The following letter was submitted by Robert Williams, executive director of the New York State Gaming Commission.
I am writing in response to your October 18, 2021 column “View from The Eighth Pole: Of Rulings and Squeaky Clean Racing.” I feel the obligation to object to your sarcastic characterization, which creates a purposefully inaccurate picture of the efficacy of drug testing in New York.
You wrote that you could “only find one ruling for a medication violation in all of 2021 at New York Racing Association tracks … [and] zero positive tests in the New York State Gaming Commission rulings database in 2020 and zero positives in 2019 for NYRA tracks.” See https://www.paulickreport.com/news/ray-s-paddock/view-from-the-eighth- pole-of-rulings-and-squeaky-clean-racing/.
Limiting your data examination to such a…
