By Dr. PATRICK T. CONLEY

Though it is the most famous race in the United States, not all great horses run in the Kentucky Derby. Seabiscuit only displayed his greatness at an older age. In fact, Seabiscuit lost his first 17 races, was considered lazy, and was bought for $8,000 in 1936. Everything turned around after he got a new owner, Charles Howard, trainer, Tom Smith, and jockey, Red Pollard. With Pollard as his jockey, Seabiscuit won 18 races, including the “Race of the Century” in 1937, when he defeated War Admiral. When he retired in 1940, he was the highest-earning racehorse in U.S. history, with $437,730. Many Rhode Island residents do not realize that Pollard lived in Rhode Island for more than 20 years.

When researching her award-winning book on Seabiscuit. Laura Hillenbrand found that he was bigger news in newspapers than President Franklin Roosevelt or Adolf Hitler. An estimated 40 million people listened to his match race with War Admiral, including Roosevelt, who reportedly interrupted a cabinet meeting to hear the race. Hillenbrand’s book was turned into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Tobey Maguire as Red Pollard.

Though considered too tall at a towering 5 feet, 6 inches, Pollard left his home in Canada to pursue his dream of becoming a jockey. Unfortunately, he soon found himself nearly destitute, competing at racetracks in rural America. He initially compiled a relatively unremarkable record as a jockey, sometimes supplementing his modest income by boxing. For the next two decades, Pollard traveled the West Coast, pursuing his racing career in an environment that provided scant opportunity. He developed a reputation for successfully handling troubled horses using gentle methods.

In 1936 Pollard met Tom Smith, the trainer of a temperamental racehorse named Seabiscuit. Smith watched in amazement as Pollard immediately calmed the unruly horse with a sugar cube. From 1937 through 1939, Pollard rode Seabiscuit to a dazzling series of premier victories until Pollard suffered a severe injury. At the time, he and Seabiscuit were the best racing team in America. Red returned to racing, and in 1940, amid intense national publicity, he rode seven-year-old Seabiscuit for the last time to a stunning victory at the Santa Anita Handicap. It was Seabiscuit’s final race. Pollard rode other mounts until racing injuries forced him into retirement. Over his 30-year career, Pollard suffered severe injuries from serious spills, resulting in broken arms, legs, and hips. One spill resulted in a broken hip that kept him bedridden for months before he could ride again. While on the mend in a Boston hospital, Pollard fell in love with one of his nurses, Agnes Conlon. She became his wife of forty years. In 1950, the couple moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with their two children. They chose a home within walking distance of Narragansett Racetrack, Rhode Island’s nationally known racing venue and the scene of several Seabiscuit victories. Pollard became a fixture at the track, where he trained horses, instructed aspiring jockeys, and performed other duties. Pollard holds a special place in Jockey Guild history because he was one of its founding fathers and worked closely with America’s leading jockeys to create it in 1940.

He died in Pawtucket at age 72 on March 7, 1981.

John Pollard was inducted into the Canadian Jockey Hall of Fame in 1982, the Pawtucket Hall of Fame in 2012, and The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2015.

Dr. Patrick T. Conley is President of The Heritage Harbor Foundation and the former Director of Drug Testing at Narragansett Race Track.

Leading U.S. Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill Wednesday to remove marijuana from the list of federal controlled substances, following the Biden administration’s move a day earlier to significantly ease regulations on the drug.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, on Wednesday at a press conference applauded the Justice Department’s announcement it would move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

But they said it didn’t solve problems, including race-based discrimination, created by federal prohibition.

Instead, they promoted a bill that would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, while adding new federal regulations and oversight.

The bill “will help our country close the book once and for all on the awful, harmful and failed war on drugs, which all too often has been nothing more than a war on Americans of color,” Schumer said. “In short, our bill’s about individual freedom and basic fairness.”

Most Americans believe cannabis should be legalized, Schumer said.

The move announced Tuesday by the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration will ease some of the harshest restrictions on marijuana use under Schedule I, which lists the most dangerous and easily abused drugs without any medicinal value.

Schedule III drugs, which include Tylenol with codeine and anabolic steroids, are allowed to be studied and dispensed under certain guidelines.

DOJ move not enough, Dems say

The Tuesday announcement from the Justice Department didn’t go far enough, the trio said at a Wednesday press conference, and should be seen as a potential launching pad for further reforms.

“We want to disabuse people of the notion that because the White House moved yesterday, things are at a standstill here in the United States Congress,” Wyden said. “I look at this as a chance to get new momentum for our bill, for action on Capitol Hill.”

Fifteen other Senate Democrats have cosponsored the bill.

Communities of color and small businesses

The senators said that federal prohibition, even as many states have legalized medicinal or recreational use, has disproportionately harmed communities of color.

“I think it’s a great step that the Biden administration is moving in the direction of not making this a Schedule I drug — the absurdity of that is outrageous,” Booker said. “But honestly, the bill that we are reintroducing today is the solution to this long, agonizing, hypocritical, frankly unequally enforced set of bad laws.”

Federal prohibition has also blocked tax breaks for marijuana-related businesses, including small independent enterprises that Wyden, who chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee, said he is eager to help.

Wyden said he was excited about a provision in the bill to allow state-legal marijuana business access to a common tax break that allows small businesses to deduct business expenses.

With marijuana classified as a Schedule I substance, the federal tax break has not been allowed even for businesses that operate with a state license. Wyden said that small independent businesses “really get clobbered” under the current system. He indicated that his committee would look at more ways to reduce the tax burden for “small mom-and-pop” businesses.

The senators did not answer a question about if the legalization bill should be considered in tandem with a separate bill to allow state-legal marijuana businesses greater access to the banking system. Many banks refuse to do business with marijuana businesses out of fear they will be sanctioned as an accessory to drug trafficking.

New regulatory framework

The bill would automatically expunge federal marijuana-related convictions, direct the Department of Housing and Urban Development to create a program to help people who lost access to housing benefits because of marijuana convictions and establish a Cannabis Justice Office within the U.S. Justice Department.

It would direct funding to an Opportunity Trust Fund to help people and individuals “most harmed by the failed War on Drugs,” according to a summary from Schumer’s office. It would disallow possession of cannabis to be used against any noncitizen in an immigration proceeding and prevent withholding of other federal benefits from people who use the drug.

While the bill would remove cannabis from regulations under the Controlled Substances Act, it would add new federal oversight, making the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau the federal agency with jurisdiction over the drug.

The bill would establish a federal Center for Cannabis Products to regulate production, sales, distribution and other elements of the cannabis industry, instruct the Food and Drug Administration to establish labeling standards and create programs to prevent youth marijuana use.

It would also retain a federal prohibition on marijuana trafficking conducted outside of state-legal markets, ask the Transportation Department to develop standards on cannabis-impaired driving and have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collect data and create educational materials on cannabis-impaired driving.

RHODE ISLAND — The countdown is on for Rhode Island residents who haven’t gotten their REAL ID cards. After moving the deadline for getting the gold star required to board domestic flights and certain federal offices, Homeland Security officials set May 7, 2025, as the final date.

COVID-19 backlogs in state agencies charged with issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards prompted the last REAL ID extension in late 2022. The original 2020 deadline to get REAL IDs had been extended multiple times because of the pandemic.

After May 7, 2025, federal agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, will no longer accept identification that does not meet the new standards.

The REAL ID Act of 2005 was passed by Congress in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In addition to the stars, REAL ID cards are built with technology that makes them more difficult to forge, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rhode Island residents who don’t plan to fly domestically or visit a federal office don’t need to do anything. A REAL ID isn’t required to get a driver’s license. Also, the TSA won’t require children under 18 to provide identification when they’re traveling with an adult companion within the United States, but the companion must have acceptable identification.

The REAL ID is not a substitute for a passport required for international travel, and it also does not affect the ability to vote or register to vote, applications for federal benefits, enter federal facilities that don’t require identification, obtain medical care, or participate in police proceedings or investigations.

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