Andretti’s own record.
He was 64 years old, having been born on Staten Island, New York, in the 1950s. He was not named Anthony, as I had assumed, but Antonio after his Italian father, and he was married with three
grown-up sons. He and his wife Harriet now lived in Fairfax, Virginia, a few miles away from his office.
He had joined FACSA as a special agent direct from the NYPD when the agency had been first established. He had worked his way up through section chief to assistant director in charge of
administration, and then finally to Deputy Director three years previously.
He had reached the pinnacle of his career. Simple research on the Internet showed that the Director was a political appointee, determined by the US President and, as with the FBI, the position
was invariably awarded to someone outside the organisation.
Tony would not get to be Director.
I opened the package. It contained details of an operation to raid a trainer’s barn at Churchill Downs to check for the improper use of medications in horses.
Unlike in the United Kingdom, where horses were trained ‘at home’ and then only taken to a racecourse by horsebox on the day of their race, racehorses in the US were trained at the
track, living in barns on what was known as the backside or backstretch. Each individual trainer had a barn and there were accommodation blocks for the grooms.
The main reason for the difference lay in the way races were scheduled and that, in turn, was largely due to the differing surfaces on which the horses competed.
In the UK, the vast majority of races were run on turf rather than on dirt whereas in the States it was the reverse. Dirt tracks could take far more use than turf as they didn’t cut up and
were simply harrowed back into pristine condition after each race.
Consider Santa Anita Park, one of the major tracks in California. During the first six months of each year, there were eight, nine or even ten races a day on four days of every week. That was
nearly nine hundred races in only half a year.
Compare that to Newbury racecourse, one of the busiest tracks in the UK, where twenty-nine days’ racing were spread evenly across all twelve months. With seven races each time, at Newbury
there were far less than a quarter of the races of Santa Anita over twice the time.
But the real difference was that the Santa Anita backside barns were also home to some two thousand racehorses that were also exercised on the dirt track every day. No turf racecourse could
stand up to such punishment.
I read through the paperwork for the proposed raid and the details were surprising to say the least – horrifying might be a better word.
6
I was familiar with the British regulatory structure that had a simple but all-embracing rule in relation to drugs being present in a horse during a race – they
aren’t allowed and, if detected, severe penalties would follow.
In addition, certain substances were not permitted to be introduced into a horse’s system at any time. They included all anabolic steroids, hormones, and any metabolic moderators such as
insulin.
Reading one of the background briefing papers for the Churchill Downs raid, it became very clear to me that the situation in the United States was very different.
Anyone connected with racing worldwide was well aware of the widespread use in America of the drug furosemide, sold under the trade names Lasix or Salix. It is a potent diuretic and is used in
horses to prevent bleeding in the lungs under extreme exertion, a condition known as EIPH, exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage. Whether they actually need it or not, almost every horse that
races in North America has 500mg of the drug injected intravenously four hours before they race.
The diuretic effect is dramatic, with the horse producing ten to fifteen litres of urine in the first hour after administration of the drug. This in itself has a two-fold effect. First, it makes
the horse ten to fifteen
He was 64 years old, having been born on Staten Island, New York, in the 1950s. He was not named Anthony, as I had assumed, but Antonio after his Italian father, and he was married with three
grown-up sons. He and his wife Harriet now lived in Fairfax, Virginia, a few miles away from his office.
He had joined FACSA as a special agent direct from the NYPD when the agency had been first established. He had worked his way up through section chief to assistant director in charge of
administration, and then finally to Deputy Director three years previously.
He had reached the pinnacle of his career. Simple research on the Internet showed that the Director was a political appointee, determined by the US President and, as with the FBI, the position
was invariably awarded to someone outside the organisation.
Tony would not get to be Director.
I opened the package. It contained details of an operation to raid a trainer’s barn at Churchill Downs to check for the improper use of medications in horses.
Unlike in the United Kingdom, where horses were trained ‘at home’ and then only taken to a racecourse by horsebox on the day of their race, racehorses in the US were trained at the
track, living in barns on what was known as the backside or backstretch. Each individual trainer had a barn and there were accommodation blocks for the grooms.
The main reason for the difference lay in the way races were scheduled and that, in turn, was largely due to the differing surfaces on which the horses competed.
In the UK, the vast majority of races were run on turf rather than on dirt whereas in the States it was the reverse. Dirt tracks could take far more use than turf as they didn’t cut up and
were simply harrowed back into pristine condition after each race.
Consider Santa Anita Park, one of the major tracks in California. During the first six months of each year, there were eight, nine or even ten races a day on four days of every week. That was
nearly nine hundred races in only half a year.
Compare that to Newbury racecourse, one of the busiest tracks in the UK, where twenty-nine days’ racing were spread evenly across all twelve months. With seven races each time, at Newbury
there were far less than a quarter of the races of Santa Anita over twice the time.
But the real difference was that the Santa Anita backside barns were also home to some two thousand racehorses that were also exercised on the dirt track every day. No turf racecourse could
stand up to such punishment.
I read through the paperwork for the proposed raid and the details were surprising to say the least – horrifying might be a better word.
6
I was familiar with the British regulatory structure that had a simple but all-embracing rule in relation to drugs being present in a horse during a race – they
aren’t allowed and, if detected, severe penalties would follow.
In addition, certain substances were not permitted to be introduced into a horse’s system at any time. They included all anabolic steroids, hormones, and any metabolic moderators such as
insulin.
Reading one of the background briefing papers for the Churchill Downs raid, it became very clear to me that the situation in the United States was very different.
Anyone connected with racing worldwide was well aware of the widespread use in America of the drug furosemide, sold under the trade names Lasix or Salix. It is a potent diuretic and is used in
horses to prevent bleeding in the lungs under extreme exertion, a condition known as EIPH, exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage. Whether they actually need it or not, almost every horse that
races in North America has 500mg of the drug injected intravenously four hours before they race.
The diuretic effect is dramatic, with the horse producing ten to fifteen litres of urine in the first hour after administration of the drug. This in itself has a two-fold effect. First, it makes
the horse ten to fifteen
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