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Illness Will Keep Dutrow From Attending Hearing
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/sports/othersports/19racing.html
Illness Will Keep Dutrow From Attending Hearing
By JOE DRAPE
Published: June 19, 2008
WASHINGTON — Rick Dutrow, Big Brown’s trainer and the man who put the use of steroids in horse racing front and center with his colt’s bid for a Triple Crown, is ill and will not testify as expected Thursday before a Congressional subcommittee examining drug use and fatalities in the sport.
Dutrow has been ill since the Belmont Stakes, where Big Brown’s bid to sweep the series shattered when he finished last after being eased by jockey Kent Desormeaux in the final turn.
“I submitted my written comments to Congress and was hoping to appear at Thursday’s hearing,” Dutrow said. “However, I have been under the weather since shortly after the conclusion of a very demanding Triple Crown, and I am simply not feeling well enough to travel. I let them know in advance that I will not be attending. Thursday’s hearing.”
Dutrow also said he would be available to answer questions at a later date.
Brin Frazier, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee, said she was unaware that Dutrow was not attending the hearing, and that committee members expected him to testify.
Even though he will be absent, Dutrow will be invoked as the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection holds a hearing titled “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Racing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.”
The breakdown and on-track euthanization of the filly Eight Belles after she finished second in the Kentucky Derby, and Dutrow’s admission that Big Brown was injected with the anabolic steroid Winstrol, will focus the subcommittee’s attention on fatalities and drugs, and their relation to each other. Before the Belmont, Dutrow said he had taken Big Brown off the drug, fueling more speculation that the colt’s previous unbeaten record was because of steroids.
The subcommittee’s ranking minority member, Representative Ed Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, said he intended to reopen the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978, which allowed simulcast wagering and provides the basis for Internet horse betting by allowing betting to take place across state lines. Last year, that type of betting accounted for 90 percent of the $15 billion bet on horse racing. Whitfield has said that he wants the industry to consider the creation of a central body to govern horse racing, similar to the British Horseracing Authority.
“We want more transparency in the racing industry, and more information about how widespread the use of drugs is and how safe these animals are,” Whitfield said. “We could force some minimum standards if the simulcast money was on the line.”
In Kentucky, Damon Thayer, a Republican state senator, has questioned Whitfield’s motives and has pointed out that the congressman’s wife, Connie Whitfield, is the vice chairman of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, a regulatory body, as well as a vice president of the Humane Society of the United States.
Thayer, who worked for the Breeders’ Cup from July 1999 to June 2007 and remains a marketing and communications consultant for equine interests, said the Humane Society supported a centralized racing authority.
“I think there is a conflict that one of our state regulators is a member of the senior leadership of an organization that supports her husband financially and wants to interfere in an industry where states are already moving forward in a positive way to regulate the sport,” Thayer said.
Since 2005, Humane USA, a political action committee founded by Wayne Pacelle, the chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, has contributed $5,000 to Whitfield, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“We’re not acting against horse racing in any active campaign,” Pecelle said. “We do not see a conflict. Connie and her husband are both very informed, and very passionate about the sport. They also have been longtime advocates of animal welfare.”
Whitfield acknowledged that he leaned on his wife’s expertise and said that she had met with committee staffers, but he noted that she was not on the witness list. Connie Whitfield rejected the idea that she had a conflict and said that racing regulators in Kentucky and other states were making progress in making horse racing drug-free and safer. Still, she said that she believed that it might take federal action to create a universal set of rules that all 38 racing jurisdictions could abide by.
Arthur Hancck III, a fourth-generation breeder who will testify, said: “As I see it, the real problem with the thoroughbred industry is that nobody is in charge. We are a rudderless ship, and the way we’re going, we will all end up on the rocks.
“It is impossible for us to govern and regulate ourselves. We are simply too fragmented and too diverse. Not one of these groups has the power to bring uniformity and integrity to our sport. In my opinion, only a federal racing commission or commissioner can save us from ourselves.”
Illness Will Keep Dutrow From Attending Hearing
By JOE DRAPE
Published: June 19, 2008
WASHINGTON — Rick Dutrow, Big Brown’s trainer and the man who put the use of steroids in horse racing front and center with his colt’s bid for a Triple Crown, is ill and will not testify as expected Thursday before a Congressional subcommittee examining drug use and fatalities in the sport.
Dutrow has been ill since the Belmont Stakes, where Big Brown’s bid to sweep the series shattered when he finished last after being eased by jockey Kent Desormeaux in the final turn.
“I submitted my written comments to Congress and was hoping to appear at Thursday’s hearing,” Dutrow said. “However, I have been under the weather since shortly after the conclusion of a very demanding Triple Crown, and I am simply not feeling well enough to travel. I let them know in advance that I will not be attending. Thursday’s hearing.”
Dutrow also said he would be available to answer questions at a later date.
Brin Frazier, a spokeswoman for the subcommittee, said she was unaware that Dutrow was not attending the hearing, and that committee members expected him to testify.
Even though he will be absent, Dutrow will be invoked as the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection holds a hearing titled “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Racing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse.”
The breakdown and on-track euthanization of the filly Eight Belles after she finished second in the Kentucky Derby, and Dutrow’s admission that Big Brown was injected with the anabolic steroid Winstrol, will focus the subcommittee’s attention on fatalities and drugs, and their relation to each other. Before the Belmont, Dutrow said he had taken Big Brown off the drug, fueling more speculation that the colt’s previous unbeaten record was because of steroids.
The subcommittee’s ranking minority member, Representative Ed Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, said he intended to reopen the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978, which allowed simulcast wagering and provides the basis for Internet horse betting by allowing betting to take place across state lines. Last year, that type of betting accounted for 90 percent of the $15 billion bet on horse racing. Whitfield has said that he wants the industry to consider the creation of a central body to govern horse racing, similar to the British Horseracing Authority.
“We want more transparency in the racing industry, and more information about how widespread the use of drugs is and how safe these animals are,” Whitfield said. “We could force some minimum standards if the simulcast money was on the line.”
In Kentucky, Damon Thayer, a Republican state senator, has questioned Whitfield’s motives and has pointed out that the congressman’s wife, Connie Whitfield, is the vice chairman of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, a regulatory body, as well as a vice president of the Humane Society of the United States.
Thayer, who worked for the Breeders’ Cup from July 1999 to June 2007 and remains a marketing and communications consultant for equine interests, said the Humane Society supported a centralized racing authority.
“I think there is a conflict that one of our state regulators is a member of the senior leadership of an organization that supports her husband financially and wants to interfere in an industry where states are already moving forward in a positive way to regulate the sport,” Thayer said.
Since 2005, Humane USA, a political action committee founded by Wayne Pacelle, the chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, has contributed $5,000 to Whitfield, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“We’re not acting against horse racing in any active campaign,” Pecelle said. “We do not see a conflict. Connie and her husband are both very informed, and very passionate about the sport. They also have been longtime advocates of animal welfare.”
Whitfield acknowledged that he leaned on his wife’s expertise and said that she had met with committee staffers, but he noted that she was not on the witness list. Connie Whitfield rejected the idea that she had a conflict and said that racing regulators in Kentucky and other states were making progress in making horse racing drug-free and safer. Still, she said that she believed that it might take federal action to create a universal set of rules that all 38 racing jurisdictions could abide by.
Arthur Hancck III, a fourth-generation breeder who will testify, said: “As I see it, the real problem with the thoroughbred industry is that nobody is in charge. We are a rudderless ship, and the way we’re going, we will all end up on the rocks.
“It is impossible for us to govern and regulate ourselves. We are simply too fragmented and too diverse. Not one of these groups has the power to bring uniformity and integrity to our sport. In my opinion, only a federal racing commission or commissioner can save us from ourselves.”
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