Sounding Off On Race-Day Medications, 'Super Trainers'

Published: May 9, 2011 02:54 pm EDT

It is very rare to read about a driver or jockey broaching the topic of race-day medications and 'super trainers,' but a Hall of Fame horseman has now let his feelings be known

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In his horseracing blog on The New York Times' website, retired American thoroughbred jockey Chris McCarron has let his feelings be known about the topics.

McCarron's blog entry seems to have been in reaction to the recent push in the United States to see the banning of race-day medications and strict fines and banishment for violations.

"I probably won hundreds, if not thousands, of races on horses that were treated with medications on the day of the race or the day before," McCarron wrote. "I believe that training and racing horses that have been given medication — whether to mask pain or to control other medical issues — is inappropriate and shortens the careers of those horses."

He also added, "To some extent, we riders act like ostriches with our heads in the sand: we rationalize that what we don’t know won’t hurt us."

Having had the luxury of experiencing the industry both in the irons and behind a desk, McCarron also opined about what racetrack brass has to deal with in regard to perceived 'super trainers.'

"During my time as the general manager at Santa Anita," he wrote, "I would watch as the winning percentages for certain trainers escalated suddenly. And it wasn’t as if they had a great meet and then a bad one because their horses had run through their conditions. These trainers started winning races at high rates and kept on winning.

"I had three or four people, including big players, trainers and owners, stop by my office each week to complain about how a small percentage of trainers were winning the majority of the races. The assumption was that the edge those trainers (was) because of the medication. And the number of medication violations over the years has increased, so how could anyone conclude anything else?"

(With files from The New York Times)

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