Standing to be counted is aided by a backbone

I have criticized New York Times reporter Joe Drape on more than one occasion for writing that "many veterinarians" agree with his stories' claims that "lax oversight" of medication rules and an overuse of even legal medications are significant factors in the mortality rate of racehorses in the United States.

I am troubled that Drape -- in my reading -- has neither quantified nor identified those "many veterinarians."

And I'm not backing down from that criticism. Names attached to claims always add weight to the opinions offered.

But this denunciation of my position, left beneath Friday's blog post about another story of Drape's, merits deeper inspection. Because while it is intended as a defense of Drape, a criticism of me, and a suggestion that Drape's reporting is accurate -- and it serves as all of those things -- the fact that it was left anonymously tells us even more:

I am one of Joe Drape's anonymous sources, a practicing racetrack veterinarian, who has spent probably 5 hours conversing with Mr. Drape about racing medication issues.
I can assure you that I will continue to insist on anonymity until this subject becomes a less combustible issue, as your unwarranted attacks on Mr. Drape's journalism prove.

That might be one to make me chuckle if the person wasn't serious. Namely the suggestion that my calls for higher journalistic standards and transparency on the subject matter are an "unwarranted" criticism, perhaps even a threat to people of good conscience.

I give remarkably little weight to anonymous critics. I'm very certain that sentiment isn't one held by me alone. The powers that be in any endeavor -- certainly in an industry like horse racing, with deep traditions and a rigid underlying culture, aspects of which do need changing -- are far less likely to be swayed by muffled voices emanating from the darkest corner of the room.

It isn't that anonymous sources or whistle-blowers have never provided necessary information that exposed serious issues and initiated change. They have and they will continue to do so. Anonymity is particularly worth seeking -- and, as a journalist, protecting -- if the source's life is on the line. Like a mob informant.

But I assure you, if you really want to make a difference -- particularly on issues of life and death for others who have no power to speak for themselves and in a field in which you claim documented education and expertise -- the fastest way to start is by growing a spine.

The New York Times' allegedly increasing list of "many veterinarians," few or none of whom I guess will go on-record with their names, does not amount to list of "many veterinarians" in any way. They all might as well be figments of our collective imagination.

In fact, I would respect Drape's reporting on this issue more if he actually phrased his claim as such: "Veterinarians who have voiced their concerns to the Times anonymously due to the volatility of this issue believe ... ."

But that never seems to be what he writes. His language suggests that there's some obvious or documented groundswell of sentiment among the veterinary community; a groundswell that is never really pinpointed. A movement that perhaps can't be quantified because its participants won't stand to be counted.

Certainly the issue of drugs -- legal and illegal -- at America's racetracks, is inflammatory. But is an aggrieved veterinarian's need to protect his career somehow more crucial than, say, mine?

I'm fooling with my reputation in two fields with this blog. I am a professional journalist with 20 years in the business -- fully qualified and experienced to criticize Joe Drape -- and I am also an entry-level breeder of thoroughbred racehorses.

Am I making nothing but friends with my comments here, on this and other issues?

Hardly.

Could my opinions, and the frankness with which they're delivered, potentially cost me opportunities in the fields of both journalism and horse racing?

Certainly.

But I was brought up to believe that if I stood for something, I shouldn't -- nay, couldn't -- be afraid to say it. Even if it made enemies. Even if it came at the price of money or so-called friends or a job.

If standing for what you believe in costs you allies and allows those in the wrong to still prevail, as a small-town police chief once told me, "then this is a job I don't want anyway."

How strongly held are your convictions about preserving the health of these animals if it is more important to protect your business or connections or reputation among powerful people than it is to publicly stand up and safeguard your patients and their equine peers?

It starts with a simple statement. Print this off and have your fellow veterinarians who agree sign on, too.

"I am Dr. ________. I have been a licensed veterinarian in the horse racing industry for ____ years. And I'm sick and tired of what some of my colleagues and their clients are doing to these animals in the name of competition and profit. There is a better way."

Certainly your opposition will be determined and well-financed. They will collude against you. That might indeed cost you some income; perhaps your whole practice if it largely involves racehorses. But do you want to stay in the business if it's that filthy?

Besides, changing the world isn't for the meek.

The most notable hero from the Tiananmen Square demonstrations remains anonymous, other than the moniker "Tank Man." But this "unknown rebel" did not seek anonymity. Far from it. He walked into a public square where one day prior -- by some witness accounts -- armored vehicles of the People's Liberation Army had crushed cars and civilians beneath their treads.

And he stood his ground in front of a column of Type 59 tanks.

To this day we are not certain of Tank Man's identity, not because he sought anonymity, but in fact because he did not shy away from his moment in history. And for that courage, he was dragged away by unknown people, to face an unknown fate.

In Beijing on June 5, 1989, one man, refusing to cower from the adversary, stood down a column of tanks in hopes of changing his nation and the world.

In 2009 America, highly trained and licensed professionals with meaningful experience demand anonymity before giving their professional opinions to a newspaper reporter because the issues are too "combustible" ... in trying to change a sports business.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers."

And we've all heard that there's strength in numbers.

But how can the movement to "clean up" horse racing quantify its strength, how will it ever know when it finally outnumbers the opposition, if even the movement's truest believers fear shouting out their names at roll call?

There goes Joe Drape again

In today's New York Times story about NYRA's ban of trainer Jeff Mullins, reporter Joe Drape -- whom I took to task recently for his shoddy piece on I Want Revenge and the drug culture in racing -- has gone back to the well with his unattributed claims.

Drape today writes: "The aggressive punishment of Mullins in New York comes at a time when horse racing is under intense scrutiny for its use of illegal drugs, overuse of legal medications and lax oversight, all of which many veterinarians believe are part of the reason the United States has the world's worst mortality rate for Thoroughbreds."

All emphasis, of course, mine.

Attribution, apparently as is frequent for Mr. Drape, entirely absent.

One of the first lessons I was taught as a reporter was to avoid making statements such as the above by Mr. Drape -- i.e., "many veterinarians believe" -- without telling readers who those veterinarians happen to be.

Even when Drape wrote an entire piece on how I Want Revenge supposedly illustrates the claims made above, his attempts at attribution were feeble and insubstantial.

I'm not saying there aren't sources to cite that would back up Drape's claims about drugs in racing. I'm saying that Joe Drape apparently believes he doesn't even need to bother providing such citations; that simply repeating the allegations in the New York Times ad infinitum shall be proof enough that the claims are true.

I'm all for aggressively pursuing and sternly punishing drug-violators on the back side of America's racetracks. I'm 100 percent in favor of reducing American racing's apparent reliance on medications. I would love to see and be a part of a "cleaner," less-pharmaceutical sport.

I would also like to see those who report on that sport at the highest levels follow some basic rules of reporting and attribute their statements rather than repeatedly stating as fact claims for which they rarely if ever provide supporting evidence.

Day upon day of 'Revenge'

To start off a Friday, just a short note to thank Steve Byk for the invitation to take part yesterday in his "At the Races" talk show on SiriusXM radio. He was a good and gracious host, and I don't just say that because he apparently agrees with me on Joe Drape's story about I Want Revenge.

Thanks also to Steve for not only mentioning this blog, but for spelling out the URL as a big helper to those who have no clue what its name references.

I'm not completely confident I got across the entirety of my thoughts (and that I didn't occasionally sound like a moron) during the 20 minutes or so that we were on the air, but if I failed in any way, it wouldn't be Steve's fault. I do think I was pretty clear with those thoughts in my critique of Drape's story and in the evolving comments thread taking place thereafter.

It's a bit staggering that my opinion on something an Eclipse-honored New York Times reporter wrote has taken on such a life of its own, with hundreds of hits coming into this little corner of the blogosphere the past few days. Those visitors are largely due to referrals from Equidaily.com, Raceday360.com and Paulickreport.com. But as my Sitemeter counter allows me to track, a good number of visits also are the result of individual readers believing that my post was worth reading such that they've introduced others to this blog through links in message board and discussion group chats at sites like Thoroughbredchampions.com and Byk-founded Derbytrail.com.

To those readers, I also offer my thanks. While the bustle and the furor of the past few days will likely settle down, some of you will probably continue to visit and read in the future, and I appreciate your readership.

Someone even said they were a "big fan" of mine, which makes them a member of a very exclusive -- that is to say, quite small -- club.

Of course, the next person along in that discussion group questioned my motives for rebutting Drape, calling my critique "way out of whack" and suggesting that "something else is at play." Perhaps, the writer suggests, I'm involved in a "disagreement over drugs or making vet records public."

Is the writer suggesting I'm a surrogate for big pharma? Or just vets and trainers who practice "win-by-needle?" ... Your guess is as good as mine.

But there's nothing like a good conspiracy theory to try and take down an argument that you might find difficult to dismantle on its merits.

Postscript: It merits mentioning that, a few days after this post, the person who wrote the message board post referenced above -- about an argument being "way out of whack," etc. -- has contacted me privately, with her full name (which many Internet-frequenters won't do), and noted that her comments were directed to someone else on the message board and not toward my blog on the subject. I had not read her comments that way (nor had someone else on the board who responded), but it is appropriate at this juncture to add that tidbit of information, although I will not rewrite the original in order to maintain the blog's historical integrity. (In other words, so you won't come back and wonder where the original ending went.)

I Want Revenge: Not the story the Times thinks he is

It's undeniable that one of horse racing's most persistent troubles is perception; the belief among many of those in the public who don't like or watch racing (and some who do) that American owners and trainers are drugging, beating and abusing these animals for fun and profit.

It doesn't help when the people who are covering the sport can't get the story straight.

In the Oct. 6 New York Times, writer Joe Drape (a Media Eclipse Award winner) recounts the story of I Want Revenge, the 2009 Kentucky Derby favorite who was scratched on race day. The injury that prompted the scratch has since spurred a lawsuit. IEAH Stables -- which bought a half-interest in the Stephen Got Even colt in a blockbuster deal ($1.75 million plus a 25 percent share in IEAH's 2-year-old champion filly Stardom Bound) from owner David Lanzman only days before I Want Revenge's huge performance in winning the Wood Memorial -- claims the horse's injuries were not disclosed to IEAH leading up to the Derby scratch.

Drape's story is headlined -- and claims to illustrate -- that the "Lawsuit Sheds Light on Use of Legal Medications in Horses."

But after reading it, and some supposedly supporting evidence, I feel like Drape and the Times actually left people in the dark.

Drape's lead paragraph claims that the court case exposes "the fault lines of administering legal drugs to America's thoroughbreds." But from what I can tell -- and certainly from most of what Drape has written -- the lawsuit is much more about honesty and full disclosure in business dealings than the doping of this or any horse. The legal medications administered to I Want Revenge are but bit players in this story.

Drape writes that IEAH alleges that I Want Revenge was "ailing as early as April 7" and that Lanzman failed to disclose the injuries to his co-owners. Lanzman denies the charge. Veterinarians have testified that the colt was treated with substances including hyaluronic acid (a joint treatment) and corticosteroids (anti-inflammatory meds) between the Wood and his Derby scratch. And apparently, IEAH wasn't aware of his medical needs.

Drape's first cringeworthy moment in the story comes early, when he writes that I Want Revenge's ankle "was injected with what amounted to new transmission fluid."

Now, I know the horse was not injected with transmission fluid. Heaven help me, I hope you know the horse wasn't really injected with transmission fluid. But if there's anything an award-winning New York Times reporter should have learned by now, it's that a certain number of his audience are, in short, idiots. I suspect that somebody, somewhere has forwarded this story to animal rights advocates worldwide with a subject header akin to "Horse shot up with transmission fluid to keep him racing!!!!!!"

It's a horrible analogy, not particularly apropos, and needlessly inflammatory. And that's actually what prompted me to dig deeper into Drape's reporting.

What I found is that his story gets worse. That's because Drape claims the lawsuit is evidence of everything except what it really is -- a case of partners allegedly not communicating.

Writes Drape: "Regardless of the outcome of the dispute, the treatments are a striking example of how the use, and overuse, of legal medications have placed America's thoroughbred population at ever greater risk of injury and, in some cases, catastrophic breakdown."

A scathing accusation. So how about some evidence? Drape doesn't really provide it, namely because the sources he cites -- and to which the Times' Web site links directly -- don't particularly say what Drape claims that they do.

Drape writes: "There is a growing concern within the veterinary community that overmedication -- with drugs like corticosteroids, anti-inflammatories that can have dangerous consequences -- and lax oversight are part of the reason the United States has the world's worst mortality rate for thoroughbreds." His cited evidence, a link to this report, called "Putting the Horse First: Veterinary Recommendations for the Safety and Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse."

That report indeed addresses medications and veterinary care, namely the need for consistent standards across jurisdictions and a more thorough and accurate means of monitoring those standards. It also addresses the public's perception of racing and the need for the industry to put horse welfare first in order to maintain a positive image.

But it's a nine-page paper, including three that serve as a cover sheet, a history and mission statement of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (which wrote the report) and a partial page including some of the veterinarians' names associated with the work. And in the roughly five and a half pages of content, the paper also addresses: 2-year-old racing; claiming races; the need for the industry to provide for retired horses; mandated rest periods of at least 10 days for all horses between races; the growing influence of "racinos" that are managed by people who don't understand horses and their needs; the need for continuing education for everyone from jockeys, trainers and stewards to track security officers. ... In other words, it's a catch-all paper that is not primarily nor even largely related to supplying the evidence Drape claims it provides.

In fact, not once in nine pages does that paper mention the mortality rate of U.S. thoroughbreds involved in racing, let alone as compared to other nations, though Drape cites it as supporting documentation for his making that comparison. And not once in the two pages that paper allots to the "veterinarian-owner-trainer relationship" and the subject of medications, including race-day meds, does the document even reference, let alone specifically make the claim, that "overmedication" or "lax oversight" of medication rules "are part of the reason the United States has the world's worst mortality rate for thoroughbreds."

The paper provides virtually no evidence for Drape's statements. And I can't figure out why he would believe or claim that it does.

Yet this is a mistake that Drape makes twice.

Later in the story, Drape writes: "There is a consensus among equine researchers and surgeons that legal medications and cortisone shots, over time, leave a horse vulnerable to a catastrophic breakdown."

He then throws gas on that lighted matchstick by citing the U.S. breakdown rate -- 1.47 per 1,000 starts for synthetic tracks and 2.03 per 1,000 starts on dirt, according to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission -- which indeed are higher numbers than he cites for England (0.8 to 0.9 per 1,000 starts) and Australia (0.44 per 1,000 starts).

But again, a paper Drape cites doesn't measure up to his claims.

In this case, Drape links to a report submitted to the Subcomittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, part of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives. That report is the testimony of Susan M. Stover, DVM, Ph.D., and professor at the J.D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedic Research Laboratory at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

The report is attributed only to Stover. In it, she refers to herself in the first person, singular, when offering her insights.

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a one-person "consensus." Or perhaps the "consensus" Drape claims is composed only of himself and Susan Stover -- whom he did not apparently contact nor directly quote for his story, only linking to her testimony.

I'm not suggesting Dr. Stover isn't an expert on this issue; undeniably, she is. I'm suggesting that Drape is unduly and improperly using her report as evidence that her thoughts speak for the bulk of equine veterinary practitioners.

Worse, Drape links to Stover's testimony specifically to support his story's claim that "legal medications and cortisone shots, over time, leave a horse vulnerable to a catastrophic breakdown." But while Stover does note that most catastrophic breakdowns are due to musculoskeletal injuries that often worsen over time and with repetition, she barely touches on the possibility that legal medications are intentionally or inadvertently masking injuries that should keep a horse from racing. In 10 pages, Stover writes one, inconclusive sentence on the subject:

"However, the potential for permitted medications to mask mild injury and to contribute to injury development needs to be assessed." (Emphasis mine.)

Stover later -- as part of an eight-point sentence on improving horse welfare that ranges from racing surfaces and workout patterns to hoof angles and toe grabs -- tosses in just five more words about legal medications, advocating for the "reconsideration" of some race-day medications, none of which she lists by name. In fact, the word "cortisone," nor any part thereof, never appears anywhere in Stover's testimony, though Drape cites Stover's testimony as support for his claim that "cortisone shots ... leave a horse vulnerable to a catastrophic breakdown."

These two attempts by Drape to bolster his story with outside sources that don't or that just barely, with a measure of imagination, provide the evidence he claims are, at the very kindest, shabby reporting.

But Drape's effort to tie I Want Revenge to claims that the drug culture of the racetrack is killing horses would fall apart even without these weak links. That's because the story of I Want Revenge is actually the opposite of what Drape claims it to be -- a case that supposedly shows how horses are doped to keep them racing.

Why? ... Because I Want Revenge didn't race.

As noted prior, Drape's story says that IEAH claims I Want Revenge "was ailing as early as April 7." That date is not only after the date that IEAH bought its 50 percent interest in the horse, which was reported on March 30. It was three days after he won the Wood Memorial. So Drape provides no evidence at all that I Want Revenge was kept performing (let alone at so high a level) by using legal medications that permitted him to race right through an injury. Nor does it appear that IEAH is making such a claim.

The story here is that I Want Revenge didn't race when he was hurt. He wasn't fit to go, veterinarians made that determination, and his trainer, Jeff Mullins, scratched the horse from the biggest race in America, the Kentucky Derby, in which I Want Revenge was favored.

Of course, there's no scathing story in "Vet and Trainer Make Right Choice for Horse."

It might be argued that the connections and their vets should've figured out what was wrong with I Want Revenge sometime during the month leading up to his race-morning scratch, but that isn't the case IEAH appears to be making in court. Nor does it seem that IEAH is claiming that the treatments of the horse were improper, detrimental to the horse, or undertaken to keep them from realizing that the horse was hurt. IEAH is simply saying that it bought into a horse -- for a princely sum -- and was not kept informed of the condition and welfare of their living, breathing investment until such point that he was scratched from the Derby and the colt's unsoundness was undeniable. In fact, IEAH claims it asked Lanzman directly about a Derby Eve rumor that the colt would be scratched and that Lanzman was dishonest by denying the rumor, a claim Lanzman denies.

That makes for a good story. Such claims lead one to question the honesty and transparency of the back side at America's racetracks, and whether even the richest owners who have millions invested are really kept up to speed with what's going on with their horses. And actually, the writer does a very good job of detailing the facts and claims that IEAH has presented regarding that aspect of the case.

It just isn't the story Joe Drape told you he was telling.