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60 Minutes – the NHBPA doesn’t get it

Posted by noonante on November 26, 2023
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

For those who watched CBS’ 60 Minutes November 12, there was little that close followers of the sport did not already know. That caused me initially to be disappointed, but I am not in the program’s target audience. In Bill Finley’s article in Thoroughbred Daily News he notes that the show has an audience of some 9 million viewers. It is intended for the vast majority of viewers who know next to nothing about horse racing or whose knowledge is limited to watching the occasional Triple Crown race.

But if I did not “get it” initially, the head of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent Protective Association is completely clueless. Eric Hamelback, CEO of the NHBPA, issued a response to 60 Minutes on November 13 complaining that the program was “not fair to the industry.” What he meant, however, is that it was not fair to Hamelback’s views. I do not know if he was interviewed, but his tiresome rants about the “elites” trying to “shrink horse racing” through such nefarious scenes as regulating the conduct of the sport did not address any of the issues raised by the program. Hamelback’s primary agenda is to criticize HISA, the acronym for the landmark federal legislation to bring uniformity to racing as well as the agency administering it.

Unsurprisingly, CBS focused on racing fatalities, including videos of horses breaking down in the stretch, and the drug convictions of major players including (of course) Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Hamelbach’s complaints – even if they had any merit – are not going to cut it when one of the leading trainers in the mid-Atlantic had Crocs with the words “Juice Man” painted on them.

While Hamelbach complains about the inaccuracies in the CBS narrative, his own statement is replete with false statements and inaccuracies. He thanks the “New Jersey Racing Commission, the FBI and others” for bringing down Navarro and Servis. But that is the racing commission that silently watched as those same trainers and their veterinarians drug horses while they rose to the top of the standings. The FBI obviously played a major role in investigating, but “the others” referenced by Hamelback would mean The Jockey Club, an organization that Hamelback and his supporters seek to remove from influence because they are the “elites” out to destroy the sport to further their own interests. But it is The Jockey Club – not the NHBPA nor any state racing commissions – that brought the sport’s problems to the attention of the FBI.

Although Hamelback asserts that The Jockey Club “by no means has the power or authority to speak on behalf of the industry,” the organization he heads claims to have such a mandate. Although stating that “the vast majority of horsemen nationwide … strongly oppose HISA in its current form,” the NHBPA has no basis for saying that. It is not an organization composed of horsemen and horsewomen, but one comprised of “affiliate organizations.” One such member is “New England,” the six-state region that no longer has thoroughbred racing. The tracks of California, New Jersey, Maryland, NYRA and Gulfstream Park are not members, meaning that the vast majority of actual horse people are not represented by the Hamelback group.

Hamelback points out that one Circuit Court of Appeals found that HISA was unconstitutional, but neglects to mention that after the U.S. Congress amended that law, that Court removed its finding of unconstitutionality.

Perhaps his most ingenuous statement is the assertion that drugs have not been shown to cause any of the recent fatalities that were referenced in the 60 Minutes piece. While that may be technically true, it ignores the accepted reality that many legitimate therapeutic medications may also mask symptoms of soreness that can then be a factor in a fatality. One of the significant benefits of a uniform national program of anti-doping and medication control is that the inconsistent state regulations can be harmonized to curb such abuses.

Yes it is true that the 60 Minutes broadcast did not highlight all of the improvements to reform racing in recent years or the efforts of the many honest and hard-working individuals who love horses. But I stopped watching 60 Minutes many years ago when it became apparent that they were not interested in nuanced reporting on what might be mildly complicated events. It is not truly a “news” agenda so much as a “ratings” (i.e., revenue) one.

But our industry is not helped when someone purporting to speak for the sport misstates and misrepresents facts to further his personal agenda. By creating the impression that everything is OK and nothing need be done, it is a grave disservice to all those doing the right thing. It does more harm than good. It may also eventually doom the very industry that he professes to care about.

A growing sense of owner responsibility?

Posted by noonante on December 23, 2021
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

There may not be many silver linings to a once-prominent trainer being sentenced to five years in a federal prison for doping violations or to the ongoing saga of Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit. But one salutary aspect appears to be a growing sense that it is not just trainers and veterinarians who bear sole responsibility for drug violations but owners as well. While that may obvious, so far there have been no legal consequences for owners other than losing a purse following a medication violation.

That may finally be changing. Last week two prominent racing media sites have singled out one owner for using a trainer with a history of multiple drug violations. I have a great deal of respect for The Paulick Report and Thoroughbred Daily News for their coverage of horse welfare issues, particularly when it comes to medication matters. The owner referenced is Joe Appelbaum who used Jose C. Vazquez as a trainer. Appelbaum is a significant figure in horse racing as the President of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. But he is not even remotely in the same league as the more prominent owners who time and again entrust their horses with questionable trainers.

Appelbaum was pilloried for his racing operation, Off The Hook, using Vazquez as its trainer. I do not know either Appelbaum or Vazquez personally, and was frankly not aware of Vazquez’ reputation. So I went to the database thoroughbredrulings.com to ascertain his record. I only looked at the past four years and learned that Vazquez was listed in multiple rulings by state racing authorities, many of which can be categorized as minor or paperwork infractions. Five, however, were for medication positives over that period of time. He was also denied a license by the New York State Gaming Commission on April 18, 2018, without a detailed explanation for the reason. Since he is now racing in New York, the license was subsequently granted, again without any stated reason, vague or otherwise.

I asked NYTHA for a response to the Paulick and TDN reports and received an answer from Appelbaum directly. (It is not clear to me that either Paulick or TDN sought a comment from him.) While recognizing that the criticism of him could be valid for giving Vazquez a “second chance,” he also acknowledges that he is held to a higher standard. He has now transferred their horse to a new trainer, following an “independent veterinary screening (including blood work).”

As I said, I know nothing of Vazquez. I am leery of ascribing negative connotations to anyone based on rumors or reputation. Since 2018, while Vazquez has been cited for five medication violations, there have been none since February 27, 2020. Coincidentally, Bob Baffert has had five violations in the one year commencing May 1, 2020, working for some of the most prominent owners in the business.

In his statement to me, Joe Appelbaum accepted responsibility for retaining Vazquez. He also responded to my query promptly (within hours on a Friday afternoon) and exhibited the transparency that is so rare in racing. Would that New York’s State Gaming Commission had the same level of accountability. After all, they granted Vazquez a license after denying him with no meaningful explanation in early 2018.

Racing has plenty of room for examining the accountability of owners as I argued in this post about owners much more prominent than Joe Appelbaum. And it must be done with transparency.

As Appelbaum concluded in his response to me, “[M]aybe we should each ask ourselves; What have I done for the welfare of our horses?”

New York learned nothing from PETA video

Posted by noonante on April 8, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

The New York Racing Association and the state’s Gaming Commission make a big deal of what they call “enhanced security protocols” for four stakes during the year, including Saturday’s Wood Memorial.  The protocols require horses entered in the race to be on the grounds three days before and subject to 24-hour surveillance cameras, as well as other provisions.

One of the requirements is a treatment log to be completed by the veterinarian, which the Gaming Commission then posts on its web site in advance of the race.  The protocols require a “full daily veterinarian’s record of all medications and treatments.”  Both the Commission and NYRA seem content to have an incomplete form submitted unless you consider “pre-race” or “routine” to be an adequate diagnosis warranting the administration of medications.

What is particularly troubling about their lax attitude is that the issue of administering drugs to race horses because you can, and not because it is necessary to treat a condition, is a major issue confronting the sport.  It came up in the now famous PETA video where one veterinarian was quoted as saying all horses in Steve Asmussen’s barn were treated with Lasix because it is a performance-enhancer, and not because it was necessary to treat pulmonary bleeding.  A California investigation into seven sudden deaths in Bob Baffert’s barn found that Baffert had thyroxine administered to all his horses, although he did not even know what the purpose of the medication was.

In a six-part series in Thoroughbred Daily News last summer, the final segment was entitled “Race Horse is Not a Diagnosis.”  Yet we have NYRA and the Gaming Commission not questioning “pre-race” or “routine” as an adequate explanation for their enhanced security protocols.  Even those phrases, however, are a mite more adequate than the vet who simply left the diagnosis part of the state-mandated form blank.  That vet, by the way, is the one featured in PETA’s video describing Lasix as a performance-enhancer.

In the press release announcing the protocols, New York’s top racing officials spouted the expected pablum about their concern for safety and integrity.  There was no explanation for why these steps were taken for only four of the 2,294 races NYRA ran last year.  NYRA CEO Chris Kay said the Wood would be “conducted in the safest and most transparent manner.”

That transparency, however, only serves to demonstrate that NYRA and the Gaming Commission are tone-deaf to the forces buffeting the industry.  If you are going to boast about publicizing vet records, you should think that people may actually look at them.  And if your haphazard acceptance of records that do not even meet your own standards becomes the next subject for PETA or Joe Drape, don’t blame the messenger.

This is an issue about more than how vets fill out a form.  For NYRA and the Gaming Commission, it is about what role they will play  –  if any  –  in bringing changes to racing.  One of those changes must be  adherence to a cardinal principle that drugs can only be administered to a horse to address a specific medical need, and that medical need is documented in the records of the veterinarian.

I realize that when you are trying to attract top horses to one of your signature races it is tempting to let some things slide.  But don’t go around boasting about your commitment to safety when you are willing to accept “pre-race” or “routine” as justification for administering drugs.