Can you imagine the likes of Fahey, Varian, Morrison, Simcock having the top breeding lines coming through their yards? It would be fantastic for racing. Would love to see Hannon train more middle distance bred ones too.
Are we all assuming that Al Zarooni is the one to blame? I know he's taking the flak but he's just a small cog in the Goldolphin operation. His training time is up. If he's solely to blame he will be thrown to the wolves, but i suspect he will serve his time, be moved to somewhere out of the light.
Logic tells me that Sheikh Mo will import another trainer to take the reins. Save any upheaval of horses and staff.
Agreed Top Class, there is to much of a monopoly with the more established trainers, and it's very difficult to break into that group. Hughie Morrison is for me the best pound for pound trainer around, the success he has with the ammunition he has is very impressive. If Sheik Mo or any other top breeder was to give him a chance with a few well bred 2yos he'd do a fantastic job with them. Better than alot of the more established names
4o what will happen to the likes of certify etc.. Obviosuly short term they wont race but will they be back next season etc..
This reminds me of the old story.... The Duke of Norfolk was walking round the paddock at Royal Ascot when he saw a trainer slipping something into a horse's mouth. " What's that you're giving the horse?" asked the Duke. " Just a lump of sugar," said the trainer as he put a lump in his mouth -and prompted the Duke to do the same. The Duke wandered off, and the trainer turned to his jockey who said..." Are we going to win today, guvnor?" " No problem, said the trainer. Take it up at the furlong pole and, if anything passes you, it'll be me and the Duke of Norfolk!"
The BHA haven't decided how long the horses will be banned for. Presumably the main purpose is to make sure the steroids are out of their system before they race again, so that there is no chance of performance enhancement. I'm not sure how long that will take, but at a guess I'd say at least a month for the effects to wear off.
She's in training for the women's 1500 metres in Rio in 2014 Oh, and GGW, it's all about opinions of course and mine is that Crissford is an oily, obsequeous, smarmy little toad. i have to turn the telly off when he comes on the screen
This sounds the most reasonable answer to this mess, though as is posted later, they wont be running anything for a while now. Dont know how long the drugs would stay in the system but you would think it would be over a month or so...
From what I am hearing the 11 horses with positive results are looking at a ban of about 4 months each. The drugs themselves will be out of the horse's system in less than 2 weeks, but the muscle building effects will last much longer.
Haha very good Tam, those sugar cubes sure do enhance a performance! Rumour has it Al Zarooni was often seen keeping pace with his horses on the gallops, only on a going day mind!!
King Shergar.....does the fact that you put a grinning smilie after every post mean that you are joking or is it just a habit? The reason I ask is that I assume you are joking when you say doping the horses with steroids was probably a genuine mistake. He supposedly works for a world class operation. He knows the rules. And I doubt he's the only one at the top level who knew what he was doing! I hope he's banned for life. I think you mentioned that there is a lot of testing of horses now. Is that true or was that a tongue in cheek statement?
I think the most disturbing aspect of this debacle is the fact that this guy has more than likely been doing this for three years on goodness knows how many horses when they have no immediate engagement. Some sceptics may say it's no surprise when the Sheikh himself,and the eldest of his massive litter,have served bans for administering anabolic steroids to their endurance horse when they were caught cheating. Others may indeed point to the hypocrisy of the dictator's indignation in this instance given the fact he was found guilty of exactly the same thing. Dan I agree with you about the "racing manager". I wonder how many knew this was going on...was MAZ tip-toeing through the yard alone after dark with a syringe full of steriods? Black day for the sport.
Al Zarooni has made the following statement on the Godolphin website - "I deeply regret what has happened. I have made a catastrophic error. Because the horses involved were not racing at the time, I did not realise that what I was doing was in breach of the rules of racing. I can only apologise for the damage this will cause to Godolphin and to racing generally." I’m sure these aren’t actually his words but what he’s been fed by some PR/media communications bod. The fact that the word ‘I’ is stated 5 times in so short a message is eyecatching to this correspondent. It screams of them saying it’s all HIS fault and nothing to do with the rest of the Godolphin operation. DO YOU HEAR NOTHING!
Agree Toppy but this isn't going to happen. It would mean SM admitting his brain child,already in another incarnation,was a failure. Doesn't strike me as a man who likes to admit he is/was wrong...not in a dictators nature!!
This article in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald makes very interesting reading and I suspect will surprise a few (it did me!) http://www.smh.com.au/sport/horseracing/godolphin-scandal-couldnt-hit-home-20130423-2icwe.html
