast to the experience of the New York regulatory agencies, Jeff Gural, who owns two harness tracks in New York in addition to New Jersey’s Meadowlands, takes the program seriously and has a full-time investigator who administers tests. Gural doesn’t rely on the government agencies and pays for the testing out of his own pocket.
Gural is a welcome iconoclast in the world of racing who is outspoken on many matters, but none more so than in stopping the use of illegal medications. He does not hesitate to ban abusers from his tracks, relying extensively on out-of-competition testing. As he explained in the November 16, 2016, issue of ThoroughbredDailyNews, “without out-of-competition testing, you cannot solve the problem.” It’s not just the perception of a sport by outsiders that is important, but protecting those who are playing by the rules from unfair competition.
Gural and his investigator discovered the abuse of Cobalt in 2013, before it achieved the international notoriety it now possesses. Cobalt is a medication with serious – potentially fatal – side effects. No state regulatory bodies uncovered the use of Cobalt, but Gural’s investigator did.
Other sports have been dragged into drug testing after much resistance. Major League Baseball winked at the widely-acknowledged use of performance-enhancing-drugs until it became impossible to ignore.
Perhaps no sport, however, has been as widely exposed as international bicycling. Lance Armstrong was an American hero with his seven Tour de France wins even amid rumors of his doping. He denied the claims, citing the fact that he had never tested positive. Because of the wide-spread complaints about Armstrong’s drug use, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigated, succeeding in obtaining incriminating statements from several teammates.
The USADA report is an indictment of both Armstrong the person and the cyclist. One of the more revealing episodes demonstrated not only Armstrong’s duplicity, but the extent to which those committed to cheating will go. Blood doping was a common tool used by Armstrong and his team. Knowing the duration between doping and the time for the evidence to dissipate, Armstrong once stopped the team bus between the end of one race stage and the hotel where they were likely to be tested. Intra-venous bags were hung from the overhead racks and the entire team doped, explaining the delay in reaching the hotel by saying the bus had a breakdown.
This past summer, Jeff Novitzky was a featured speaker at The Jockey Club’s annual Round Table Conference. When I saw that the Executive Director of the UFC was to speak, I did a double-take since the only UFC of which I was aware was the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The head of that group was speaking to the assembled elite of the Sport of Kings?
But The Jockey Club has become the leading institutional proponent of enhancing the integrity of racing by eliminating medications, both illegal and ones permitted on race-day. The head of USADA, Travis Tygart, and Edwin Moses, one of the world’s all-time greatest athletes, have spoken in recent conferences. Novitzky fit right in, describing his use of out-of-competition testing to clean up his sport.
Novitzky has an investigatory career that included Armstrong, Roger Clemens and BALCO of Barry Bonds fame. He would ask the athletes who were caught why they cheated. The most common responses were that the athlete did not trust teammates or competitors to be clean. Most disturbing, however, they did not trust the oversight body for their sport to enforce a level playing field.
Horse racing is not oblivious to the importance of out-of-competition testing. Joe Gorajec has spent his adult life in the racing business. For 25 years he served as the Executive Director of the Indiana Horse Racing Commission when Indiana became the first state to adopt the model rule on use of anabolic steroids, the first to regulate Cobalt and one of the first to adopt OCT.
Gorajec spoke at this year’s Saratoga Institute, sponsored by Albany Law School, where he compared the frequency of OCT at important international jurisdictions with the United States. In the UK, the rate of testing is 12%; it’s 11% in Hong Kong and 10% in France. It is one percent (1%) in the US.
New York is a miniscule portion of that one percent, but nonetheless is aware fully of the importance of out-of-competition testing. In explaining its reason for adopting OCT regulations, the state cited the significance of the rule for enhancing the integrity of racing and the safety of horses:
“Doping agents with these traits are posing a great threat to racing integrity. They threaten the integrity of athletic competitions by having an affect [sic] on race performance that cannot be forecast by the betting public, and that gains an unfair advantage over other horsemen and owners.… When used by healthy competitors, they have the capacity to create dangerous and unfair abilities to perform.”
Yet New York appears to have done practically nothing to achieve those goals.
I received records from the Gaming Commission in response to a public records request covering the period going back to January 1, 2014. In that period, only six Standardbred horses were identified as testing positive as a result of out-of-competition testing. No Thoroughbreds tested positive – as in, none.
All six Standardbreds tested positive for Cobalt. Five of the six had previously tested positive for Cobalt in a post-race test. One can certainly wonder about the acumen of those who continued to administer a prohibited drug after a positive test, but they are rather obviously not in the group adept at cheating.
Among the records I requested were those for the number of tests conducted by the State of New York for a period going back almost three years, as well as the identities of the trainers whose horses were tested, and why they were tested. While the Gaming Commission provided me with records of the six positives, and the New York Racing Association gave me a generic policy, both denied my request for the other information.
The public records law presumes that records maintained by government agencies such as the Gaming Commission and the NYRA Board are public. There are limited exceptions, including the one used by the Commission and NYRA in denying significant portions of my requests. For example, records need not be disclosed if “compiled for law enforcement purposes and which, if disclosed, would … reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures….”
Both the Gaming Commission and NYRA explained their reasoning supporting this exemption: Drug cheaters “could evade detection by deliberately tailoring their conduct in anticipation of avenues of inquiry to be pursued by agency personnel.”
And I do not quarrel with either agency’s decision to withhold records that would assist the drug cheaters in evading detection. But that is not the bulk of what I was asking for.
Statistical records concerning the number of tests, the trainers and horses tested, and the results do not allow cheaters to evade detection. The only way it does assist cheaters is if the number of random and surprise testing is negligible over a period of almost three years. Then the cheaters would know that New York does not have a serious program of out-of-competition testing. Of course, they already know that.
One of the more laughable aspects of the “program” regarding Thoroughbreds is that the only evidence of possible testing is for entrants in the Grade I stakes with a purse of at least $1 million. Both the Commission and NYRA make a big deal of their “integrity protocols” in advance of such races. One of the protocols is that horses must be on the grounds three days before the race and are subject to out-of-competition testing. Of course, that belies their stated rationale that informing drug cheaters of their procedures enables them to evade detection. More significantly, however, is that many of the most troublesome illegal drugs are not going to be administered within that time period.
The Gaming Commission’s refusal to provide access to the OCT records – or even to identify the records at issue – is a remarkable position for a government agency that frequently states its goal of enhancing the safety of its athletes and promoting public confidence in the integrity of the sport. Providing statistical information and the names of trainers whose horses were tested would greatly enhance public confidence that the sport is doing what it can to make the sport clean. Of course, if the answer is that New York is not testing in any meaningful way, the perception of integrity in racing plummets even further.
There is also a suspicion that New York’s lack of enthusiasm in out-of-competition testing may be to keep the high profile barns with large stables in New York. New York recently confronted an analogous situation in which equine safety took a back seat to the need to increase field size. The NYRA Racing Office at one time had the say on whether veterinarians could scratch horses following a race-day exam. A spike in fatalities at Aqueduct in 2012 lead to an investigation in which he Racing Office’s role was stopped.
Within the racing community itself, there is considerable controversy over the extent of illegal use of drugs. Those opposing federal legislation that would bring racing under the jurisdiction of the United States Anti-Doping Agency cite the infinitesimal level of positives that are detected by standard post-race testing. Of course, Lance Armstrong never tested positive either.
The 2011 Jockey Club Round Table featured a report from McKinsey & Company that highlighted the significant negative impression of the sport by both the general public and even racing fans. According to the report, only “22% of the general public has a positive impression of Thoroughbred racing.” Perhaps even more disturbing is that among racing fans, “just 46% … would recommend their friends” follow the sport.
At this year’s Round Table, a slide presentation referenced a survey in which 69 per cent of respondents identified “drugs” as a “very important” issue and 66 per cent cited “integrity issues.”
While the public records law clearly requires the disclosure of many of the records I requested, the Gaming Commission should stand by its frequent statements that the safety of both equine and human athletes is a priority to it, and that enhancing the public’s perception of integrity in racing is a paramount concern. Hiding behind bogus legal arguments protects only its seeming incompetence and the cheaters who are out there.
When I received decisions from attorneys for the Gaming Commission and NYRA denying access to most of the records I requested, I asked that they reconsider on the basis that statistical records could not possibly “reveal criminal investigative techniques and procedures” permitting the cheaters to evade detection. The Gaming Commission attorney basically said, “Sue me.” NYRA’s attorney did not respond.
While I doubt that anyone who follows New York government will be surprised at the arrogance and secrecy of these two agencies, the victims here are not only the public that has a right to know what its government is doing. More importantly, it is the human and equine athletes who could benefit from a little sunshine.
Transparency would also assist those who do play by the rules to have confidence that the cheaters are being pursued. It all goes back to what the UFC’s Jeff Novitzky said in his speech last summer. Cheaters do what they do because they do not trust competitors to play fairly, nor do they trust the sport’s governing bodies to even care if cheating is going on.
I once represented someone on a disciplinary charge who was accused of unleashing a stream of vulgarities against a manager. He vehemently denied doing so. When I asked if there were any witnesses, he responded, “I hope not.”
While this nitwit at least had the sense to realize the significance of contrary evidence, it is a perspective that has obviously eluded our President.
In his first visit to an agency he now manages, he spoke at the CIA headquarters in front of a memorial to agents who gave their lives serving our country. Trump’s ostensible purpose was to make amends to an agency he recently described as akin to Nazi Germany.
Of course, nothing Trump ever does is about anything other than Donald J. Trump. His real purpose was to attack the media, specifically their failure to acknowledge the enormity of the crowds attending his inauguration, saying it stretched all the way from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.
Now, good liars have the sense to say things for which there is not demonstrable proof they are lying. In this advanced day of cameras and audio recording equipment, that has become more difficult. Trump obviously does not care, because many news outlets ran side-by-side photographs comparing Barack Obama’s first inaugural with what, hopefully, will be Trump’s only one.
Later in the day, Trump sent out spokesperson Sean Spicer to blast the media for its bias in not realizing how great our new President is. One outlet noted that he told four lies in only five and one-half minutes.
One was his assertion that the vast expanse of white in front of the Washington Monument was from sheets protecting the grass that were not used before. (This is to be distinguished from the vast expanse of white on the podium, and in front of it, at the Capitol that were actual humans.) Of course, this directly contradicts his boss, but never mind. The sheets were used before, and the photographs from Obama’s inaugural are rather clearly people, and not sheets or grass.
This morning on Meet the Press, Trump’s prevaricator-in-chief, Kellyanne Conway, made the remarkable assertion that Spicer was simply presenting “alternative facts.” This approach is a boon to the children of our nation. Next time one is caught in a lie, just simply say, “Dad, what I said is an alternative fact.”
No one will ever accuse Governor Andrew Cuomo of being shy when it comes to grabbing whatever power is lying around so he can continue his micromanagement of state government. In his budget proposal for the upcoming year, he has proposed legislation that he laughingly calls a return of the New York Racing Association to private control. What it really does, however, is increase his control over NYRA.
When he seized control over NYRA almost five years ago, he and the Legislature created a “Reorganization” Board of Directors in which 12 of the 17 members would be appointed by the state. Cuomo had 8 of those 12 appointments.
Under his budget proposal, Cuomo would directly appoint four members of what would become a 15-member board. Each chamber of the Legislature would appoint one member. The CEO of NYRA – to be appointed by Cuomo – would be on the Board. The remaining eight members would be selected by the current Executive Committee of NYRA.
Who is on the Executive Committee? In what must be a remarkable coincidence, four of the six members are Cuomo loyalists. Three of the members are direct Cuomo appointees. A fourth, Michael Del Giudice, who serves as the acting Chair of the Board, has said that “Andrew is like a younger brother to me.”
So there you have it. Cuomo will go from appointing 8 members of a 17-member board to controlling 13 members of a new 15-member board.
Perhaps you think that Andrew Cuomo, who has never displayed any interest or knowledge of racing, should continue to run what should be a premier jurisdiction for top-quality racing. Or you think that his acolytes on the current NYRA Board are going to be the first Cuomo loyalists in his six-year tenure to exhibit independent judgment on any matter that has not been pre-approved by the Governor’s office.
But you also may think that New York can do much better than allow campaign contributors and hacks to call the shots for the future of New York racing.
Early in Cuomo’s tenure he was faced with another racing crisis. There was a spike in racing fatalities at Aqueduct. That resulted in an independent and widely-respected Task Force that studied the situation. Their recommendations ended up not only improving the situation in New York, but became a national model for improving the safety of racing.
He could do something similar here, and once again put New York in the forefront of the sport.
Chris Kay has been the CEO and President of the New York Racing Association for close to four years now. When he was hired, he had no background in racing, although he said he had once gone to a track. Whether you agree with him or not, he has gotten up-to-speed on numerous aspects of the business, for which I give him credit.
But on Tuesday, he said something indicating that he knows nothing about the fundamentals of that business – which is, of course, horse racing. He described an innovation brought about during his administration – what he referred to as a “book.” Now I realize, like his boss the Governor, he will take credit for almost anything favorable short of the sun rising in the East. What he was describing, however, is the condition book. It’s been in existence for the 20 or so years that I have had interests in horses.
For those who do not know, a condition book is a schedule of the races that a track hopes to run over a period of several weeks. For each day of that period, it will identify the level of a particular race (maiden, allowance, stake, etc.), and the eligibility requirements (age, gender, etc.) It allows trainers and owners to pick out races for which one of their horses may be eligible. It’s an important part of the planning that goes into the preparation of a given horse.
Now, it is unreasonable to expect that anyone, even the head of one of the nation’s major racing jurisdictions, will know every detail about the business. (Incidentally, no one on the Franchise Oversight Board to whom Kay was speaking seemed to know of this, either.) But Kay was using his innovative “book” as a reason for why he is able to attract more owners to the sport. According to Kay, owners from “Virginia or North Carolina” will now know that a race is going to go on a particular day, so they will plan a trip to Aqueduct [sic] to watch their charge.
Of course, if an owner thinks that is a guarantee, it may be more useful to provide some educational information as to why that may not happen: there may be insufficient entries to run the race; there may be too many and your horse is on the also-eligible list; the race may come off the turf and you only want to run on the grass.
The more fundamental problem, however, is that Kay has less understanding of the actual mechanics of racing than most owners, trainers, and barn staff. When I was fortunate enough to get a horse to the track last year, one of the most frequent questions I was asked by non-fans was “how do you pick out a race?” The answer, of course, was “the condition book.”
If Kay now has some investment in his “book,” perhaps he can now work at getting it out on a more timely manner than the last minute. It’s a source of frustration for trainers (and, presumably the owners he is concerned about) that proper preparation for a horse is even more important than being able to get a room reservation.
When I put my head in my hands while reading Gail Collins in the Saturday Times, my wife said I had to stop reading the news. While I have largely avoided broadcast news since November 8 in favor of newspapers and on-line sites, it’s become clear that we need some type of scoring system for the Trump presidency.
I have one for back pain, a 1-to-10 scale that measures days before I call a doctor, with a “1” being severe pain. I have a sister who is a rabid Boston sports fan, so I have started measuring intensity with a scale of 1-to-5 “Sandy’s.”
Trump, however, presents a difficult challenge. We do not yet know what policies he will be pursuing as President – I’d be surprised if he even knew – but we do know that he has amply demonstrated a complete lack of empathy for anyone with the temerity to challenge him. It could be a disabled reporter that he ridiculed for the disability, the Khan family, or the union leader who said (correctly) that Trump lied about the number of jobs saved at the Carrier facility. But this behavior is simply despicable, and trying to score it minimizes the suffering he is consciously inflicting.
I’m talking about statements or behavior that makes you think, “This guy is going to be President of the United States?” That brings us back to the Collins column. She quoted a tweet by the soon-to-be leader of the free world about the Miss Universe pageant he was bringing to Moscow:
Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?
Setting aside the obviously troublesome geopolitical aspects of the President-Elect’s fascination with a murderous dictator, this sounds like a high school freshman wondering if the cute girl in his Algebra class will go on a date with him.
This guy is going to be our President?
The Washington Post reported today that Michael Flynn, the retired general picked by Donald Trump to head the National Security Agency, “inappropriately shared” classified information with foreign military officers when he served in Afghanistan. Flynn was not disciplined following an investigation by the Army because he did not act “knowingly” and that “there was no actual or potential damage to national security as a result” according to documents obtained by the Post.
Flynn became a prominent figure in the Trump campaign during the Republican convention when he railed against Hillary Clinton’s use of classified information, leading the delegates in chants of “lock her up.” The slogan became a mainstay of Trump rallies, both during the campaign and in his current victory tour. There were no allegations that Clinton inappropriately shared classified information, and the FBI concluded criminal charges were not warranted.
Flynn was appointed as the Director of the Defense Intelligence during the Obama Administration in 2012 before being forced out two years later.
The Post also reported that it was the second time within a year that then-General Flynn was accused of mishandling classified material according to “former U.S. officials” when he have information to Pakistan in 2009. In his GOP convention remarks, Flynn said “if I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.”
Tom Noonan 