Violette's Comments Don't Sit Well With Horseplayers

Yesterday in an interview at Thoroughbred Racing Commentary, New York horseman Rick Violette said that customers should help pay for new drug testing. Out of 100% of revenue, the tracks receive about 11%, purses receive about 11%, and the customer gets paid out 78%. The proposal - if we can call it that - means that if the tracks and horsemen give 1% each for drug testing, horseplayers should too. That means takeout would be increased by another point.

This, as one might anticipate, went over like a ton of bricks.

Rick Violette would suggest blackjack players should pay for surveillance cameras to detect cheating by dealers at casinos. #violette
— Beychok Racing (@BeychokRacing) June 25, 2014

and

Hey Rick Violette, I'll help pay for testing if you pay for my PPs, parking, admission, and buy me a beer when I get to the track.
— Mike Hunt (@TheRaiderFan) June 25, 2014

Among others.

Mr. Violette might find this anger unwarranted. However, since he speaks about football and concussions in the interview, what would he think would happen if someone in power in the NFL said "fans get a better product if our players have fewer concussions, so we're going to raise ticket prices $10 at every stadium to help pay for concussion testing."

Fans would be justifiably upset. The NFL is an $8 billion dollar league. They should find some money to pay for their athletes and the good of the game of football themselves from that $8 billion.

Horse racing, through slots, revenues from betting, grants, admission, ADW taxes, fees for horses and licensing, and a number of other avenues, raises about $2 billion in revenue. Like the NFL, they already have revenue to pay for this themselves. They should use it for drug testing. There's clearly plenty of money for it.