The Courier-Journal’s current series about the thoroughbred industry is a triumph of packaging over substance. It’s largely a rehashing of old material done up nicely with dramatic color photos, graphs, and charts. It will play nicely with the judges when it comes to contest time, which, of course, is the point.

But this isn’t to dismiss it as worthless. To the contrary, it will serve to keep the industry focused on the unresolved issues that have plagued it for years – the pros and cons of medication, unsound breeding theories, racetrack safety, and track surfaces. All this is fine as far as it goes.

The trouble is, it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. It doesn’t address the big elephant in the room that horsemen, track officials, and turf writers talk about only in whispers among themselves.

I’m talking about the crooks. The cheaters. The unscrupulous owners, breeders, trainers, jockeys, track officials, and veterinarians who are at the heart of the sport’s credibility problem. They need to be identified and put out of business. The sport needs a massive cleanup from top to bottom.

Did you know that tracks don’t test for the same illegal medications every day? If not, then you might be interested in the story about the racing commissioner who also owned horses. He would call a steward to find out what tests were being conducted on a given day. Then he would tip off his trainer, who then tell would his veterinarian what he can use without fear of detection.

You don’t think stuff like that happens, probably more often than anybody knows? Well, it does. Everybody on the backstretch knows it does. Turf writers know it does. But nobody wants to be a whistleblower. If you want to survive on the racetrack, you buy into the code of silence.

Read More After the Jump:

We know the following for sure:

Horses do not medicate themselves. Somebody has to put a pill down their throats, clog their windpipes, or inject them.

Horses with bad legs do not send themselves to the racetrack. Instead, they are sent there by horsemen willing to risk a horse’s health or life in order to win a race or a bet or both.

Horses have no idea how much money is bet on or against them. But their owners, trainers, jockeys, and vets do – and many of them are looking for an edge any way they can get it.

At this point industry apologists will be grinding their teeth and accusing me of tarring everybody with the same brush. That’s nonsense. I believe the overwhelming majority of breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys and vets are honest. If I didn’t believe that, I would have turned my back on the sport long ago.

But every race track has a few crooks. I’d invite the FBI or state police to embed some agents on the backstretch, posing as grooms or hotwalkers. It wouldn’t take them long to hear the talk about what trainers and vets are “juicing” their horses – or about which horsemen are cozy with which racing officials and why they get preferential treatment.

The sport is supposed to be policed by state racing commissions, but most of those are as ineffectual as the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, the sport’s toothless police agency. Far too often, instead of appointing qualified racing commissioners, Governors use the positions to pay back friends and contributors who like the political prestige and social status of being on the racing commission.

You won’t read about any of this in the trade publications because they’re financed and supported by the industry upon which they report. Unsurprisingly, then, they’re basically apologists and cheerleaders for the industry.

You also won’t read about it in the mainstream media because by and large the mainstream media no longer covers thoroughbred racing as a beat, the way it covers other professional sports.

As recently as 1989-’90, when I was president of the National Turf Writers Association, the major dailies all had reporters covering the sport on a daily basis. Even then, however, far too many turf writers saw themselves as racetrackers more than reporters, meaning they ignore stories about cheaters because they didn’t want to jeopardize their popularity – and their sources – on the backstretch.

But now it’s even worse. Only a handful of turf writers remain. As a result, the public suffers. When the press abandons its constitutional obligation to be the public’s watchdog, cheating flourishes. The crooks operate more boldly, undeterred by the fear of apprehension and punishment.

The last time the C-J did a real investigation of the thoroughbred industry was 1972, when Jim Bolus and I teamed up for a series that won two national journalism awards – the Sigma Delta Chi Award for general reporting (we beat out Bernstein and Woodward) and the National Headliners Club for investigative reporting.

We examined two races on the 1972 Derby Day card and concluded that both had been fixed. The culprits include owners, trainers, jockeys, and a veterinarian. Our evidence was so overwhelming that it forced the Racing Commission to make rules changes and bring in Keene Daingerfield, the nation’s most respected racing official, to be chief state steward.

Here are a few things we learned during our investigation:

• Illegal drugs always are ahead of the methods to detect them.
• Unscrupulous horsemen and veterinarians care more about cashing a bet than the health and welfare of the horses in their care.
• Veterinarians operate below the radar and have far too little accountability.
• The industry’s attitude toward the novice owner or the casual bettor is the Latin phrase, “Caveat emptor,” or “Let the buyer beware.”
• The relationship between racing officials and horsemen often is too cozy.

Sadly, all that still is true today, 36 years after our investigation.

After the infamous “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, major-league baseball was forced to get serious about cleaning up its act, which resulted in the hiring of Judge Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis as commissioner. He was a “hanging judge” who imposed Draconian measures on cheaters, such as banning players who gambled for life.

Racing needs such a commissioner as much as it needs uniform national rules. The commissioner should be given a large staff of investigators and the authority to run the crooks out of racing. First-time cheaters should be punished severely and repeat offenders should be drummed out of the sport.

Draconian measures are needed. Let’s say an owner has a horse turn up positive in Kentucky. If that owner is hit with a huge fine and not allowed to race any of his horses anywhere for a certain period, I’d guess the chances of a second positive would be sharply reduced.

Mindful that a thoroughbred’s legs are fragile and that a certain percentage of breakdowns are inevitable, the sport should move toward dramatically reducing, if not entirely eliminating, most forms of medication. A horse with a bad leg will tend to break down no matter the track surface. Any trainer who shows a pattern of injuries or breakdowns should be suspended pending an investigation of his tactics.

The sport won’t change dramatically until the insiders, be they horsemen or turf writers or racing officials, muster the moral courage to call out the cheaters. Racing needs whistle-blowers as much as business or government or any other endeavor where illegal or unethical behavior has been allowed to flourish.

As breeder Arthur Hancock said years ago, racing needs to rid itself of “drugs and thugs.” The two are inexorably entwined. Deal with that problem first and lots of others will begin to clear up.