Doping racehorses.

[two gun sid]

The unwritten rule has always been that police officers won’t stop you if you are driving five miles over the speed limit. You might call it their “threshold level.”

As the case of trainer Steve Asmussen clearly illustrates, the Thoroughbred industry is in need of medication threshold levels.

On July 16 Lone Star Park stewards, following Texas Racing Commission guidelines, suspended Assmussen for six months (and fined him $1,500) for a medication positive dating back to May 2008, when the filly Timber Trick’s spit box urine test showed a metabolite of the local anesthetic lidocaine.

Asmussen, who has appealed, has denied administering the drug, and his request to have the filly’s blood tested was denied because Texas has a zero-tolerance policy, thus making the level of the drug irrelevant.

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/wgoh/archive/2009/07/21/a-little-tolerance.aspx

I feel Liebman is being a little disingenuous comparing McAnally's positive with Asmussen's recent positive. McAnally doesn't have a history of positives. Asmussen does. Scopolamine is found in jimsonweed. Lidocaine has to be injected. I say Asmussen should be punished and I would like to see him out of the sport along with Mullins, Frankel, Baffert, Pletcher, Dutrow.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

[jakefrep]

1. Good luck getting all of the racing jurisdictions on the same page

I suspect that getting them together is much like herding cats. And I fear that the commissions are stocked with political appointees who don't really understand the sport or its attendant regulatory issues.

I'm not sure why the sport can't fashion a governing body to usurp the authority of the various state racing commissions.

[two gun sid]

2. very true, Jake....

I think we need a national governing body to regulate the sport.

[cboy4]

3. Just make sure the racehorse isn't stopped by said police officer inside its own

stable in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And let the racehorse know producing its breeding paperwork won't amount to a pile of well, horseshit, for some police officers.

Especially if the racehorse looks like this:

[two gun sid]

4. LOL.