As the Preakness approaches the trainer Doug O'Neill harassed by questions

As the Preakness approaches the trainer Doug O'Neill harassed by questions

Baltimore -. In the middle of the most time in his professional life, a horse trainer Doug O’Neill, the following work around a star

Reporters want to know about his Kentucky Derby-winning horse, I would like another. They want to know if O’Neill himself – how he got started, who he is, what he thinks about certain things. They want to know the young jockey Mario Gutierrez, who would have been too green to run in such races as he did Churchill Downs. They want to know the owner J. Paul Reddam, who made money in the loan business, and who named the horse reprising a scene at home, where he is sitting on the couch, eating a cookie and ask one of his wife.

But when the niceties were taken care of, they also want to know about the problems O’Neill has been with the horse-racing police, drug testers and plates, so fine and suspend the teachers to administer the medicine is perceived as a performance enhancer and illegal.

O’Neill is in the room, the elephant is there with him.

It is distressing to see. We have a bill of goods sold to O’Neill, who deserves an Oscar for acting -? “I swear by my children’s eyes,” he says, and what could be a convincing defense

Or racing police mistakenly destroyed one of the best stories and the people to join the race in one piece up. Most of the journalists after the session or two of O’Neill, O’Neill to get off at side. But no one really knows. When the Hall of Fame trainer Wayne Lukas said on Wednesday morning, “I’m not a judge and jury, and I want to print it out.”

O’Neill is not yet 44 years old, is rarely without a big smile, is it available in the media – and public – like any other shy Bob Baffert, and is basically, a husky, bearded teddy magnetic, modest humor. None of that, of course, to prove his innocence. It makes it just a desire.

The New York Times, rounded fragments of earlier this week, they added, and said that O’Neill was “more than a dozen violations in four states over 14 years.” It was not clear if it would be 13 000 or 13 violations has also been reported O’Neill had previously reported 15- day suspension and $ 1,000 fine last summer.

sake of clarity, O’Neill is accused of injecting horses HGH or LSD, or something very sexy-sounding, and performance changes. His prosecutors say that before the race, he is once again a rubber tube up the horse’s nose and flushed with a mixture of baking soda, water and sugar. This is the so-called “milkshaking.” It is designed to reduce fatigue and not what racing is a type of violation. It is a forgivable sin to compete, but to be punished, however.

O’Neill has been here last week and spent every day Fielding wave after wave of journalists ask. He did not show it is not excited about it. The trainer in Kentucky Derby winner is usually given at least three weeks in the window of respect, admiration and softball questions. Not this coach.

In one-on-one interview on Wednesday morning, O’Neill says, “We follow the rules down to the middle. We will be clean. I have vigorously denied these charges, and when we receive the final decisions and the truth is told, you can look forward to having a good story.”

He heads out of the press conference near the Barns Stakes here in Pimlico. The elephant-in-the-room questions begin immediately. In response to O’Neill is not the acid or the defensive. He told the gathered media members that he understands his job and that he had his shoes, he could ask the same thing.

“If it bleeds, it leads,” he says. “I can understand that.”

He goes on: “. I have surrounded myself here in a very riders Otherwise, I would be a dead man, I do not let it on the road.”.

Soon it is back to normal things.

“My horse is moving forward,” he says. “If anything, he is better now than he was the Kentucky Derby.”

asked Bode Baffert’s Meister, likely betting favorite, and super-fast verses he is expected to return, O’Neill says, “Bob has won five Preaknesses between Mario [jockey Gutierrez] and me, let’s see we have never even been in this race before . Bode Meister is doing well. “

O’Neill talks about throwing the first ball on Tuesday night at a Baltimore Orioles game:” It was high and inside, “he says. “If the batter would have been there, he would have a little chin music.”

He joked to see Preakness mascot, a man who called himself Kegasus, a long, cool hair, bare chest and legs on wheels behind him a description of half a horse. “Do you think a little silly,” O’Neill says, “and then you see something you know and click OK.”

Suppliers eventually run out, notebooks full of good thoughts, and disturbed other things. Say it is not so, Doug.

Down the row of houses, away from the noise, but never far from the action, 76-year-old godfather of the race, Luke, brooding over it, and the amount.

“I do not know Doug as well. He had just started when I went to California,” Luke says. “I know that he won the Kentucky Derby, and we do not need this kind of advertising.

” is a perception that the sport needs to be cleaned. The fact is that it’s not so bad. “

immediate reality is that the small star hanging over the Preakness, right or wrong, when the race can only afford a blue sky.

bill.dwyre @ latimes. Com