Page 38 - New Mexico Horse Breeder, Fall

What a Difference
a DAY Makes by Diane M. Ciarloni
Okay. Hold on. A bunch of people will no doubt quibble over the timeframe, insisting it’s been longer than a day.
So let’s admit it.
The quibblers are correct. It’s actually been six years and six months since........
On March 25, 2012, The New York Times, one of the most venerable newspapers in the business, splashed its leading pages with vivid color photography of a two-year- old colt.
The colt was dead.
His right front leg was extended, the hoof turned up, showing the shoe. The other leg was crimped at the knee.
Scraps of blue plastic stuck out from under the chestnut body at odd, wrinkled angles. He was on the bare dirt, with a row of weeds behind him.
You could tell he was a good-looking colt....once.
His body had been dragged from the
track to a trash heap. He was left in the filth, sprawled out next to a discarded toilet. Both treated like garbage. The only thing is, one was garbage but the other shouldn’t have been.
The title of the article was “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys – Death and Disarray at America’s Racetracks.”
New Mexico and its tracks were one of the main targets in the dark, biting piece of journalism.
The bones of dozens of skeletons rattled
and banged out of closets across the state as the words marched into sentences and the sentences marched into paragraphs. It hurt. So. Bad.
Accusations about issues such as accuracy in numbers and statistics were hurled at The Times from industry members. It was like the rock-throwing between David and Goliath, but it was difficult to differentiate between the characters. Who was who?
There’s no doubt there were inaccuracies, mistaken statistics. But the numbers were only
a small part of the brutal point. The major focus was correct.
We’ll discuss that focus later.
For now, fast forward to April 5, 2018, to a meeting room in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
There were a lot of people at the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) gathering. Occupying two of the chairs were Ismael “Izzy” Trejo, Executive Director of the New Mexico Racing Commission (NMRC), and NMRC chairman Ray Willis.
The two men were present to accept an award from the ARCI president, Ed Martin, for the NMRC’s “exemplary service to the cause of racing integrity.”
What the heck happened?
The reasons for the award were a direct result of the almost heroic efforts of the NMRC and its staff to raise the level of trust in, and integrity of, racing in the state of New Mexico.
The trajectory had moved from a full-color picture of a dead horse in a garbage pile to
the NMRC being asked to speak at several industry conferences. Other states wanted details....they wanted examples....they wanted advice from NMRC about the tools being used to clean up racing in New Mexico.
Actually, NMRC has been receiving these invitations for the past two years, making
it only four years since The Times’ pitilessly revealing expose.
There was a time – a time about six years ago – when New Mexico racing was the
butt of the racing industry. It was Rodney Dangerfield, without the humor. It was connected with vicious Mexican drug cartels such as the Zetas, a fact proven out by more Times investigative reporting.
Now, people in high places and in even higher positions listen when New Mexico speaks. National notice has been taken of New Mexico’s rule changes and the expanded testing efforts implemented over the past two years.
The state has assumed a tough, uncompromising stance when it comes to trainers and owners who violate the drug rules. A number of very heavy sanctions have been levied on such cheaters. Proof of this particular pudding is found in the decrease of drug positives, especially in the Class I substances that are particularly harmful and dangerous for horses and riders, from 2016 to 2017.
And proof is already available showing another positive change between 2017 and 2018. SunRay Park is a good example.
SunRay scheduled 36 race days in 2017 and 33 in 2018. There were 83 blood tests done last year and 196 this year, a 136-percent increase. There were 375 urine tests last year and 618 this year, a 65-percent increase.
There were 12 positives, or 14-percent, from the blood samples last year and three (1.5-percent) this year. That’s a 75-percent decrease.
Urine positives were up slightly from last year, but there were also twice as many samples taken and tested.
NMRC believes one of the fundamental reasons for the improved numbers is a result of the increased out-of-competition testing.
In 2016, the state ranked third in the nation for its volume of out-of-competition testing and even higher in 2017. It’s pretty obvious they can’t go much higher without becoming number one! Who in the world would have thought such a thing was even possible 6 1⁄2-years ago when the memory of that horrible photograph was still front and center?
Something huge happened in New Mexico in July, 2017, when the sometimes controversial hair testing procedure was added to the bag of tools used in out-of-competition testing. It’s the use of hair testing that made people stand at attention and face up to the reality that New Mexico wasn’t kidding.
Since the results of hair testing began coming in, several horses have been removed
36 New Mexico Horse Breeder