Kellyn Gorder - buh bye for 14 months

[Cannon Shell]

How would one acquire meth to give to a horse? How would you know its actually meth? How would you know its purity? How would you know how much to give and when to give it? Do meth labs give out handbooks on horse doping?

[Calzone Lord]

Here's what I know about Kellyn Gorder:

* He has a profitable lifetime ROI with his dirt horses.

* He has a profitable lifetime ROI with his turf horses.

His strength is without routers off of an extended freshening:

Route Races, 31-to-60 day layoff: 79-for-342 (23% wins) 25% profit per dollar bet.


Route Races, 61-to-100 day layoff: 18-for-96 (19% wins) 69% profit per dollar bet.


But, he's not bad with Routers off of a 7 day or less layoff, either:

9-for-37 with an insane $6.55 ROI


Also, his stats have fallen off this year.

Through 2014:

Dirt: 806 starts - 23% wins - $2.13 ROI
Turf: 337 starts - 15% wins - $2.35 ROI


2015 stats: 12-for-106 (11% wins) - $1.27 ROI

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Your premise is so idiotic that I probably shouldnt bother responding.

Thanks for taking the time. We idiots (bettors) appreciate it when the Know-All's take a moment to remind us how in the dark we always are. It makes all that money we wa....errr.....wager.... seem so less important when some one "In the know" talks down to us.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

He didnt get caught using anything. His horses urine tested positive for a minute amount of an illicit drug that isnt used on animals but by drug addicts. There is basically no chance that he gave this to his horse on purpose. That you seem unable to understand difference is baffling.

Ummm... yeah he did. You can play a game of semantics all you'd like, but at the end of the day a horse in his charge, tested positive for a stimulant, principally methamphetamine - which can and does affect a horse in the same way it affects every other mammal that ingests it.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Not to mention that detection causes the positive test, not detection at levels that could affect performance. Simple detection. Of course most people screaming for blood won't bother noting that.

Ok - so by simply testing a sample for it, it makes it positive - yet you have no idea what the amount detected in the lab tests were. You are blindly assuming it's a borderline false-positive without any substantiation. Ok, again, I get it.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I feel badly for someone I barely even know because I am 99.9% sure that he had zero idea that meth was ever in that horse and his business is going to be destroyed, his reputation is being dragged through the mud and he will likely incur a huge amount of legal fees. From here on whenever he has a runner do well or has a streak of a few winners in a row the internet geniuses will be whispering "maybe he is using the meth again". It is a scarlet letter that he almost assuredly doesnt deserve.

You don't know him, but you're 99.9% he was railroaded. That is certainly open minded. But then so is this assertion that his test was a borderline positive that was triggered by the test itself, without, again, any substantiation.

You know who I feel badly for? The people that day in and day out keep the sport in business - even in the face of absurd takeout rates, jockeys that intractably put horses in inexplicable and untenable positions, stewards that regularly make a mockery of their responsibilities, and the ever present alchemists, who run up ticket costs by forcing inclusion based on whether they have their "program" working or not.

And then the best part of it all is having to endure the barrage of condescension from the "Insiders" as to how all of it is perfectly acceptable.

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

What is scary is that I have trained about the same amount of years and have a pretty similar record in terms of lack of medication violations and this could happen to me just as easily.

I somehow highly doubt that.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

How would one acquire meth to give to a horse? How would you know its actually meth? How would you know its purity? How would you know how much to give and when to give it? Do meth labs give out handbooks on horse doping?

May want to check with the three guys in New Mexico that got suspended for using it - they've may possibly have compared notes - they've had 3 years to do so, anyway.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by 10 pnt move up

related barn search turned up syringes and unlabeled bottles of medication, according to the stewards’ rulings.


seems dangerous to have medicines with no labels, i might give that a try at my house and see how it works out for me.

It doesn't matter.

He's not a 'drop and pop' guy who runs horses down peoples throats. Those guys get vilified because their win % (an overrated stat) is high due to their aggressive placement of horses.

Their methods can incite fans and bettors and annoy rival trainers.

[Cannon Shell]

The reports said 22 picograms was the level.

You can rant all you want but it doesnt change the reality that this guy probably is getting labeled and punished for something he didnt do.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

What is scary is that I have trained about the same amount of years and have a pretty similar record in terms of lack of medication violations and this could happen to me just as easily.

But it didn't happen to you.

The guy could've run a tighter ship.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The reports said 22 picograms was the level.

You can rant all you want but it doesnt change the reality that this guy probably is getting labeled and punished for something he didnt do.

Here is the ruling from the KHRC -

http://khrc.ky.gov/Rulings/150050.pdf


it makes no mention of the level detected - if that's available someplace for public consumption, that'd been real helpful, and gone a long way... Thanks.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

But it didn't happen to you.

The guy could've run a tighter ship.

Bullshit. You cant control everything. You cant know what your help is doing on a day to day basis when they arent at work. You cant control the other employees of the track or state testing barn or those who do mundane jobs where your horse may be exposed to including the pony boy or gate crew guy. Contact with anyone of those people, a guy who is on meth peeing in the stall, etc can trigger a positive at an extremely low level. The amount of a substance that needs to get into a horse is extremely low. They dont need to eat a meth sandwich to have 22 picograms show.

Dr Barker of LSU did a study on environmental contamination on the backside of the FG and found that horses could come into contact with levels of drugs virtually everywhere.

http://www.thehorse.com/articles/236...-at-racetracks

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Here is the ruling from the KHRC -

http://khrc.ky.gov/Rulings/150050.pdf


it makes no mention of the level detected - if that's available someplace for public consumption, that'd been real helpful, and gone a long way... Thanks.

http://www.paulickreport.com/news/th...th-suspension/

under comments from Bill Casner

[ADJMK]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The reports said 22 picograms was the level.

You can rant all you want but it doesnt change the reality that this guy probably is getting labeled and punished for something he didnt do.

I agree with everything you say Chuck. unfortunately not everyone here has a real clue what goes on in the backstretch.
No trainer would use Meth as a means to win a race and not expect to get caught. Cheaters know how to find stuff that is not being tested for.

If it wasn't from contamination, a possible scenario is someone in the backstretch blew some meth up the horses nose and probably cashed a bet. Unfortunately the trainer takes the rap.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Bullshit. You cant control everything. You cant know what your help is doing on a day to day basis when they arent at work. You cant control the other employees of the track or state testing barn or those who do mundane jobs where your horse may be exposed to including the pony boy or gate crew guy. Contact with anyone of those people, a guy who is on meth peeing in the stall, etc can trigger a positive at an extremely low level. The amount of a substance that needs to get into a horse is extremely low. They dont need to eat a meth sandwich to have 22 picograms show.

Dr Barker of LSU did a study on environmental contamination on the backside of the FG and found that horses could come into contact with levels of drugs virtually everywhere.

http://www.thehorse.com/articles/236...-at-racetracks

Millions of people use meth.

How many horses test bad for it?

If it was so easy to get a bad test via contamination -- why doesn't it happen more often?

[Cannon Shell]

The irony of the general lament that drugs are ruining racing is ironic considering that horses in 2015 are probably running with less in their systems than at anytime in the last 30 years.

When I started training in 1999 in KY you could literally give 15 shots to a horse on race day. While it wouldnt be effective that quickly you could give a massive dose of painkillers and steroids 4 hours before the race. A large percentage of horses running in major races were getting milkshakes. And yet now all we hear is how dirty the game is and how drugged up the horses are despite the last 10 years having the largest overhaul of medication rules in the sports history.
Are things perfect? Of course not. Are there guys who are getting an edge? Absolutely. Do the rules need constant updating? Sure.

But the idea that things are worse than they ever have been just isnt correct. The rules are still not ideal as they are different in a lot of cases from state to state and lab to lab. Trainers and vet still dont have a firm idea of exactly what the rules are in many cases and the industry seems to prefer an adversarial relationship with horsemen as opposed to trying to come up with rules that are good for the horses and clear and easy to follow for the humans.

The biggest difference between now and 20 years ago is the information overload that we are subjected to. 20 years ago no one following NY racing would have paid 2 seconds attention to positive tests in New Mexico. A lot of the time you didnt even know a guy was suspended until a different name appeared in the program. We all act like things are so much worse but they arent. Its just that everything is a big deal now, greed and ignorance has caused the game to be overpriced and on the track the product just is not all that compelling.

I'm not saying that we can just look the other way when situations like this occur. However we need to think a little more critically and less conspiratorial.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Millions of people use meth.

How many horses test bad for it?

If it was so easy to get a bad test via contamination -- why doesn't it happen more often?

Because only winners get tested at a lot of tracks and at many tracks I'm not sure that they test for more than 2 or 3 common drugs including lasix. They HAVE to test for lasix because its on the program and they have to ensure that the horse has lasix in its system. However its a huge waste of money. KY has a brand new lab with new equipment and they test for a long laundry lit of substances.

Not to mention that different states may have a higher threshold for different drugs. People dont realize that what might be a positive in one state wouldnt be in another. the only positive test i had was for 9 nanograms of acepromazine when KY had zero tolerence (since changed) for that drug despite it being the most commonly used medication in horse sports. At that time LA had a 100 nanogram threshold. CA and NY had a 50 nanogram threshold. So the same sample in those states wouldnt have resulted in a bad test. Seems crazy but thats the truth.

Hell in Florida the tracks vets give the lasix AND they are also giving solu-delta on raceday that you declare at entry time. Its not listed anywhere that I'm aware of. If you gave the same medication in any other state you would get scratched and get a long suspension.

[Cannon Shell]

Its funny because its easy yet can also be hard to get a bad test. If every track ran "supertesting" on every horse i'm sure that you would see a ton of positive tests. Not necessarily because people are looking to cheat but because the rules are rarely absolutely clear.

I was educated by a vet who worled in both the field and lab who told me that the RMTC is using a 95% standard in their withdrawl times. That means that using those withdrawl times under normal circumstances the test will result in a negative test at least 95% of the time. That is scary from my view because if you run enough horses you may find yourself in that dreaded 5%. Of course you may have and skated because the lab wasnt testing for that med that day or your horse got beat a nose and wasnt sent for a test. Naturally you have no idea that any of this occurred because you may have followed the published rules to a T.

The attitude is that regulators are ok with this standard because positive tests make them look like they are doing a good job even if they crater public confidence. That is the reason that thresholds have been arbitrarily assigned without regard to effect on performance and why the zero tolerence politically correct push gets so much support.

The medication rules in this country are screwed up but in many ways not the way you think

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Because only winners get tested at a lot of tracks and at many tracks I'm not sure that they test for more than 2 or 3 common drugs including lasix. They HAVE to test for lasix because its on the program

Only 1 or 2 horses get tested. And they only test for lasix and 1 or 2 other drugs?

I guess he's just had some bad luck with the testing process. He had one test positive for Clenbuterol in 2013. He won the Meth contamination lottery in 2014. They searched his barn and found syringes and unlabeled bottles. His ROI stats have fallen off a cliff since.

I am sure he's Mother Teresa like everyone says he is -- but he's at least guilty of not having run a tight ship.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Only 1 or 2 horses get tested. And they only test for lasix and 1 or 2 other drugs?

I guess he's just had some back luck with the testing process. He tested positive for Clenbuterol in 2013. He won the Meth contamination lottery in 2014. They searched his barn and found syringes and unlabeled bottles. His ROI stats have fallen off a cliff since.

I am sure he's Mother Teresa like everyone says he is -- but he's at least guilty of not having run a tight ship.

Depending on the jurisdiction the amount of substances tested for varies greatly.

I'm not saying that he is mother Teresa just that one horse testing positive at 20 picograms doesnt mean that he intentionally gave any horse meth. It probably means that he simply had a bit of extreme bad fortune.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by ADJMK

I agree with everything you say Chuck. unfortunately not everyone here has a real clue what goes on in the backstretch.
No trainer would use Meth as a means to win a race and not expect to get caught. Cheaters know how to find stuff that is not being tested for.

If it wasn't from contamination, a possible scenario is someone in the backstretch blew some meth up the horses nose and probably cashed a bet. Unfortunately the trainer takes the rap.

The problem with the blow up the nose theory is that had someone done that on raceday it would have likely produced a far higher level of drug. Had it been done prior to the day of the race could it actually have any effect?

[Danzig]

simply put, we can't win on this.
trainers who get one or a hundred positives get defended. how is anyone to know who got contaminated, and who didn't? how to know when someone obviously did something, and who didn't? he had unlabled meds, and syringes-does that matter or not?
i don't think anyone is happy to see a trainer 'caught', but they are happy to know a potential cheater is possibly removed...but then bettors get told they're stupid for being happy a potential cheater is removed.
than you have people who have a rap sheet a mile long, still in the sport. nominated for the hall of fame. caught with cobra venom and let back in a year later. people with long rap sheets who get clients because some clients will do anything to win.
what's the answer to this frustrating and ongoing dilemma?

[Left Bank]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

There is next to zero chance that anyone especially a trainer in the position that Gorder is in would knowingly or intentionally give their horse meth.

The idea that a street drug, especially Meth in the state of KY (meth capital of the US) , found at the picogram level wouldn't be the result of contamination is the hard to believe part.

It is close to impossible to police your horses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is extremely hard to eliminate all human contact from your horses.
At the picogram level the horse could be contaminated by almost any contact. A maintenance worker from the track pees in the receiving barn stall after fixing a broken light bulb or cleaning the stall. A feed company employee. A test barn employee. Someone at the lab. Maybe the assistant trainer cashed his check before the race ad didnt wash his hands before putting on the tongue tie?

All sound a bit far fetched but a whole lot less far fetched than Gorder intentionally giving a first time in a year starter meth.
I'm amazed that people actually think that any viable trainer would try that.

The fact is that being a trainer nowdays is a nightmare. The rules are never actually spelled out for us, we virtually have no rights regardless of whether we are actually at fault, if we win too much we are suspicious, if we dont win enough we are clueless...

Often we arent getting paid for our services yet because a live animal is the the middle of this we have to keep on taking care of it to the best of our abilities or we are the bad guys. When a terrible incident like this happens despite it likely being completely out of our control, the internet judge and juries convict us instantly and we are blamed for the demise of racing and the euros disdain for our racing (they dont seem to like the NFL too much and they dont seem to worried).

Say you loan your car to your 17 year old kid to go to the mall. He picks up some of his friends and maybe one of those friends is a little shady and has a little bag of meth that he hides in the glove compartment when no one is looking. Now you get in the car and get pulled over for speeding and when you open the glove compartment out drop the little bag of meth that you had no idea was there. Cops arrest you for possession. Are you really a criminal?

Well said, Chuck.