Now it's EPO. How did we get here?

Watch your back... Edgar Degas'
Jockey forward flexed standing in the saddle

We woke up yesterday, the day after the worst week for Australian racing in the modern era, to yet fresh infamy:

• Racing's dirty secret: New drug scandal to hit tracks
• Drug scandal threatens to engulf horse racing with allegations of widespread EPO use
• How Lance Armstrong's drug of choice has turned horse racing into a sport for cheats

Geez, Louise, how did we end up here? Toss in a rash of race-day stomach tubing, dubiously-connected owners, the Nikolic hearing, and the fact that Oliver is still riding -- for the chaps on TVN's Racing Review you could sense the barely-contained panic. For 87 minutes they held their noses rather than deal with the great steaming mound of manure in the middle of the room. With minutes left on the clock, the boys took in a little whiff, collectively gagged and then pulled the pin. It was simply all too hard.

The Spring's glittering gems now seem way off, barely visible in the twilight: a stellar Caulfield carnival, Dunaden's brilliant Cup, Pierro's tussle with All Too Hard in the Guineas, Ocean Park's superlative string of victories. All these gifts now buried in mud.

Matt Stewart in The Herald Sun has pulled together a brilliant shame file.  He concluded:

"But, sadly, this spring might be well be remembered as the spring where racing managed to isolate itself from the rest of the community by so much it might be impossible to bridge the gap."

What new effrontery awaits? Who is going to step up and clean up this mess?