Falcon Points
Justify's failed drug test casts light on a bigger problem in gambling
Sep 12, 2019, 2:49 pm
Santaanita.com
In 2018, Justify won horse racing's Triple Crown, sweeping the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. It was the second time a horse had accomplished the feat since 2015. Before that, the last winner was in 1978. It is one of the most difficult accomplishments in sports.
The horses that have won it are instantly enshrined in history and compared to the all-time greats, like Secretariat and Seattle Slew. When American Pharoah won in 2015, that was indeed the case. He would go on to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, becoming the first horse to win the Triple Crown and the Classic. It was an amazing year, and he was truly a brilliant race horse who captivated fans around the country.
When Justify won just three years later, it did not feel the same. He beat a very suspect group of three year olds, and was not impressive doing it. And then he retired as if his connections were afraid to see him lose against older horses and taint his legacy. No one compared him to any of the all time greats. It simply felt weird.
Now it makes sense
As the memory of Justify was slipping into history, a bombshell broke on Wednesday. Joe Drape of the New York Times dropped an in depth piece on the horse. Justify failed a drug test after the Santa Anita Derby. He should have been disqualified from his win in the race, and would not have even been in the Triple Crown. But the ruling was put off, kept under wraps, and the horse was allowed to race. After he won the Triple Crown, the board lessened the penalty for use of the particular drug he was caught with, effectively changing the rules to avoid a bad look.
Then it was somehow kept under wraps for two years.
Bad looks all around
As a longtime fan and supporter of the sport, stories like this are beyond frustrating, and goes to a deeper problem: Inconsistent rules. Each state has its own set of rules, and they are not all enforced consistently. When Maximum Security was disqualified from the Kentucky Derby, it was a controversy of the first order. Whether or not it was the right call varies from state to state, and even track to track. Stewards make those calls, and they are subjective. What is enforced in one place is not in another. Not everyone plays by the same standards.
Why Justify?
There is no reason to doubt Drape's reporting. He is one of the best in the business, especially when it comes to the news of the sport, and his story is well worth your time. So the real question is why?
The California Horse Racing Board took almost a month to confirm the results, ostensibly because they wanted to be sure. But that put them up against the Derby, and a DQ at that point would have been problematic. There is nothing wrong in being sure and getting the ruling right. But then once the horse wins the Triple Crown, imagine the outrage had it gone public.
There were three real problems; the lack of transparency, changing the rules and potential conflict of interest. Some of the board members are horse owners; the chairman owns horses raced by Justify's high profile trainer, Bob Baffert.
The board may have very well been, er, justified in all of its moves. But these three issues make it a very bad look.
The ruling that it was accidental, then, is easy to question. Baffert has had a ton of success and does not need to cheat, but he is not the only one in the barn or with contact to the horses. So it is possible the ruling was the right thing, but the way it happened is simply unacceptable. That the rules were changed after the Triple Crown makes it look even worse.
Black eyes?
Those calling it yet another black eye on a sport that has had its share this year - the deaths at Santa Anita and the Derby itself - are merely scratching the surface. The sport has no eyes left. They have been beaten so hard it doesn't begin to tell the story. I have seen it all over the years; fixed races, horses being held back, inconsistent rulings, high profile cheating trainers. There are more good people than bad in racing, as there is in all of life. But it's always the bad that get the attention and ruin it for everyone else. Were these bad people? No. But when you try to hide something like this, there is no way to spin it into a positive.
The biggest issue - players have no rights
Lost in all this is the person who bets. Those of us who bet against Justify have no recourse. As sports betting becomes legal everywhere, these are issues that will impact more than horse racing. We already see it in boxing and MMA; you bet on a fight, lose and then a few days later whoever won failed a drug test and is disqualified. What if you bet on the Saints to cover Monday night, and two days after Deshaun Watson is suspended for PEDs and should have never played? While that is extreme - you made your decision based on the fact that he was playing - the player has no voice.
Horse racing should be more cognizant of that than any sport. Without betting, it does not exist. With sports betting coming to more states, horseplayers will gravitate away, especially as controversies like this keep happening. It is a sport that has been filled with controversy with years. Horse racing is where steroids started. Everyone in the sport should be aware of that.
There aren't a lot of us broken down horseplayers left. Decisions like this make it harder to keep trusting that the races we are betting on are honest.
The final analysis
Justify's breeding rights were sold for $60 million. As for his legacy? Most considered him the worst Triple Crown winner in history before. This won't do anything but reinforce that, but the breeding money spends just the same. Drape's story doesn't really change anything in the grand scheme. It simply casts light on a problem that needs to be dealt with whenever gambling and people's investments are involved: Transparency. Honestly. Consistency.
I won't hold my breath.
With overnight temperatures dipping into the 20s this week in Houston, it seems good timing to have the warm thoughts of baseball being back, at least spring training games. The Astros have more shakiness about their squad than they have had in nearly a decade, but the Astros still have a nucleus of an American League West contender. With the exits of Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman, it’s just a notably different nucleus than in recent years.
Jose Altuve is the last remaining mainstay of the greatest era in Astros’ history, and he is one of the biggest stories of their preseason as he for the time being at least is left fielder Jose Altuve. By every indication he is embracing the challenge with class and energy. The obvious impetus for test driving the move is the soon-to-be 35 years old Altuve’s defensive deterioration. It can be tough for the player himself to notice that his range has declined. The voiding of defensive shifts after the 2022 season shined a brighter light on Altuve’s D decline. Still, last season Altuve made his ninth All-Star team and despite also displaying some offensive decline remained the clearly best offensive second baseman in the American League. It’s part of the tradeoff of reducing the defensive workload on Yordan Alvarez, and hoping to upgrade defensively at second with some combo of Mauricio Dubon, Brendan Rodgers, or other.
The natural comparison in Astros’ history of a franchise icon losing his defensive spot and making a late-career position change is to Craig Biggio. Biggio’s All-Star days were behind him when the Astros moved him from second base to center field for the 2003 season because of the signing of free agent Jeff Kent. It spoke to the athlete Biggio was that at 37 years old he could make the move at all. After not quite a season and a half in center, Biggio moved to left when the Astros traded for young stud center fielder Carlos Beltran. Both Kent and Beltran left in free agency after the 2004 season, and Biggio moved back to second for the final three seasons of his career.
Second basemen are often second basemen and not shortstops in part because of their throwing arms. Altuve’s throwing arm will be an issue in left field. Even though Daikin Park has the smallest square footage of fair territory in Major League Baseball because of its left to left-center field dimensions, Altuve’s arm will be a liability. In understandably wanting to put an optimistic spin on things, manager Joe Espada and general manager Dana Brown have talked of how Altuve will be able to get momentum behind throws more so than when playing second. That’s true when camping under a fly ball in the outfield. That is not true when Altuve will have to cut off balls hit toward the left field line, or cutting across into the left-center field gap. There will be balls that would be singles when hit to other left fielders that will become doubles when Altuve has to play them, and baserunners will go from first to third and second to home much more readily. As an infielder Altuve has always been outstanding at running down pop-ups, so there is reason to believe he’ll be solid tracking fly balls in the outfield. However, the reality of a guy who is five feet six inches tall (in spikes) is that there will be the occasional fly ball or line drive that is beyond his grasp that more “normal” sized outfielders would grab. Try to name a good outfielder who stood shorter than five-foot-nine...
Here’s one: Hall of Famer Tim Raines (also originally a second baseman) was (and presumably still is!) five-foot-eight.
Here's another: Hall of Famer Hack Wilson was five-six. Four times he led the National League in home runs topped by a whopping 56 in 1930 when he set the still standing record of 191 runs batted in for a single season.
And another: Hall of Famer five-foot-four “Wee” Willie Keeler. Who last played in 1910.
Just a bit outside
Another element new to the Grapefruit League in Florida (and Cactus League in Arizona) this year is the limited use of what Major League Baseball is calling the Automated Ball Strike System. The ABS is likely coming to regular season games next year. This spring will be our first look at its use in big league games. Home plate umpires making ball and strike calls will not be going the way of the dinosaur. Challenges can be made until a team is wrong twice. Significantly, only the batter, pitcher, or catcher can challenge and must do so within two seconds of the pitch being caught. No dugout input allowed. No time to watch a replay.
The Astros’ spring park in West Palm Beach is not among the 13 facilities set up with ABS cameras. That seems silly given that the Astros share the place with the Washington Nationals. More use would be gotten from, and more data collected there than will be from a park with half the spring games played in it.
The countdown to Opening Day is on. Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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