(As appeared in the Letters to the Editor section of the Bloodhorse July 22, 2006)
Once again the California Horse Racing Board got it wrong and completely missed the point when stewards ruled in favor of Intercontinental by stating that furosemide was “a legal pre-race day medication” and that there was “no evidence that proved that the late administration of the authorized medication provided an edge to Intercontinental”.

Have they completely forgotten what happened on that day? That day a veterinarian lied about the time she administered the shot of Salix and falsified reports that stated the times at which the shot was administered. The connections of Intercontinental knew or should have known at what time the shot was administered and it should have been their obligation to report the situation immediately to the stewards; but they did nothing! Hoping, no doubt, that no one would notice. It was only because security was able to video tape the time of administration that this all came to light.

The rules state that Salix must be administered at least four hours before the time of the race. The penalty for breaching the rule is that a horse must be scratched from the race – a very severe result. This rule was put in place no doubt to protect the integrity of racing, the health of the horses and to assure that no one obtains an unfair advantage. This rule was clearly violated when the Salix shot was administered to Intercontinental 20 minutes too late. The stewards would now have us believe that this rule is immaterial and that no unfair advantage was obtained. Are they really saying that their rules are meaningless? Read the rest of this entry »