Jeff Gural on Vernon-Tioga TestingMay 16th 2008 |
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Good Friday morning to y'all. Here is the text of an email I received yesterday from Jeff Gural, who owns and operates the tracks at Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs. For the sake of space I am not going to post the attachment Jeff mentions but I think his points are clear enough. Please let me know what you think:
Here are Jeff's words: "I just wanted to comment on your recent blog about your discussion with Joe Faraldo regarding his refusal to allow us to use a black box testing at Vernon Downs. In a large measure Joe and I do agree that it is important to insure that any black box machine is providing accurate information before accusing anyone of milk-shaking a horse.
"I am attaching a memo from Art Gray, who is my own personal security expert detailing the pain we went through to make sure that when we instituted black box testing at Tioga the machine was providing accurate readings. As Art points out, before we began enforcing our rules regarding black box testing we spent five weeks of preliminary testing in order to insure that the machine was working accurately. I had them test my own horses since I knew that they were not milk-shaked and in fact on one occasion one came up with a high reading. Only when we were absolutely certain that our testing procedures were accurate did we begin to enforce the rules relating to this testing. In addition, this year when we started back up again we had the company send us their top technician to calibrate the machine to make sure it was giving us accurate readings.
"I am quite certain that the testing procedures being used at Tioga are accurate and I am pleased to say that we have not had any positive readings after the trial period last year. Interestingly enough, in my negotiations with Mr. Faraldo he never asked us what equipment we planned to use and what procedures we planned to put in place but simply advised us that it was totally unacceptable to allow a black box to be used at Vernon Downs. Inasmuch as our contract is up this year we certainly would welcome a representative of the Vernon's Horsemen's Association to visit Tioga and satisfy themselves that our procedures are in fact being done properly so that we can implement a black box when we have a new contract."
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