The Black Horse Inside Coolmore

Not in any bookshops I've been to, where can I order a copy?
Thanks.

I read it a few months ago. It was all right. Worth the read anyway. I was expecting maybe a bit more scandal! I bought it directly off the author.

tipptom wrote: »

Haven't read it yet but I think the main alleged scandal is supposed to be the treatment or mistreatment of a famous stallion when it became ill.
Wonder why Coolmore have not gone for defamation on that alone.


There is an interesting intro on Google on Jones v Coolmore case for a few pages until you have to start paying for the rest of the readings.


He seems to have played Coolmores lawyers well in response to their alleged intimidating letters to the point of telling them he was being shadowed by a RTE documentary crew and that any of their actions was being publicly recorded and basically he would see them in court.


Recent publicity must be a great boom to sales.

Quite the opposite I think. AFAIK Coolmore got an injunction against (or voluntary agreement from) Easons, WH Smith etc stocking the book so now he is reduced to trying to distribute it himself from home

finbarrk wrote: »

Yeah. And he says they stopped the RP and the Field from him being allowed to place advertisements about the book.

I would say Coolmore didn't have to put to much pressure on the RP and the Field if at all to stop him placing ads!

Whos the stallion they allegedly mistreated? St Nicholas Abbey at a guess?

This review indicates that Montjeu might be the horse in question but I have not read the book myself

http://theracingforum.co.uk/racing-articles/book-review-the-black-horse-inside-coolmore/

For those interested the sequel "The Black Horse is dying" is now available on Amazon.

I have only read the first few chapters, which are focused towards American racing and the Breeders Cup, but interesting none the less. Unsurprisingly Baffert isn't being painted in a good light.

The Tetrarch wrote: »

Thanks for the info. I ordered it.

Delivered today.
On a flick through it appears that it will be a very, very interesting read.

Kimmage seems to be turning his focus on horse racing and in particular drugs in horse racing as that's his second article in the last couple of months, both at the end concerned drugs.

I'd say there's a few in the higher sections of Irish racing authorities will be worried if Kimmage starts digging for stories.

I read a chapter or two each night.
On page 49 I read that Lasix (Frusemide) if given to horses "to prevent bleeding".
It seems like about 5% of horses suffer from serious bleeding.

"The real attraction is the weight loss it induces. When between 10-15 litres of urine are passed as the drug goes to work a horse becomes 10-20 lbs lighter, with some horses even able to lose 30 lbs. That's a lot of weight not to be carrying through a race, which explains how performance can be improved."

How difficult is it to get Lasix in Ireland?
As I write this I have a small plastic bag before me with 14 Frusemide (Lasix) tablets in it.
They are from the local Vet Clinic, and are for my 14 year old female Jack Russell terrier.
She has a weak heart. Her lungs fill with fluid, and she needs help to clear the fluid.
To get more Lasix I phone for a repeat prescription.
My Jack Russell has shown increased speed over the lawn.

It does not take a rocket scientist to work out what's going on in Ireland and who some of the main culprits are. As alluded to in the book the improvement Denis Hogan got from Make a Challenge should really have raised eyebrows.

Another one that I nearly spat my coffee out at lately was Swift Wing winning on the 25th of November in Dundalk. Whilst a formerly half decent horse winning a claimer in Dundalk is no surprise the trainers comments post race deserved an investigation alone:

“When we got him he was moving well and there didn't seem to be any issue but we got the vet Donnacha Houlihan to have a look at him to check him.

“He did a small little job on him and it's made all the difference.”

Inconspicuous enough but you only need to dig a fraction deeper to begin getting concerned - Between 2012 and 2019 James McCauley had over 100 runners with no winners, he has trained 3 winners and 3 places from 54 runners this year, an upturn in fortune which has coincided with him seeming to have a close partnership with Denis Hogan. Hogan has pulled off some huge gambles in the past 2 months and has had a sensational 24 months, training over 115 winners - 24 of these have been owned by James McCauley. You may remember them from the time they stopped Yuften and Gambled on Tony the gent on the 20th of March in Dundalk (Both owned by McCauley at the time). What I'm getting at here is they seem to have a very very close relationship, one whereby you could draw an assumption that Denis Hogan does most of the training of the horses that run under McCauleys name as a trainer.

Now back to swift wing who had no issues but Donnacha Houlihan still decided to do a little job on him - the same Donnacha Houlihan who "in error" administered an anabloic steroid to Denis Hogans horse Turbine in 2018 https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/racing/ihrb-defends-decision-to-back-date-turbine-steroid-ban-to-january-1.4002663. Surely any logical human being who had taken their horse to a vet who incompetently gave him an anabolic steroid would ensure them and those close to him would never ever return to that vet. Unless, of course, he had done exactly what you asked him to do and you were happy to return.

They're not even attempting to hide it and the HRI are willfully ignoring what is going on.

Odelay wrote: »

“There didn’t seem to be an issue”. Read it properly. DH is one of the best vets in the country for horses movement, it there is an issue difficult to see to the naked eye, he will find the cause of it. Some horses do not show discomfort easily.

He also "wrongly" administered an anabolic steroid to a horse who is trained by your right hand man. I'd be finding another vet to do my lameness walk up if I believed that to be true.

I see on the Racing Post website a UK trainer "loses two Listed winners as extent of feed contamination revealed". :rolleyes:

In The Black horse Is Dying is a nice little story about an Irish trainer.
"His answer to the question of how he came to be in possession of these drugs was in the realm of blaming fairies. He told the court they had been accidentally left in his car at a race meeting by an unnamed man who intended passing them to a vet who has since died. He denied giving any steroids to his horses and could not explain why Stanozolol was found in his training yard."

I have read 204 pages of the 471 page book. Next are the chapters about Ireland.
An interesting comment in the book about the IHRB (Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, formerly the Turf Club) is nobody outside the club knows who the members of the club are.