I remember back when Barbaro broke down one of the newspapers ran a comic strip where a little boy was looking at Barry Bonds and his steroid induced muscles, and the little boy said, “Aren’t there any heroes worth rooting for anymore?” Flash forward to a picture of Barbaro. I guess he was supposed to be the hero worth rooting for that did not have drugs coursing through his veins. The truth was something far different and the writer of the comic strip obviously hasn’t spent any time near the racetrack.

Steroid use is well accepted at the racetrack and legal in the Sport of Kings. Supposedly it enables a horse to bounce back from a race easier than they would do without the drugs. It also is essential to greedy breeders hoping to make a fortune in the sales ring. Who can turn down the chance to own a yearling or two year old with bulging muscles? He will certainly be a champion with those hindquarters so the buyer won’t mind shelling out upwards of sixteen million dollars for him.

There is also a plethora of anti pain medications used on a daily basis. If a horse is hurt, they won’t know it and will run on and maybe win their next race. Or they may not know they are hurt, and force a compound fracture, thus eliminating all hope of survival. Is this fair to the animals? Is it fair to the 110 pound human on their backs whose survival depends on their horse staying on their four feet?

Patrick Biancone is under suspicion once again for drugging his horses. This time his veterinarian wound up with a five year suspension. And what does Biancone get? What do the owners get? More importantly what do the bettors and the fans get?

The racing association has never been what you call concerned with drug use among its horses. It is always the dirty little secret that everyone in the room knows about and yet, no one talks about it. In 1968 Dancer’s Image tested positive for bute, but instead of stripping him of the title, the administration at Churchill Downs simply awarded Forward Pass the prize money. If someone bet money that day on Forward Pass to win, they went home empty handed. Now bute is legal almost everywhere. Ditto for lasix. Perhaps if it had been legal Alysheba would be a Triple Crown winner since he could not race with it on Belmont day. Easy Goer may have been a Derby winner, since he could not race on bute on Derby Day. This inconsistency makes it especially hard when comparing horses of other eras. Today’s horses may look better on paper, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against champions long gone. Today anything goes, and no drug is a bad drug.

There are more drugs today that are legal, and yet trainers like Biancone still feel the need to use illegal methods of pain control such as snake venom. We are certainly not naive enough to think that he is the only high profile trainer using these drugs, but since he is the only one dumb enough to get caught over and over, an example needs to be made of him, not his vet. Let’s throw the owners in also for good measure. They should know what their trainers are up to.

Currently if a trainer, like Biancone is caught using an illegal drug they get a suspension for say fifteen days. That doesn’t stop their horses from running in any races during those few days, however. Their assistant trainer simply takes over and saddles the horse in the paddock, and follows said trainer’s instructions. The owner of the horse still collects the prize money, and Biancone still collects a paycheck. So, is this fair punishment or even a little bit of a deterrent? We think not.

Take star filly, Irish Smoke. She is dazzling, but suppose she is found to have one of the drugs in her system that Biancone is notorious for, and it is right before the Breeders Cup. Biancone gets another paltry suspension, but Irish Smoke still gets to run in the Juvenile Fillies thus securing her year end title. Who loses here? I guess the only one who does is the vet, since he now cannot practice for five years.

Perhaps, the vet can have his office assistants take over his practice for the next five years so he doesn’t lose his paychecks and his family can still eat. It is, after all, only fair.