Racetrack Jealousy Syndrome Approaching An Epidemic

The honesty of Rick Dutrow may endear him to some as a lovable rouge, but it has also stoked a mass epidemic of racetrack jealousy syndrome. At the racetrack any amount of success will bring a huge backlash. Any successful trainer is accused of juicing horses, or a handicapper that finds success will find themselves under the microscope to reproduce that winning form or face tremendous scrutiny.

Steve Asmussen is a good example of racetrack jealousy syndrome in action He is criticized on the frontside by horseplayers as a trainer that "juices" his horses. Sure he has multiple violations but this guy starts thousands of horses per year and has a string at a half dozen racetracks in on both sides of the Canadian border. When you consider the scope of Asmussen's operation and the amount of horses he sends to the post he is not a frequent offender. This is like a car service operation getting more traffic tickets than a certain individual. Sure Asmussen taxi gets more tickets than Joe Blow, but Joe Blow only has one car while Asmussen manages a huge fleet a cars from Hudson River to the Rio Grande. The amount of success Asmussen has and the scope of the success from Toronto to New York to Chicago to Kentucky to Louisiana and Texas brings a huge amount of scrutiny and this is why Asmussen has a negative reputation in some circles. If Asmussen had no horseman skills could he have managed to bring the brilliant Curlin to hand? How did he do it in drug free Dubai?

Dutrow is taking a beating in the press and on-line for the telling the Daily News that he uses Winstrol on his horses. While most trainers use steroids like Winstrol on there horses it has not been published in the press in plain English. Unfortunately Dutrow is going to be a victim of the fact that the public can not handle the truth. The public prefers to be lied to. The reaction to the truth will be to kill the messenger. While using Winstrol may be legal I can only recall one other trainer actually admitting its use to the press. The other I trainer that admitted to Winstrol use was was Allen Jerkens, the well respected chief himself uses steroids on his horses but I do not hear anyone bashing Jerkens or the many others that do the same thing. Why? Because only those that have massive success come under the scrutiny of racetrack jealousy syndrome.

Dutrow is a victim of his own success, racetrack jealousy syndrome is a very real thing. It is a curse the rides right along side success. Here is a person that was at the lowest of lows and pulled himself out of the gutter to be a huge success in his field. He has risen from the gutter, to being a claimer trainer just a few years ago, plying his trade on the working class Aqueduct Inner meet, to the trainer that is on top of the world. Shouldn't people feel happy for him that god gave him a second chance and he capitalized on that chance to the maximum? Instead of admiring Dutrow for pulling himself out of the gutter, the racetrack jealousy syndrome has many people trying to drag him back down. They pigeonhole him as a trainer with little to no horseman skills. If his only skill was juicing horses how does he win multiple Group I's in drug free Dubai with Benny The Bull and Diamond Stripes? People do not appreciate his honesty, his candor and his genuine personality and use it against him. They only resent his success and want to see him crawl back into the gutter by using his past against him and denying the present Here is a guy that has risen like the phoenix and almost nobody can recognize the redemption before us. Racetrack jealousy syndrome has reached epic proportions.