by John Berry

Journalism can be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

If someone without a medical background was given an assignment of picking on the dangers of, say, a hospital’s operating room, it could begin with the description of the doctor using a butcher knife in slicing some person’s belly open, witnessing blood squirting all over the place before stitching the person up, and on to the next case.

That someone could then explain that thousands of patients die either on the operating table or in the hospital while trying to recover.

Yes, the butcher knife is, actually, a scalpel used for an incision to perform a lifesaving procedure before using sutures to close the incision… with the incidents of death just a minute percentage of the number of procedures done.

A study done involving 40,000 patients 45 years of age and up, as some headers read, undergoing non-cardiac surgery showed that only five passed away on the operating table.

Every industry has bad apples, from the medical professional to politics to sports and beyond and, when somebody is caught red-handed, it stains the entire profession.

When it lands in print, punishments from disbarment to license revocation to a lifetime suspension are imposed.

From our sport to baseball, football, boxing, hockey, soccer, cycling, weightlifting and more, illegal medications have taken a toll — some short term and some longer term — on the entire phenomena known as the sports world.

As long as the $2 bill is involved, some gambler will complain about disqualifications, doctored photo finishes, refs making bad calls, players shaving points, umps making bad calls, and a thousand more, when it comes to a $2 bill.

There is a difference, though…

More about that a bit later.

A few Mane Attractions ago, right here in HRU, the importance of headlines was stressed and the fact that we get so few of them outside of our own little bubble in the journalistic world.

And, when an uninformed writer with ties outside our bubble gets involved, the outcome can result in dark clouds hanging over our sport and industry.

Such was the case just days ago when the iconic New York Times published an article about our industry “Dead Athletes, Empty Stands…” complete with horses trotting up the ramp pulling their “chariots” with their “garish green and bright pink silks” (garish meaning crudely or tastelessly colorful) with just a few dozen spectators hanging around “slumped in faded orange seats.”

Not a pretty picture.

The story goes on, “The result is a bizarre inverted pyramid of vice. The State is using one particularly corrosive form of gambling to keep another marginalized form alive.”

The article stretches to include Maryland to prop up its racing industry, and Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

Yes, other sports teams get tax breaks, as well, but, as the article says, “those other sports don’t routinely kill their athletes.”

The article also states that 11,000 horses have been “put to death” on American racetracks in the past 10 years.

It’s no secret that our industry needs to police the medication issue in all aspects.

Now, here’s the difference.

Other sports face the illegal medication issue head on with a commissioner; an official chosen by an athletic association to exercise broad administrative or judicial authority.

When articles like the one in the New York Times appear, it brings to light a problem that we cannot police ourselves, and it is a major cause as to the decline in the entire pari-mutuel industry.

We have yet to answer the Times article outside of our bubble, because we cannot.

We have no commissioner to defend us — either in words or deeds — again, outside of our own little bubble.

Yes, it goes up on our industry sites, but, then, we’re preaching to the choir.

We complain about it, but we’re helpless in doing something about it.

Policing the medication problem costs big money.

Our sport needs a commissioner that has the intestinal fortitude to tackle the problem head on, no matter the circumstances.

We need a no-nonsense commissioner that has contacts like an octopus has arms, reaching every aspect that we need to succeed, with a law background to media contacts, who can employ transparency without any favoritism to any side.

Every successful major sport has a commissioner, the NBA has Adam Silver, MLS has Dan Garber, WNBA has Cathy Engelbert, NFL has Roger Goodell, NHL has Gary Bettman, and MLB has Rob Manfred.

We have…

MAY THE HORSE BE WITH YOU