The issues of drugs in racing was back in the news recently, as the New York Racing Association banned Jeff Mullins and his horses from its tracks for six months, following Mullins’s attempt in the detention barn at Aqueduct to administer a substance to Gato Go Win last April.

Concern about the use of drugs in racing is widely documented, as is frustration with lack of uniform policies, long delays between infractions and consequences, and repeat offenders.

But next to tennis, racing might look pretty good.

The news broke last week that in his new book, Andre Agassi admits to having used crystal meth in 1997. He tested positive, and explained to the Association of Tennis Professionals that he’d ingested the substance by accident:

… the eight-time Grand Slam champion writes that he sent a letter to the ATP
tour to explain the positive test, saying he accidentally drank from a soda
spiked with meth by his assistant “Slim.”
…
Agassi said the ATP reviewed the case, accepted his explanation and threw it out. The tour responded with a statement, noting an independent panel makes the final decision on a doping violation.

“The ATP has always followed this rule, and no executive at the ATP has
therefore had the authority or ability to decide the outcome of an anti-doping
matter,” the statement said. (ESPN)

“Not our fault!” cries the ATP. “We didn’t let him off!”

OK, so that’s 12 years ago, and since then, according to the article, the International Tennis Federation “has begun overseeing anti-doping efforts on behalf of the ATP and WTA tours.”

Implication: nothing like this would happen now. The ITF is quoted in the article as describing tennis as having “one of the most rigorous and comprehensive anti-doping programs in sport.”

So let’s take a look at an incident last summer, when Richard Gasquet tested positive for cocaine.

His excuse: he got it from kissing a woman. And the ITF bought it.

Richard Gasquet escaped a lengthy doping ban Wednesday when the International
Tennis Federation’s tribunal panel ruled that he inadvertently took cocaine by
kissing a woman in a nightclub.

The 23-year-old Frenchman, who was cleared to resume playing after completing a 2½-month ban on Wednesday, convinced the independent anti-doping tribunal that he ingested cocaine with the kiss with the woman he had just met. (CBS Sports)

The Times of London provides further details:

Gasquet said that he exchanged a dozen French kisses with Pamela “and good ones,
too”. This version was contested by the waitress — who said she shoved him aside
after one kiss — but it was upheld by the tribunal.

The tribunal’s judgment said: “He kissed her at least seven times, each kiss lasting about five to ten seconds.”

According to the article, forensic tests supported Gasquet’s story (about the process of ingestion, not the quality or quantity of the kisses), and Gasquet thus escaped severe punishment.

Gasquet had committed no significant fault, the tribunal judgment said. “As
a healthy single young man who is not often able to go out and enjoy himself
in the evenings, it is not unnatural that he should have been attracted to
Pamela, to the point of kissing her. He is not the first young man to have
done such a thing.”

Nonetheless, the tribunal did question Gasquet’s judgment and imposed a two and a half month suspension on the French tennis player, because he had “placed himself in an environment where contamination with a prohibited substance was a risk” (Times of London).

The Gasquet incident in particular seems to have parallels, if inexact ones, in horse racing; in a recent case in Texas, Steve Asmussen was suspended for six months after one of his horses was found to have low levels of a metabolite for lidocaine in its blood. The minute levels of the substance in both the Gasquet and Asmussen cases indicate contamination rather than intentional ingestion or administration, but while Gasquet’s London tribunal apparently believed that extenuating circumstances warranted an individualized consequence, the Texas Racing Commission operates under a zero-tolerance policy and hit Asmussen with a serious suspension, regardless of intent or amount.

Should Gasquet have been held to a more rigorous standard? Should he have been held responsible for what was in his body, regardless of how it got there? Should the Texas Racing Commission be willing to acknowledge nuances and allow for flexibility in its punishments?

One thing’s for sure: I’ll bet those NYRA guys didn’t have nearly as much fun talking to Mullins as that European tribunal did talking to Gasquet. Five to ten second kisses—good ones, too—indeed.