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Who Should Be in the Hall of Fame?

July 1st 2008

 4 comments

Fourth of July week brings us apple pie and traffic jams and the year's Hall of Fame nominees courtesy of the United States Harness Writers Association. There has been a bit of debate here about whether certain owners, trainers or horses should make the cut when they've had "integrity" problems so let's just flat out talk about it this week while the neighbors get ready to shoot fireworks at one another.
 
Should a trainer be banned from consideration for certain drug positives no matter how illustrious is the rest of his or her career? Do catch-drivers have a huge (read: unfair) edge over trainers, perception wise, because the former have so many opportunities to win big stakes races? Should the USHWA-- can the USHA-- use the Hall of Fame process to send important messages about racing integrity to the industry's most prominent members? That message would be: don't cheat-- because if you do you aren't going to the Hall of Fame. Seems to me fair questions to ask in advance of Sunday's screening process up in Goshen.

Comments

doug gillies said...

I don't think that the "integrity" trainers we have today really care about the Hall of Fame. I really have to think on it to come up with someone I think deserves it.

posted at 9:47 PM on Jul 2nd 2008

Paul Siegel said...

Andrew, you must have missed my equivalent of William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech at the USWHA annual meeting in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. :-)

Our annual Dan Patch Awards banquet had been held the night before, in conjunction with the HTA banquet. We gave numerous aawrds to horses trained by someone who had a history of multiple "black box" and other violations in NJ. At our meeting, I held up a copy of our banquet's journal, which was dedicated to the late Stanley Dancer, and featured his picture on the cover, and told our esteemed members that they should be ashamed about the awards they had conferred upon this habitual rules violator (who was not at the awrds dinner). I said that Stanley probably rolled over in his grave every time the horses' owner took the microphone and thanked his trainer for the great job he had done.

So, you can probably guess where I stand on the issue of not electing cheats to the Hall of Fame.

posted at 9:05 AM on Jul 2nd 2008

Allan said...

A trainer with more than one positives for non-permitted drugs in their career and/or more than a certain number of threhsold violations should be banned from the Hall of Fame.

posted at 8:01 AM on Jul 2nd 2008

Tim Konkle said...

We have a corner for the writers in the hall of fame and one for the horses and one for the trainers.Why not one for the chemists? Everyone knows who they are. I'd love to hear their acceptance speeches! You're opening a big can of worms with this one Andrew. Have a great 4th.You can catch a pretty good card at Hoosier Park with an afternoon post.

posted at 9:15 PM on Jul 1st 2008

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