Dope me up, doc!

Tainted polka dots
And Gerolsteiner thought they had such a good tour...
Big Brown was pretty good too

We've got lots of doping news today. Before I get to that, I want to apologize to my loyal readers for not posting anything yesterday. I was in Brooklyn, visiting with my cousins Ali and Jenny and my uncle Barry. Jenny, her husband and two sons live in Bend, Oregon, and don't make it to this side of the continent very often. Ali lives in Alaska, and makes it down from the snow north even less often. Barry lives in DC, but I still don't see him very much.

So it seemed like a good time to go down to the city and see everyone. In the excitement, I forgot to post anything last night. I'm sorry. In related news, Uncle Barry, a political scientist, brought up this point about the upcoming election: Why, when selecting our president, do Americans want a "regular" person? Why is "regular" a desirable quality for President, when we would never want a "regular" doctor, a "regular" lawyer, a "regular" plumber, or a "regular" teacher for your children. No, of course not, you want the best doctor, lawyer, plumber, or teacher you can find. Right? What gives. Anyway, something to thing about.

But, like I said, there's lots of doping news to discuss.

It was reported on Monday that Bernhard Kohl, third at this year's Tour de France, and winner of the King of Mountains jersey, had tested positive for CERA, a new-generation blood booster, for which a test was only recently been developed.

He is the fourth rider from this year's tour to test positive for doping products. The response has been typical: Gerolsteiner, Kohl's team, suspended itself. German cycling shat the bed. And Kohl's new team for 2009, Silence-Lotto, anounced that it was "shocked," as did several of his team mates.

At least, it seems, that people are still more excited about Lance's comeback than they are mad about Kohl. But, I have to say, cycling is still forging the way in dealing with doping. Another sport that I'm aware of and occasionally shanghied into writing about, is just now starting to contemplate doping. That is, of course, horse racing.

Today, the New York Racing Association announced that starting on Jan. 1, it would ban all but four types of horse steroids. All but four? Give me a break.

Also, the punishment for violating the lax doping rules for horse racing is a $5,000 fine against the owner. As far as I'm concerned, in a sport where people recently spent $1.7 million in a horse auction, this fine is about as much of a deterent as Major League Baseball's rule of suspending players caught doping -- for ten games -- ie, a slap on the wrists.

So, it sucks that cycling is tarnished by yet another doping scandal, but at least doping is now out in the open in cycling, unlike in horse racing, where doping is still surrounded by a veil of secrecy similar to cycling's omerta of the '90s. Also, do we really think they are going to test every horse that races at a place like Saratoga? A testing program of that magnitude would be hugely expensive, and today's news included no information about who would be carrying out testing, or who would pay for it.

So, we can believe that horse racing will be clean... just like cycling.