What has happened to this business? Growing up, I admired the participants, the trainers and the horses. There was Kelso, Forego, Typecast and a legion of others who raced and won without the need for modern day pharmacology. There were trainers who trained their horses without medications and honorable owners who only wanted to win at the highest level on a level playing field. You hear stories and rumors of “so and so uses this on their horses” and think that testing procedures will ferret out the cheaters. Then you read about how the drugs far outpace the ability to detect them. Has the business become a haven for cheats and winners at any cost?
I am a small commercial breeder and owner. I have never even thought about giving a horse a product that would be detrimental to its well-being. These animals are my life and have given me so much joy that I could never break the bond of trust that one develops with an animal totally within my control. I would never give a horse that I race a drug other than lasix. That may seem hypocritical to some, but for a horse that has a propensity to bleed, I see it as a proactive treatment.
I race and breed to give the horses I raise a chance to exhibit the genetic traits I was thinking about when I decided on the mating. I don't want some chemical enhancer totally distorting the ability of the horse I bred and raised. I want to see if the genetics work. I would like to think when I retire a racehorse I know what it can and cannot contribute to the breed as a whole and base my future breeding decisions on what I can do, breeding-wise, to enhance these horses ability to carry on their bloodlines.
I am totally shocked and numbed by these seemingly well-based allegations of cheating and I feel cheated with the horses that I have raised and raced that have had to compete on such an uneven playing field. We had a racing czar once, but totally emasculated the office so that those in power didn't lose their control. Now is the time to create a national central office with the authority to create unified racing rules and regulations. An office to serve as a central licensing authority for those that own and race under its authority. The states have shown a consistent inability to get anything positive done. Let them serve under a higher authority that holds them accountable and overrides the cronyism of the appointees to the various commissions. Get the cheaters out of the business with lifetime bans and no second chances. It is our last chance to do something proactive before we go the way of the dinosaurs, extinct!
Alfred H. Nuckols, Jr.
Hurstland Farm
Midway, Kentucky
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