Good Sunday morning. And Happy Mother's Day to you mothers out there.

 

Got some interesting and informative comments last night and this morning from Joe Faraldo, the attorney representing the horsemen at Vernon (among his other harness-related clientele). I had asked him to respond to Jason Settlemoir's comment the other day that the horsemen at the two tracks refused to consent to on-site testing. Here is part of Joe's reply: 

 

"Simply put, the track's 'black box' machine called an 'IRMA' was an adaptation of a hospital trauma ER pre op acid /base detector. It was inaccurate for the modified quantification purpose. It was cheap, and it was the source of false positives. The track operation did not deem it necessary to re-calibrate, and overall its lab protocol was nonexistent. No scientifically trained technicians were employed etc. Many horsemen were concerned with these false positives. At Saratoga, Percy Davis, an old school horsemen, was called for a positive by the track. That was the final straw.

 

"Our fears were  further confirmed when the track, unaware that the Board had also tested his horse announced him clear. Interestingly, the track had ordered its testing people to avoid such a possible exposure of their flawed operation by directing them to avoid testing any horse that the Board was testing. Knowing this and similar problems existing at Monticello, and Yonkers as well as in Delaware, a provision to advocate the Board's involvement in the testing for TC02 became a matter of concern. Since then the Board did undertake testing and does it under laboratory conditions and protocols using a Beckman Machine. However, even this more sophisticated scientific approach has been tweaked of late as the lab learns more of the problems and tries to adjust its own methodology to improve the detection of this naturally occurring product."

 

He also offered this: "What none of us should want is a test or testing protocol that doesn't work? You tell me who benefits from that? The Drug Testing Consortium has some noble goals and I am supportive of much of their work and I am a member there, however, I also believe as Doctor Maylin says that it is extremely difficult to achieve what we all desire and that is a test for everything and anything that a cheater can use.