What Lundy did to Calumet isn't even close to the national disaster the greedy hands of the horse racing industry have created for themselves. I would never wish the federal government's oversight in any industry seeking to be more profitable or economically efficient. But the horse racing industry is so FUBAR-ed, I'll take Uncle Sam's oversight over this garbage. SA and GG will phase out Lasix but no change at GP and Laurel?? Every state has its own testing, med rules, labs via contract, and tracks have house rules??
I have heard and read several solid debates by people on all sides of these issues. People I respect on both sides of the Lasix issue. The real issue is the greed of each and every hand is what led to this. The most short sighted industry I've ever seen.
How this industry could screw this all up while the boring regular season sports like baseball, NFL, and NBA have thrived is beyond my understanding. It is not b/c of sports gambling only. Certainly competition has contributed but racing short sightedness got them here. The others named all embraced television before racing, they all created a single governing body for one single league of the very best teams. Racing not capable. No one and I mean literally no one agrees or is on the same page whatsoever in racing.
The NCAA is probably the most maligned and disliked sports organization in America. You could argue a complete farce and hypocrisy. But even they have a better model than horse racing. The number of people I have met and read have reduced their handle by leaps and bounds from 7 figures to mere %'s of that continues to grow.
It is b/c horse racing is an unorganized, untrustworthy, decaying product that is now under attack from mainstream media and as moosepalm suggests from themselves. Funny though, racing can't even look in the mirror to notice.
Major, major UNIFORM change better occur FAST. Uniform STRICT med rules/testing with or without Lasix and one governing body similar to MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, etc would be my vote for the Major League tracks that would join and work together at the top of the game (Think 1 track from NYRA, Cali, Ky, and Fla from Feb through BC working together towards Derby and BC with premium ontrack product).
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March Madness starting this week. 8.5 billion expected to be bet with 1 in 5 people placing money of some sort on the event.
Super Bowl handled an estimated 6 billion this year (95% est to be illegal).
Racing handled 11 billion in all of 2018.
If you can't see where racing is headed, you, like the greedy hands cashing in now instead of looking long term, are Blind.
Last, anyone that has met me knows I love the game as much as anyone so I want it to thrive but it simply will not as currently designed in America. And there are no signs of long term national prosperity or change in the game that I can see to change the continued downward spiral.
