Rhoden: Would historic achievement of Triple Crown push racing closer to reforms?

by | 05.28.2012 | 8:38am
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If I’ll Have Another wins the Belmont Stakes and becomes the first horse in 34 years to take down the Triple Crown, will the added spotlight push racing closer to or further from reforms? The New York Times’ William Rhoden asks Rick Porter, owner of 2008 Kentucky Derby runner up Eight Belles who tragically collapsed past the finish line and was euthanized on the racetrack, doesn’t believe a Triple Crown winner will prove to be a catalyst. 
“I don’t think it would have any impact,” said Rick Porter in an interview last week. “Our problems are deep, but they’re fixable. I don’t think a Triple Crown winner is going to make any difference, one way or another. It’ll be fun for a little while but swiftly forgotten.”

If I’ll Have Another wins the Belmont Stakes and becomes the first horse in 34 years to take down the Triple Crown, will the added spotlight push racing closer to or further from reforms? The New York Times’ William Rhoden asks Rick Porter, owner of 2008 Kentucky Derby runner up Eight Belles who tragically collapsed past the finish line and was euthanized on the racetrack, doesn’t believe a Triple Crown winner will prove to be a catalyst. 

“I don’t think it would have any impact,” said Rick Porter in an interview last week. “Our problems are deep, but they’re fixable. I don’t think a Triple Crown winner is going to make any difference, one way or another. It’ll be fun for a little while but swiftly forgotten.”

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  • Stanley inman

    Couldn’t disagree more
    with Mr.
    Porter’s belief that the sport can right itself.
    The sport’s commitment to fixing itself
    since the unfortunate day 8 belles died
    Is well underway.
    I’m disappointed porter isn’t more optimistic
    Given events within the last year.

  • Big Red

    The question is not can racing fix it’s own problems, the (multi) million dollar question is can racing survive without slots. Sooner, rather than later, the slot dollars will go away as the casino’s simply do not want or need racing.
    After the Belmont is over, betting and attendence records are set,  and all the optimists with their head in the sand will claim that racing is back and most likely nothing will be done to bring these folks back to the track the following Saturday. 
    Just saying.

  • Concerned Observer

    Rick Porter is a very successful business man with a lot of skin in the game, and he wants a national commissioner. Isn’t it ironic that dozens of big smart successful owners like Porter,  want reform and consistent rules, but can not get anything changed due to the resistance of a bunch of people protecting their jobs and living on the edge. Maybe if all the “Aginers” would help fix the problems of racing, they would wake up to an improved  racing world, and they would personally benefit from the improvement.

    A strong league commissioner was not Babe Ruth’s, or Johnny Unitas’ or Wilt Chamberlain’s idea, they were players, not planners. Someone needs to think beyond the typical  trainers or vet’s viewpoint.

  • SteveG

    “I was in the press box that afternoon. After Eight Belles collapsed, I decided then and there that I was finished with thoroughbred racing.”

    Apparently not.

  • http://Bellwether4u.com James Staples

    RICK must be SICK???…GMAFB…people like him are one of the REASONS “THE GAME” is UPSIDE DOWN!!!…isn’t he in the AUTOMOBILE business???…need i say more???…

  • Concerned Observer

    Yes, please say more.

    Please add some thoughts to make your comments understandable.

  • http://Bellwether4u.com James Staples

    wouldn’t waste my BREATH on u…

  • http://Bellwether4u.com James Staples

    GOT IT!!!…

  • Pat Turner

    Mr. Rhodin seems to have learned his craft from the 19th century masters of melodrama.
    He states that after Eight Belles broke down he declared that he was done with racing. If only he had held to that position and spared the rest of us his outrage based on his ill informed opinions.

    Bloodsport is his favorite description of racing. I happen to share an equally monumental sense of disgust over Mr. Rhodin’s weeping and gnashing of teeth over the racing’s refusal to conform to his ignorance.

    It would most likely never dislodge him from his preconceived notions about racing, but I would like to see Mr. Rhodin and other journalists practice their craft in the truest sense and find out about the thousands of horses who finish their races on all four legs, who are loved and respected for their courage and who often display more integrity in their allegedly tortured lives that many of the sad souls who choose to write about them.

  • voiceofreason

    no.

  • Don Reed

    No.

    But it is good of the New York Times
    staff to be contentiously concentrating on their work at the same time that Pinch,
    their love-besotted boss, has been flitting about with his
    girlfriend, the latter currently in the Himalayas & unavailable for comment
    about her alleged role in getting Janet Robinson (NYT CEO) fired last December.

    (Jersey papers in their front-page
    indexes have a news category, “Corruption.”  Should the Times list “Corporate Catfights”?)

    At any rate, I think the effect that
    she has had on him pretty much beats even whatever the super chemists can whip
    up in a drug lab that results in horses running their eyeballs out!

  • Michael Cusortelli

    In a debate with Andy Beyer on the PBS News Hour, Bill Rhoden compared horse racing to bullfighting — even though the goal in horse racing isn’t to kill the animal, as it is in bullfighting.
    As a journalist, Bill Rhoden has no credibility in my eyes.

  • SteveG

    I agree.  Perhaps I was too cryptic.  Mr. Rhoden takes 4 years away from the game & circles back like an opportunistic vulture.

    How’s that? 

  • Oky Dokey

    Do you really think that trainers and vets are the chief obstacle to a naational commissioner? That is funny and sad at the same time. I guess the campaign to demonize those two professions has been successful. Just for kicks Mr Observer do you really hink the states are anxious to give up regulation? What about all those laws that will have to be changed? Do you and others not understand that unlike other sports horse racing isn’t privately owned by a group of 30 or 32 individuals making all the other participanst employees. Regardless of everyones desire to impose this vaunted commissioner system, there are a whole lot larger issues to solve than some hypothetical horsemans resistance.

  • Concerned Observer

    The HBPA is, in most states, dominated by trainers and vets. Owners generally take a back seat. Look at all the key issues and the HBPA is strongly against any effort to consolidate or coordinate the industry. In the case of medication rule changes the HBPA is strongly against what many big owners have asked for.

    But  why not? 34 HBPA state directors rely on separation state by state for most of their autonomy. Self preservation is a very strong motivator.

    In any “association” I have ever worked with in any industry or business effort, the number one objective of any Executive Director and his staff is self preservation…..then comes the other association objectives. Just a fact of life.

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