Jeff Mullins Is Horse Racing

Being a horse racing fan was a tough haul this week. The twin stories being brutally beaten over and over have made their way to the mainstream. After a winter of nil publicity the game has made the TV news and the front page of the NY Times sports section. They say bad publicity is better than no publicity but the negative tone and the amount of the internet comments is overwhelmingly negative. The entire derby trail is being neglected this year while sensational tabloid journalism riddled with errors and misrepresentations is having an unprecedented run. The beating that Jeff Mullins is taking is the same beating that horse racing is about to take during the triple crown. It is unfortunate and deserved. If the same voices making a mountain out of the detention barn incident continue to sing their strident song for the mainstream media we could be looking at a banned sport in just a few years.


The derby story lines are being buried and it seems like the buzz surrounding the derby will focus on the soiled name of Jeff Mullins. It is not enough that his horse was scratched from the Bay Shore, he has to be publicly humiliated and repeatedly flogged in blog after blog and article after article. He was wrong to do this in the security barn. Mullins will have his hearing and punishment will be doled out. The sensationalists must have their public stoning as they gather around and squeal in pleasure as stone after stone is applied. The reaction is outrageous and not based in reason. For them the application of an all-natural product sold in tack stores is proof that Mullins is a dirty cheater/pharmacist that has concoction after concoction of secret substances that make horses run at the front of the pack like machines. The fact that he has been winning horses racing since he was seventeen years old is not considered. Backstretch backstabbing may also be at work here. Reason and fairness have been scratched from the race alongside Gato Go Win.


Condemnation of Mullins is not the end. After the condemnation of Mullins then comes the condemnation of racing period. There is an agenda at work here. The anonymous comments on these on-line articles referring to how most racehorses are routinely abused while they are in training is troubling. Yes these things do happen in isolated incidents but the game is being defiled as a activity filled with abuse and cruelty by people who have never been near a barn and surely have never mucked a stall. Racing has made tremendous strides to clean up the game. There is a stereotype that racing is a very dirty game and that the racetrack is a dirty place. Like many stereotypes there is some truth to the matter but the facts are being exaggerated to make the make the story fit into the anti-racing agenda.



Tell someone you are a horseplayer in New York and they will turn up their nose to you. The
assumption is that you are a degenerate gambler through horse racing betting, disgustingly profane and a low-life. It is a ridiculous assumption but these stereotypes help simple people navigate the complex social landscapes where snap judgment decisions must be made with limited information. Simple people are applying the same stereotypes to Jeff Mullins. The way Mullins is being dragged through the mud is a foreshadowing of how the game will be dragged through the mud. Forces and agendas are building to remove horse racing from the American tapestry.


The public beating that Mullins is bearing is the same beating that horse racing has been taking for many years. Isolated examples are blown out of proportion while the beauty and positive parts of the game, the hard work and love for the animals is completely ignored. Do you really think all of the horses in Mullins barn are abused and drugged to win races? Why is it that Michael Matz is the national spokesperson for Air Power yet his name has not been soiled in any of this? Is it because Mullins grew up riding at bush tracks and Matz is a high-class dressage legend? Does Mullins only employ only animal abusers? The almost unanimous condemnation against Mullins is beyond all reason and could only survive in the preposterous bleating of the flock of sheep against indoctrinated into shunning anything not politically correct.


Many people want to see racing go away and those giving inordinate amounts of coverage to this sensational story are feeding the fires for the extremists like PETA who do not understand the complexities or appeal of horse racing. These people deal in half-truths , sound bites and sensationalism which has been produced by the lot this week. The articles appearing in the mainstream and extremist press are riddled with errors or poor information. If they can not get the minor details correct they are surely wrong on the big picture. The deluge of negative information from on-line racing sources and bloggers with good intentions are feeding the frenzy that will look to besmirch the game during the upcoming triple crown season. In this deluge of negative information there is but a trickle of attention on how this may be the best crop of three year olds to emerge in the decade. It is like good sense and perception have yielded to cheap attention and the sheep mentality.

Few things in life are black or white, good or bad but Mullins almost universally denigrated all bad. He is like the Emmanuel Goldstein of racing, the boogieman that Big Brother uses so the masses have a target to direct their angst towards. The sensationalists have had a field day dragging out Mullins violation record. Yes there are offenses there but when we are dealing with the numbers of horses Mullins has in his care the numbers are skewed. While he is besmirched as a cheater most of the violations are for racing office violations like scratching a horse without permission or paperwork issues. There is a difference between cheating and the violations in Mullins record.

Mullins has a green light on his head for abuse, he is one of the few people in racing that can openly be abused without consequence. Like Mullins horse racing is one of the sports that can be openly abused in the mainstream without consequence. A combination of success, working class background, frank talk to reporters and past offenses have landed Mullins squarely in the cross heirs of the sensationalists. Racing's use of animals for gambling have landed in the crossheirs of the politically correct and the animal rights extremists.


Frank talk never gets you very far when talking to the masses and when Mullins called horseplayers idiots he displayed a lack of media savvy and tact. Sometimes frank talk like this is very helpful. The game has ridden itself of steroids due to the frankness of Rick Dutrow. America needs more frank talk and less smiling liars. America needs less sensationalism and more good racing.