2012 Year In Review: I'll Have Another embodied season of defections, debate

I’ll Have Another. His owner, Paul Reddam, said the colt was named for the extra cookies he would request each night, a sugar rush perhaps not unlike the giddy feeling of seeing a horse on the cusp of attempting to sweep the Triple Crown.

I’ll Have Another. The likely request to the bartender of a dispirited patron, head in hand at the end of the bar, attempting to wash his sorrows, perhaps after learning there would be no Triple Crown attempt after all. There was no joy in Elmont. Mighty Casey at least got to strike out. I’ll Have Another never got to the plate.

If there was any horse who embodied 2012, it was I’ll Have Another. He raised hopes of the first Triple Crown sweep since 1978 with his victories in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, but he never got a chance to compete in the Belmont Stakes. He was scratched the day before the race and retired because of a tendon injury.

His defection was a microcosm of the 3-year-old class of 2012, which began with great promise only to crumble like peppermint bark. By year’s end, I’ll Have Another, Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags, Derby and Preakness runner-up Bodemeister, 2011 2-year-old champ Hansen, Wood Memorial winner Gemologist, and divisional stalwart Creative Cause all were retired.

Big as that story arc was, though, it was minor compared with the larger impact I’ll Have Another had on the sport. In a year when the debate over medication, legal and otherwise, boomed like thunder, I’ll Have Another and his trainer, Doug O’Neill, were the lightning rods. And New York became the eye of the medication storm.

The headwinds were swirling across the nation when it came to equine health. In California, the HBO series “Luck” was abruptly canceled in March after an accident caused the death of a horse used in production. In New Mexico, the competence of the state’s drug-testing and enforcement were called into question in a New York Times article that was the first in a series focusing on those topics nationwide. It was a particularly harsh winter at Aqueduct in New York, where a rash of deaths in racing and training led to a state-created task force on health and safety.

Into that stepped I’ll Have Another and O’Neill, who entered the Triple Crown with a medication violation from 2010 in California yet to be resolved.

The circus didn’t come to town. Rather, the town became a circus. The New York State Racing and Wagering Board, which has oversight over the New York Racing Association – operator of Belmont Park – mandated that horses could not use something as seemingly harmless as a nasal strip. Not coincidentally, I’ll Have Another had been using a nasal strip. Days later, the racing board decided to house the horses for the June 9 Belmont Stakes in a detention barn, which was not announced until May 30. Not coincidentally, I’ll Have Another had won the Preakness on May 19.

The detention barn was mandated with such little foresight, some trainers said, that if the detention barn was intended to secure a safe environment for the horses, it was having the opposite effect.

“The barn is ridiculous. There’s too many horses in there doing the same things at the same time,” said Dale Romans, who was to send out Dullahan in the Belmont. “I don’t think anybody who set up that barn or made the rules was thinking about the horse.”

A debate raged over I’ll Have Another and whether he would be a worthy Triple Crown winner. In 2012, his supporters pointed out, he had won all four of his starts and passed postrace drug tests each time – in three states. His detractors pointed to the taint of sins his trainer was deemed to have committed in the past.

And then the day before the race, I’ll Have Another was scratched. He later was sold and sent to Japan for stud duty.

While I’ll Have Another’s career came to an abrupt end, racing’s attempt to grapple with medication and equine health continued. The Breeders’ Cup, which along with The Jockey Club has emerged as the most powerful entity in the sport, phased in a ban of the anti-bleeding medication furosemide (Salix, formerly known as Lasix) in its races for 2-year-olds. There was movement in some jurisdictions to eliminate or sharply curtail Salix, which pitted those who saw any use of raceday medication as inhumane against those who saw the raceday use of Salix and the anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone (Bute) as humane necessities for equine athletes.