Stand Up and Hide

We know that controversial Southern California trainer Jeff Mullins is not always aware of the rules, but apparently he still doesn't break them, as this wonderful website seeks to convince us. Seems Ole' Jeff is the victim of a conspiracy led by the California Horse Racing Board, an institution not often accused of taking no-tolerance policy a step too far.

I admire the courage of those alleged "horse owners, trainers and friends in support of Jeff Mullins" who so bravely stand up to "do everything in [their] power" to help and "lend [their] voices", well... anonymously.

I agree. Justice for Jeff Mullins by all means. I also agree that it won't come from the CHRB. My choice would be the FBI.

(Image from Cafepress.com)

Things That Racing Fans Can Learn From Cycling

After already missing out on the Arc weekend because of my diploma work, I’ll also be unable to follow the upcoming Breeders’ Cup live. Ironically, the reason is that I’ll be in North America (that is, on a week-long trip to NYC which more likely than not won’t include a trip to Aqueduct). So no handicapping or strong interest from my side, although I will root against Zenyatta in the Classic. She may have a good chance (not too much to overcome there anyway), but personally I just don’t want to experience another 'Zenyatta For HOTY' campaign.

On a totally unrelated front, a topic that did catch my eye was a discussion on the site of my blogger friend Glenn Craven. Even though I keep finding the root of the debate a non-issue, the debate itself offers quite some value (I frequently find comment sections more worthwhile than the post itself, including on my own blog).

During said debate, I had brought up a comparison of racing’s drug problem with that of cycling, which Glenn rejected. I’m hardly the first one to draw that comparison, and it's also not the first time that I’ve seen it rejected based on the argument that cycling's doping issue was, as Glenn put it, "more obvious and well-reported".

As a longtime cycling fan (up to last fall, when they dropped the fight against cheaters for the most part), I take issue with this argument. The "more obvious and well-reported" character of cycling's problem is just that: a matter of publicity. But to the 1990s fan of cycling, the similarities between the two situation are eerie.

Just like in American thoroughbred racing, the suddenly public issue of doping was an open secret to many regular followers long before it made newspaper headlines. The problem wasn't any more rampant in 2005 or 2000 than it was in 1995, it's just that the media suddenly reported "shocking news" which had for years been commonplace knowledge to fans and many of those reporters. The only thing truly shocking was the extent of the cheating system, which (as it turns out after more than a decade of police investigations) included the vast majority of pro riders and teams, hundreds of medical professionals and even renowned medical research institutes.

Until shit hit the fan, however, cycling fans heard precisely the same kind of downplaying by pros, sporting directors and, yes, medical staff we in the horse racing fandom have become used to ('no matter what it looks like, it's always just an isolated incident, and blown out of proportion anyway').

Like in pre-investigation cycling, there has been the occasional whistleblower in American racing: Jack Van Berg labeling today’s racing environment "chemical warfare" during last year’s congressional hearings was one of several such examples out of the horseman roster.
There is also this disturbing account by former SoCal clocker Bob Kachur, an online book that I first came across about 18 months ago and initially thought must be quite well-known, but instead it seems to be a totally obscure one. I’ve read it several times since then and have continuously checked his descriptions against the facts known to racing outsiders, finally finding that the only reason it seems unbelievable at first sight is that I really don't want it to be true. I have yet to find a single instance in which I could disprove or even seriously doubt anything he writes.

Also just like in cycling during the mid-90s, there have been a handful of journalists who are unwilling to take the crap dished out by the sport’s establishment, the most prominent being Joe Drape and Andrew Beyer. Interestingly, Beyer lists cycling as his other favorite sport.

Such voices are, however, at best ignored by racing’s establishment of horsemen, racing officials, track operators, racing media etc.; often ridiculed as nutty curmudgeons, or outright accused of hurting the sport.

There are more than enough instances which make it clear that cheating in American racing is everything but a minor issue, but let’s just review one (well, two really) example(s) from this season:

Probably the most hilarious racing-related thing all year: Jeff Mullins initial defense to this spring’s detention barn incident, that he routinely used the substance in question, Air Power, on raceday in California and didn’t realize it was illegal in NY. The chuckler: it was just as illegal in CA for almost a year, meaning that Mullins unwittingly revealed that a) he and others routinely break the rules in CA; and b) Californian oversight is so incredibly lame that trainers not only never got penalized for openly violating rules, but don’t even care to learn those rules in the first place (even though "nothing but water on raceday" doesn’t seem such a tough one to memorize).
We shouldn’t be surprised though, after all CA is the state where racing officials traditionally see their primary task in helping to cover up instances of cheating, rather than in keeping such instances to a minimum. It’s also the state where, a few months later, a group of trainers including Mike Mitchell, Jeff Mullins, Art Sherman and Doug O-point-Nine'Neill saw fit to openly lobby against a steward they didn’t like. Excuse me, but isn’t opposition from a Who’s Who of cheaters the stuff that should earn a racing steward a raise rather than a trip to the unemployment office?

The facts are obvious: at least a third of North America’s Top 20 or Top 40 trainers have a long list of major rule violations (and very little remorse for any of those). Keep in mind that those are only the instances racing’s (in most states) lax oversight authorities cared to inform us about.


Life Is Not a Hollywood movie

I think one of the main reasons people are unwilling to accept the reality of widespread cheating in racing is because we’ve grown up with movie images of cheaters. One thing the cycling example makes clear is that cheaters don’t usually fit our superficial image, or even the alternate cheater images we’ve come to accept. There were the occasional tragic madmen (Marco Pantani) or desperate losers (Floyd Landis), but most of all there have been people who, in many ways, perfectly fit the cliché of the hard-working pro cyclist, who even showed a good deal of sportsmanship in other regards.

That someone is a cheater doesn’t mean they’re lazy; it doesn’t mean they owe all of their success entirely to the cheating, and it doesn’t mean they are entirely bad people. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jeff Mullins is a caring family man, Kirk Ziadie can be a helpful friend, or even that Rick Dutrow (on some abstract level and with obvious reservations) deeply cares about the horses entrusted to him.
All of this is possible and not even unlikely. And you know what: I still want those crooks [more colorful expletive deleted] kicked out of the sport. I don’t care what kind of a person you are in any other regard as long as you keep ruining this great sport. Be a great family man and a great friend, but as long as you can’t restrain yourself from cheating in our sport: be all of that as a postal worker, and try keeping your fingers out of the envelopes please!

(Image on top is from Good Times Cycling Blog, showing Marco Pantani; a poster child for cycling’s drug problem, although the frequently raptured Italian national hero was an unusual case in several ways. His drug-related death may have been averted if authorities hadn’t been so casual about his problems. In one case, the Italian media and cycling federation successfully lobbied that the penalty for his third positive test in three years was set out as six-month ban from October 'til March, a time he wouldn’t have competed in a race anyway)

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

Count the DRF’s Jay Privman in the Mullins apologist camp after this schmaltzy "Urban Cowboy" editorial.

Privman, like others before him, paints the picture of Mullins as an outsider from the rural heart of America, trying to make it against the established elites of racing’s glitzy world. He struggled, couldn’t pay his bills, fought on, was knocked down again and was right back on his feet time and time again.

A great American story, you only have to be willing to disregard the fact that there are other struggling horsemen, people who wouldn’t bend their ethics, who refuse to cheat and who might ultimately fall by the wayside because f**king frauds such as Mullins cheat them out of their money. Doesn’t sound that heartwarming any more, does it?

"I don't care, as long as my clients are not bothered by it," Mullins said. "As long as they have faith in me, and they stick by me, that's all I really care about."

Perspective - It’s not the Absence of Thinking

I didn’t plan on pointing this out, but a number of recent articles calling for events (i.e. the Mullins incident) to be "put in perspective" (the one by Equidaily, to which I responded here, being the culprit) make it painfully obvious a clarification is needed.

The notion of "putting something in perspective" is routinely abused in our society as an indirect shut-up argument. It's a rhetorical device political campaigns have come to love because it allows them to defend an utter lie and even take the high road by painting their opposition as hatemongers for calling the lie a lie.

The fact remains that "putting things into perspective" doesn't imply that any point-of-view is equally valid. What it does mean is that commentators should evaluate any argument before drawing conclusions. In the case of the Mullins incident this means that commentators should seriously consider Mullins' response that he wasn't aware of detention barn rules, and that as a human he can make mistakes. I have. Among the other points I considered were that his career spans well over 20 years; that he has regularly fielded stakes contenders in and outside of California for a large portion of that time; that he has a long list of prior offenses, that a lot of them are excusable, but some aren't; the extent to which professional trainers can be required to know the rules; the extent to which it's believable they don't; and how believable a veteran trainer is in claiming he wasn't aware that different states have different rules on raceday medication (although in this case it turned out the rules were pretty much in place in his home state, too). I observed how a lot was made of the substance being "all-natural" (which is true of opium and cocaine, too) and "above-the-counter" (as are numerous steroids), all digressing from the actual issue at hand: that the use of the substance administered was illegal.

If the facts make it clear that Mullins' defense has the merit of a marathon runner claiming he didn’t know that taking a scooter was illegal, then it is "in perspective" to call it preposterous. Treating an obvious lie as a valid argument isn’t.

Response to Equidaily (All of Them)

News of Equidaily’s critique of several of my posts, an article on my own blog as well as a comment on another blogger's post, arrived me right when I was readying myself to go to bed, so please excuse me if this response seems a bit rushed. That's because it actually is.

First, if you choose to directly attack one of my posts on your website, I would consider it a question of basic decency to notify me. It doesn't really bode well for your argument that I have to find out about it from a post about a post discussing your post.

The source for my claim that AirPower is illegal in California is this Ray Paulick article, which makes it clear that absolutely anything except for water is illegal on raceday in Mullins’ home state. That’s clear enough, I guess. You’re right that it hasn't been “proven for certain” that Mullins didn't administer the substance in plain sight, but doubts have been serious enough as to be cited by NYRA in explaining why the investigation was still open.
I do admit fault for interpreting “won’t test” as “non-detectable”. You have the facts on your side, and my response that the context of this statement clearly implies the substance gives the horse an edge over his or her competiton without outright violating regulations shouldn't take away from the fact that, writing this sentence for an ad-hoc response on another blogger’s site, I was guilty of sloppy research. Sorry for that.

In case you really didn't understand (I mention it because you spend several paragraphs on the argument): I make a point of AirPower being “performance-enhancing” because it undermines the premise of Mullins’ defense. If his horse is the only one in the field gaining advantage from a performance-enhancing drug administered at a time when trainers are forbidden to do so there clearly is no merit in arguing that the incident was “harmless”.

For a more general thought about the premise of your article, and those of others, see the next post.

Mullins in the Detention barn (sounds good, but isn’t)

Jeff Mullins, trainer of hot Derby prospect I Want Revenge, was caught inside the Aqueduct detention barn with a syringe on Saturday, the Thoroughbred Times reports. Mullins was forced by the stewards to scratch Gato Go Win from the Bay Shore Stakes after he tried to administer an above-the-counter drug to the horse. All other Mullins starters, including impressive Wood Memorial winner I Want Revenge, were allowed to proceed. The infraction, technically only a violation of detention barn rules, will also be subject to a stewards review during this week.

Tough, isn't it? Think about what the Hong Kong Jockey Club or JRA would do to a repeat offender caught with a syringe in a detention barn. Or, for that matter, to a trainer who blamed bettors for “crying about losing a $2 bet“ after being caught cheating. Any racing jurisdiction worth its salt would ban this trainer for at least a year from running any horses at their tracks, and formally warn off connections of all horses registered to his barn. In the US, the whole affair will barely reach slap-on-the-wrist proportions. In my opinion, it doesn't even matter if the substance was legal, what part of detention barn will Mullins pledge he is too stupid to understand?

How could any of this smell fishy to fans watching TV on Kentucky Derby Day: Here’s a trainer who within the last month was caught red-handed fiddling around with a syringe in a detention barn, trying to administer a performance-enhancing substance to his horse. This trainer saddles one of the Derby favorites, a horse owned by a shadowy “hedge-fund” operation run by a (former?) scam artist and white collar crook who once owned another horse which was the focus of a successful FBI investigation into organized crime at the races. How many fans of the sport will want revenge? How many casual viewers will just shake their heads in disbelief and sign the next PETA campaign against racing? How many true fans could really blame them?

Looks like contributor o_crunk was right commenting on the Railbird blog: IWR for Real Change!