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The Internet is buzzing about the latest high-profile scandals to hit U.S. racing just as the Triple Crown season gets under way.  The first black eye came as trainer Jeff Mullins was caught administering an oral paste to a horse in the detention barn before a race in New York, which is illegal under the rules of that state. The paste was contained in a plastic oral syringe – which most people not used to dealing with horses have probably never seen or heard of. So the headlines have been transformed into “Mullins caught with syringe,” which makes it sound like he was injecting some substance. The confusion could draw attention away from the real issue of what should and should not be permitted on race day (the right answer, of course, is that nothing should be permitted).

The second black eye came from Ernie Paragallo, a big owner in New York State who apparently has better things to spend his money on than feeding his sizable bloodstock holdings. Several emaciated mares from his farm ended up at slaughter auctions in New York as Mr. Paragallo enjoyed cocktails at Aqueduct over the weekend.

Both incidents shine yet more light on an industry in trouble, but how much worse does it have to get before any real change happens? U.S. racing is like a substance abuser that has to hit bottom before being hauled off to rehab, but where in the hell is the bottom?

Little Tommy Fella is finally ready for his comeback, which is set to happen Thursday at Longchamp. It’s been a long, patient road, but he seems to think he’s ready, so we’re going to believe him. He hasn’t raced since a tendon problem showed up after his third-place finish at Deauville in October of 2007. Now, after stem-cell therapy and an arthroscopic knee operation, he is back in business. He will run a mile claimer at Lonchamp, in a field that is a bit tough, but this will essentially be a schooling gallop to get a race into his legs and requalify him for the handicaps. His best distance is probably a little longer. Thankfully, it rained last night and more is forecast tomorrow, so the turf should soften up a bit. We just want a safe comeback for him, to see what we should do next.

A hearty congratulations to one of my newest owners, Mark Tronco, who ran the Paris Marathon this morning. I don’t know what his time was (I’m thinking he was somewhere behind the Kenyan who won the thing with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and change) but he ran the whole thing, which is no small feat. And just to show his dedication to the yard, he wore a big logo for my Web site on his back. Thanks, Mark!

On the four-legged front, the three Ts worked this morning – Tyke, Turfani and Tommy. Tommy has an entry at Longchamp on Thursday, which would be his comeback race after more than a year off. It’s a mid-level claimer, and there are some very good horses still standing their ground, so I haven’t decided for sure if we should go ahead. If it doesn’t start raining soon, we won’t run, but if the forecast storms materialize, we might give it a shot just to get a race into him. He will have no chance to win, but he will requalify for the handicaps and we’ll see how his legs hold up. Tyke and Turfani worked well, and Turfani has an entry in Argentan next week.

That was the discussion question of  the day after Tyke popped me off (again!) during a hack canter. In France, the tradition is that whoever falls buys the Champagne for the yard (not that we need an excuse). Falls are part of the job, unfortunately, and they happen to everyone. Theirry was felling pretty defeated a couple of weeks ago after Turfani chucked him off while walking back after her work was finished and then tanking off at a full gallop across the training center. The very next day, I was walking out Skid when a loose horse (not one of mine) came careening around a corner right at us in full gallop. Today, Tyke was surprised by a group of horses on a path normally only used by service trucks. The path intersects that galloping track where he was hacking with Tommy, and I felt him tense up, but then he relaxed again when we had turned the corner and the horses were behind us. But it was a trick – a stride later he pulled his hind quarters under him in a stop worthy of the finest quarter horse and spun around in the direction of the departing horses. I landed on my feet next to him and managed to keep hold of the reins and not let him get away. Tyke has a gift for this kind of move, which is exactly how he’s dropped me twice before. He’s not very brave, but strangely he always decides to pull his stop and spin AFTER he passes whatever scary thing has upset him. It’s like he’s changed his mind about passing it.

In any case, it happens, and as long as no one gets hurt, it’s no big deal. Good old Tyke did manage to pull a ligament in my little finger, which will be very annoying for a while, but nothing major. He stood on my foot the other day, too, so for the moment, all of my bruises have come from him. Meanwhile, the Champagne is chilling…

Alex Waldrop (or more probably his handlers) has been actively struggling to convince people lately that medication has somehow been eliminated from U.S. racing. This started after Joe Drape at the New York Times openly criticized U.S. drug rules in a recent column (although he was forced to choose an unlikely standard-bearer in John Gosden, who does use the drugs when he races in America).  In a posting on the Bloodhorse Web site, Alex actually said this in patting his NTRA organization on the back:

“Race-day medications have been virtually eliminated nationwide.”

This is such fiction that I’m not sure where to start in criticizing it. Does he actually BELIEVE this? Does he think anyone involved in racing does?? I tried to post a comment on the BH site, but it was blocked. Apparently the Bloodhorse does actually believe it. These guys in suits that don’t know which end of a horse eats should be sat down with some before-and-after films of  a lame horse treated with bute, which is allowable on race day in many states. A dose of bute will make a lame horse look sound. Racing on it should be grounds for losing your trainer’s license. If a horse needs pain relief, it needs to be put away to race another day, not drugged and sent out to risk breaking down because it tried to run through the problem. Open your eyes, Alex.

I also thought it was a somewhat desperate measure on Alex’s part to lump those of us who want to eliminate medication in with extreme animal-rights activists who want to end racing altogether. He has already insulted most of the world in the past by calling it “inhumane” NOT to administer lasix. He’s starting to sound increasingly like someone who has been backed into the corner and is looking for any way out he can find.

Kempton was fun, but now it’s time to concentrate on the horses at home. Turfani has an entry Wednesday at Fontainebleau; 24 have start declared and only 18 can run, so I’ll have to wait until final decs on Monday to see if we get in. I’m hoping, because it should be a nice easy comeback race for her, which is what she needs because she seems to be a bit fragile, mentally. Physically, she’s in good form, but she is definitely a little worried about what we might ask her to do. It’s clear she hasn’t enjoyed her racing much in the past, and she seems to be carrying some bad memories. The race Wednesday is 2,000 meters for apprentice jockeys, claiming for either 9,000 or 12,000 euros. They don’t get easier than that in the Paris region. She will run for a tag of 9,000.

Tommy, meanwhile, is still on target for his comeback at Longchamp; again, we’ll see once entries are in what the chances are of getting into the race. His target is also a claimer, but for 17,000 euros. I would prefer to run a handicap with him, but he’s been off the track for so long that he has lost his qualification and needs to run a claimer first. We should be safe – he hasn’t run since the autumn of 2007 so no one should even think about buying him.

The rest of the guys are coming along fine, so now it’s just training ahead patiently until they say they’re ready.

Just got back from a sort of surrealistic night at Kempton racecourse, where Mafaaz won a perfectly scripted inaugural Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes. Plastic American flags were being passed out at the entrances, Woodford Reserve was kind enough to provide free (!) mint juleps, a taped trumpeted call to post was played before every race and a stand usually called Le Creperie was tarted up as The American Diner – although it was still serving crepes.

Most of the people I talked to weren’t all that interested in the Kentucky Derby, but they said they might pay some attention now that John Gosden says he plans to take Mafaaz stateside.  Mafaaz is owned by Sheikh Hamdan, Sheikh Mo’s brother. Interesting to see that the horse gets a guaranteed post position after only the second start of his life, while Sheikh Mo is busy buying top Derby candidates and shipping them all over the world to try to accomplish the same thing. Sort of takes family rivalry to a whole new level.

We’ll see if Mafaaz actually ends up in the Run for the Roses. Gosden said tonight that he plans to ship to the States soon to run the Bluegrass as a prep for the Derby. A suivre…and pass me another free mint julep please…

While horses on the U.S. side of the pond are pounding their way to the Kentucky Derby through a series of tough Group (ah, sorry, that’s Graded for you guys) races, there is a small back door in Europe that seems to be quite a bit easier. The Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes will be run at Kempton Park  near London on Wednesday night, and the winner is assured a spot in the Run for the Roses. Whether the winner will choose to take up the challenge is another matter, but if he does (there are no fillies in on Wednesday), he will surely be the lowest money winner to line up for the Derby. The favorite has bankrolled a grand total of just 5,000 pounds, or $7,000, and the highest earner in the race is sitting at just under 43,000 pounds. Even with the first prize of just under 50,000 pounds on Wednesday, the winner is unlikely to approach the kind of cash his U.S. counterparts have to earn to snag a spot.

To be fair, a three-year-old in Europe has little chance to earn big purses in Group races before the summer. While Group/Graded stakes are available in the United States virtually all year long, the first Group race in Europe was just this past Saturday in France, and it was for four-year-olds and older. The first Group races for three-year-olds won’t happen until late April, way too late for a Derby prep.

It should be an interesting race Wednesday; I’ll be writing about it for the New York Times, and will also contribute to their Rail blog again this year. I’ll be talking to trainers at Kempton about what appeal the Kentucky Derby holds, and whether they would actually ship a horse over to run it.

Turfani and Tommy galloped this morning, and Turfani was much more pleasing this time around. Tommy was his usual lazy self, so we didn’t go all that fast, but it suited Turfani just fine after the tough time she had working with a sprinter last week. She got into her stride pretty well, and most importantly came back pleased instead of panicked. I’m now looking to enter at Fontainebleau for the 25th in a 2,000 meter claimer for apprentices and young  jockeys. The racing won’t get much easier than that, so she’ll just have to get on with it and see what happens. Tommy is going well, and should be ready by early April. Since he is very particular about the ground, the two best tracks for him will probably be Chantilly or Longchamp, and there is a nice race for him at Longchamp on April 9, so that’s our target. It’s still too far off to get excited, and anything could happen, but at least the horses are working well enough to set some concrete goals now.

The planets must be aligned in some way that is drawing humans to horses for better and for worse. On the for better front, I see that my fellow blogger the Wind Gatherer has started taking riding lessons; coincidentally, I started giving riding lessons this week to my newest owner, Mark Tronco. Wind Gatherer is already jumping, so he’s a little ahead of Mark, but I can see progress will come quickly because Mark is a runner and a boxer, and that athleticism really helps in riding.

On the for worse front comes news from Chicago that somebody at Hawthorne Park was stupid enough to allow two overweight (and that’s the best I can say for them from the photo I saw) morning disk jockeys race each other, apparently thinking it was safe enough if they put these  guys on the “pony” horses instead of actual racing stock. (And apparently neither they nor the reporter from the Sun Times knows the difference, but that’s a separate problem.) Neither one of these guys knew anything about riding, so why they thought this would be a fun promotional stunt is beyond me. One of them, unable to stop his horse (surprise!) decided it would be better to jump off. This would be Darwinian except that he managed to survive the fall. He was, however, just smart enough to regret the whole thing and realize how stupid an idea it was.

It’s really amazing what horses will put up with, and what stupid humans will subject them to. Riding around on horses seems to be such a primordal part of human evolution that we forget that it is a privilege, not a right. Horses put up with us because we have developed a somewhat symbiotic relationship, with the horse usually getting the short end of the stick. Those two yobs in Chicago had no right to climb up on those animals.

Mark and the Wind Gatherer are doing it the right way: Find a kind schoolmaster, take some lessons and earn the privilege of working with the most noble of animals.