Bets, Drugs, and State Control

I’m going to address the recent drug positives (Asmussen and Dutrow) in my next post, with a focus on the rules and regulations of the two states involved, as well as the history of appeals/legal proceedings regarding challenges to state commission rulings in the two states.

But for now, as background, I’m going to post a link to an essay I wrote for the New York Times online Triple Crown blog, The Rail. It explains why the racing industry has no centralized governing body, and why there is no magical solution to creating one. In other words, it lays out the underpinnings of the state-by-state system, leading to the discrepancies in the rules, penalties, appeals, etc. that apply to the two trainers.

Thoroughbreds and the Law