Just when you thought 2016 could go out without another bizarre tale muddying the waters, comes the news that Breeders' Cup Sprint runner-up Masochistic will be disqualified, owners Los Pollos Hermanos Racing and Jay Em Ess Stable will have to give up the $255,000 purse, and trainer Ron Ellis, one of the really good guys in racing, will be given a fine and a suspension.

    And what is the cause of such great concern that the aforementioned steps have become necessary? Masochistic was found to have traces of the anabolic steroid stanozolol in his system in both blood and urine post-race samples. Now, on the surface, if that steroid is banned, it would seem that any repercussions are justified.

    However, as the tale unfolds, it seems (1) that the 6-year-old gelding was given the stanozol treatment 68 DAYS BEFORE THE BREEDERS' CUP, and (2), there were just "low picogram" levels detected. It turns out that the recommended time to administer the steroid is 60 days or more from race day. So Ellis added eight days. What did the guy do wrong?

    Then the bigger question arises - what is a picogram? If you look it up, it's one-trillionth of a gram. That's what it says. And if you look at a picture of a gram, it's about the size of the cap on a ballpoint pen. So a picogram is one-trillionth the size of the cap of a ballpoint pen. It has to look like Claude Raines (he was the Invisible Man for those who don't go back that far). 

    Here's my point, and anyone who has read this column knows I don't pretend to know a thing about the medications that make the game go, other than bute is like an aspirin and lasix helps horses who are bleeders. But I do know this: there isn't a person alive, in the medical field or elsewhere, who can prove to me that a picogram of stanozol given 68 days before a race, that is still lingering in a horse's system, made that horse run any faster in the Breeders' Cup Sprint.

    Prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, or give the owners back their $255,000 and let Ron Ellis go back to training and giving out sound handicapping advice on TVG. How many black eyes can a sport stand? Good horsemen are being victimized by a rule which defies the imagination. But, in Florida, a group can apply for slots and a poker room by running fake horses out of a fake starting gate down a fake racetrack in front of a fake audience. Go figure.  

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