Tom Smith And Ephedra

And so, I was reading along in "Seabiscuit" enjoying the story, a page turner, but, leaving behind several hard to explain puzzlers scattered about like information bits on an unfragged hard drive. I declined to dwell on these, till page 318, and wham, Smith gets banned for ephedra. I'm trying to recall the last time several mysteries cleared up in my mind so fast.

Last post I described ephedrine as a performance enhancer. I am without any doubt that this supplement would do more for horses than it does for humans. Please note I'm only surmising, but presume more power through faster heart beats, but, the primary effect will be the horse is far less likely to notice lactic acid buildup and hence fatigue. I am without any doubt of that. I can just imagine a horse of mine running on ephedra. It would be a different animal.

Thus, perhaps, any reader that has followed this sequence will note my astonishment that in the ephedra use suddenly all the inexplicable stuff falls into place. I've watched a lot of big races in my time, and I've never seen anything close to what SB did carrying 130 lbs in the 1938 SA Handicap and losing by a nose to one of the best horses in the country carrying 101 lbs. And the 1940 SA Handicap win gnaws. Sure SB was galloping 5 miles in October, but this conditioning would have been lost in the alledged bad weather down time in December and January. We are to believe a horse that has not breezed in a year can get in a few breezes and couple of races in about 40 days, carry 130 lbs and with every other horse carrying 20 less and win against the best horses on the west coast. Again, its a head shaker for those of us that train horses. (see the interview about this with 90 year old Noble Threwitt.)

I guess, since Smith denied it, the first question is whether he used ephedra. Let's say this is cobra venom, and someone explain the difference here between Smith and Patrick Biancone. They both had the stuff in their shedrow, regardless of the old "unknown my employee was using it" excuse. The suspension seems to me further evidence. Why? Stewards do not just ban a first offense for a whole year without some very serious proof. I've found stewards in general to be responsible, intelligent people highly interested in promoting racing. I'm unable to imagine a group of them maliciously banning an innocentTom Smith, and if that were the case why this competitive old Harry Truman look alike would have avoided trying to stick it to them by every legal means. Smith's style might have been otherwise, but, there are questions here.

Then the final query. Did Smith use ephedra on SB? Never mind Hillenbrand's profession that the "nasal decongestant" contained only 2.6%. That's quite a heavy dose really. I simply do not know. But, there are extenuating circumstances, next post.