Eric Hamelback of the Nat’l HBPA

But Eric is from one of those groups from the HPP.

Eric, good morning. How are you man?

I'm doing great. Tell everyone what you do for a

living while you move the mic a little closer to your mouth.

There we go. All right, How about that?

All right. The officiates football, that's

what. He does.

That's right. That's right.

That's right. So, no.

Great to be here. Yeah.

Good to see you guys. It's always wonderful to be out

here on the backside, you know, just just as a horseman.

This is where you feel at home. Yeah, but as the CEO for the

national HBPA, I'm, I'm very honored.

I'm going into my 9th year, glad to be the representative for our

affiliates. We are the largest of the legal

horsemen's representative groups here in the United States.

We have about 30,000 individual members.

I've got 23 affiliates here in the States and then we also

stretch into Canada as well. So I am as a trade association.

By definition, I'm the mouthpiece, as it were for my

board. The HBPA, if many don't realize

it, of all of the alphabet soups in horse racing, which.

Acronym are you? Yeah, we are the one that is

elected, right. So our members, just like your

members of state government and federal government, the members

of the affiliate elect, the board of directors and that

board of directors then sits on my full board.

Every member has a seat, and so I end up being the person the

designee that will partake in their their representation

throughout the country. Which means that everyone agrees

with you and then like everything.

'S like, you know, obviously, yeah, it's horse racing.

Everyone gets along. It's easy to get 28 people to.

Agree on the same time 28. Good Lord he is Eric at Eric the

Tiger on Twitter. He's an LSU guy so joins us here

on ESPN, 680-1057 ahead of Kentucky Derby 150.

We are backside here. Otter Bone Cole Horse Racing

Happy Hour Takeover Edition I I'm reminded one of the reasons

I love doing these shows back here for three days.

Eric is just the reminder that once you get inside the walls of

this place, there is a new city. This is almost a walled city.

It's almost like we're in ancient Greece and there are

just tons and tons of people whose livelihoods completely

depend on this place. Yeah, no, I mean, to me it's,

it's the best gated community around.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it's an economy.

It it's it provides not only entertainment for the outside

world it provides a living for those inside and and it is an

economic driven industry. We are entertainment based.

But at the end of the day, being on the backside, understanding

what it's like to be back here, having the appreciation of what

goes on every day, and I mean every day, that helps and and

people understand it and and it's it's nice to share it on

the big days like this, but it happens year round.

We got thousands of people, though, getting a paycheck.

Literally. From the from the teller on the

front side to the to the hot Walker on the backside.

And you know, they might not all be getting a check from

Churchill Downs directly, but it's amazing when people get

back here, I think, and really, truly understand the economic

reach of the sport and how many and all walks of life is, how it

impacts those people so. Absolutely.

You know, the American Horse Council has always been good

about doing economic impact studies and the racing sector

alone. So taking the equine industry

and carving out the racing sector, you're looking at a $62

billion impact in the United States.

So. So that's that ain't nothing,

right. I mean at the end of the day, it

is a driver in the economy. And when you look at the

agrarian base that all of the satellite industries that

support it, whether you're talking about growing hay,

you're talking about growing grain for feed.

You know, you talk about steel, building fences and all of the

parts that go into the day-to-day work within the

backside of a racetrack or a farm or a thoroughbred farm.

I mean it's it's an economic driver in the United States and

we want to keep it that way. It's an industry.

Yes, it is a sport. It is an entertainment but at

the end of the day it's an industry for so many like you

say, I mean we we being me as well.

It's all I've done professionally since I left the

racetrack is be in this industry and and that I think is

sometimes not appreciated. Everybody sees it as a sport.

They think of it maybe as polo or, you know, something

something a little bit different than an economic driver.

Eric Camelback's with us. He is the CEO of the National

HBPA. What does the HBPA stand?

For Horseman's Benevolent and Protective association, so.

He is very protective but not quite as benevolent as he should

be. Now it look, it's happening in

Kentucky right now. It's happening.

The horse racing's happening here and you you're Lexington,

you know resident you know obviously Keeneland here 45

minutes N you Turfway. The new renovation, the new

track, Ellis Park, what's going to be happening there?

The thing that is Kentucky Downs that we all love, right?

What? What is Kentucky doing that

other states could do, And what could Kentucky get better at?

Well, at the end of the day, I think the biggest point that I

would highlight is that when you look at the state

representatives in the state of Kentucky, they appreciate horse

racing. They appreciate again the

industry side of it, the economic side of it, the tourism

side of it. And so when you have a group of

legislators that actually appreciate horse racing, it

allows you to expand the industry without harming the

industry. So you look at HHR, right, the

historical horse racing machines that have you know been prolific

in the state and now we're seeing them expand other states

such as Virginia, Arkansas, I mean those those factors that

that allow to expand horse racing without harming it,

that's the key. And and you do you have a few

states that are starting to mimic that, I mentioned

Virginia, that's, that's moving something that's very recent is

Wyoming, right. Nobody really thinks about horse

racing in Wyoming. But again, very agronomist based

state and horse racing is getting the benefit of some of

the things that they're mimicking from the state of

Kentucky. And I think again, and there are

plenty of states such as Louisiana and Arkansas that also

have been able to marry themselves with good gaming

providers that that also appreciate horse racing.

Because at the end of the day, you know, we always try to

emphasize there would be no horse racing.

I'm sorry, there would be no gaming if you didn't have horse

racing, right. You look at every state and I

always point to West Virginia because it was the one that, you

know, really seemed to take off. They're allowed.

Gaming facilities were based on the fact that they already had

para mutual wagering. You know where I grew up in, in

North Louisiana, you know, it started out at Louisiana Downs.

That's where I started when I was 14 years old.

And what happened, they brought in the river boats, right?

Because at the time you could only do it on the river, but

that you know expansion came because of horse racing.

So it's important for us to make sure that we continue the to

push the fact that we were here 1st and that there is going to

be a tax at times where you're going to help us with our purses

and the race tracks such as Oaklawn.

National HBPA joining us here on ESPN 680-1057.

It's a fascinating thing to watch because you and I were

talking about this off air. I I see horse racing is not

different than other sports. And I try to talk about it as

much as I possibly can, and I know it's different.

Every sport has it's it's, you know, idiosyncrasies and things.

But I try to talk about horse racing as part of just the

normal fabric of of this show. And one of the things that I see

happening in horse racing is similar to what's happening in

college sports. PAC 12 doesn't exist anymore,

and a lot of those teams have moved to places that are

centered around Indianapolis and Dallas, right?

Those kinds of towns and there's all sorts of things.

Horse racing seems to be doing something very similar, which is

moving away from the coasts in its focus or at least in its

forward thinking. Now they do get the new building

at Belmont. So that's a real positive in my

mind at least, right. So there's at least state level

investment going on, on Long Island in New York City.

That's a good thing. But we see the growth going in

those places that you talked about.

I mean, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana's becoming a great state

right north of us. Frankly, I think about 35% of

the people listening right now live in Indiana.

And so it's a we're seeing this kind of movement to the middle

of the country. I think eventually we'll see a

movement back out of the middle of the country.

That's that neither here nor there could be 30 years from

now, I don't know, but we're seeing that happening.

Am I? Am I making a decent comparison

here? I think you've made a great

comparison and I would be honest and say it wasn't something I

had really thought of in that fashion.

But when you team got to listen to the show more exactly when

you when you when you team, you know my thoughts which I've

always had this term, you know, degree of separation from

agriculture and a lack of appreciation for horse racing

based on the fact that kids don't quote UN quote like me

grow up on a farm, right. And we have less and less of

that. So using your theory, I believe

it makes a lot of sense because where is the agrarian based

society still in the United States and they are more towards

the middle. I mean Prairie Meadows is doing

wonderful things. Nebraska is is on the.

Tell me about Nebraska. Yeah, Nebraska is really on the

rise and again they've they've been able to team up with a good

state legislative group as well as a good gaming group and they

appreciate horse racing. So I think that makes a lot of

sense. And and again, if you go to Oak

Lawn, if you haven't been to Oak Lawn, it's always been my

favorite racetrack. And I say that because kind of

growing up there, it's the only racetrack that I have a picture

of in my office. It's that special to me.

And when you see that many people support it because of the

horse, not necessarily the gaming because of the horse,

that's the magic that gets people to the racetrack.

Yeah, I think that's actually fascinating too, because now the

gaming aspect is coming into the other sports, right?

That's another way when they're coming to meet us and how they

complement each other and whatever else and and we're

growing from it. These purses that we're seeing

here this week at Churchill Downs are fantastic.

Yeah, the, the purse structure here in in Kentucky, I mean

right now I don't think you can say it's matched anywhere.

But again, you know, you look at the KTDF program and and the way

that the Kentucky bred is able to go outside the state of

Kentucky and still earn money along with the HHR inflection.

I think that all of that has just been a again a long.

I'm always going to appreciate the state representatives

because they're the ones that really make it happen for us to

be able to enjoy this and keep it within the industry of horse

racing, as opposed to some that just let let gaming expand to

the point where it actually is a detriment to horse racing.

I'm pretty sure we talked about this last year, but I think it's

something that it's always worth revisiting the call to have a

legislative body over all of horse racing progress towards

that. Where do you think we stand?

Or or or and what are the biggest?

Should there be prospects? Yeah.

Should there be progress? Or so, you know, I get the

comparison a lot of there should be a commissioner like there is

in the NFL or like there is NBA or something NBA, whatever.

The the one thing that I try to highlight very quickly and get

people to understand is, you know, players, unions, you know,

they have contractual obligations that they can go

through with their ownerships groups.

It's not like that in horse racing, right?

Maybe there's a lot of us that would love to have a little bit

more of a collective bargaining sort of power.

But at the end of the day, the reason that a commissioner, and

again this is, this is my opinion, I'm not voicing a

national HBPA opinion here. My opinion is no one really

understands the fact that horse racing is based on law, right?

Most people see rules. Most people see Eric throwing a

flag on a holding penalty. That is a rule.

Yes, we have rules and regulations and they use that

term, but at the end of the day it's in state statute or now

under HISA regime, it's in federal statute.

That's a law. So to have a commissioner who

can oversee the entire horse racing entity, I think is a bit

unattainable. You know, you have 32 owners in

the NFL, you have 32 owners maybe in one race at times,

especially with the the partnership groups now.

So I don't think it's attainable.

I'm not necessarily saying that there isn't a structure that can

help coordinate things. I mean, I think when you look at

the history of horse racing, why was the NTRA developed?

The NTRA was developed originally, and I'm going way

back. It was developed to bring about

people and educate them on horse racing, period, right.

You know, I always had this dream of having, you know, Jerry

Bailey jump off a horse and slam a Gatorade, you know, something

to get the connection. That's what the NTRA was

originally devised to do it. It hasn't really evolved into

that. But again, race tracks have

tended to become more of their own marketers, not the industry.

You know, I always look at the PGA with Pre Tiger, they got

together and they said we're going to develop a fund, it's

going to come from purse structure and we're going to

advertise golf. We're not going to advertise

Augusta or Torrey Pines or any venue.

We're going to advertise golf. That's the missing link that has

happened in the horse racing industry when the NTRA didn't

become that, that broadcasting body of educating the United

States on horse racing. So can we get to that point?

I hope so. Is it going to be under a single

Commission or commissioner? I don't think so at all.

Eric Hamel back with us from the National HBPA.

The the interesting thing that you just mentioned there is

something I think Mike and I have tried to do on our podcast

is we we just go to the spots where the big races are

happening. We try to talk to people where

they are on the ground and get the idiosyncrasies of their

tracks and get the idiosyncrasies of their owners.

And you know, Doug O'Neill has a bit of the, you know, the feel

of a Kenny Mcpeak West of the Rockies, you know, this kind of

stuff, whatever, right? Just getting these feelings

around the country. And one of the great things

about horse racing is the regionality.

Of Yeah, absolutely. I mean that, you know, that's

the thing and and the one thing that you guys have been great

about too, you know, most, most, I don't want to say they're all

like Bill Belichick, but most horse trainers are, you know,

they're they're private folks. They're hard working and they're

not really. They're scheduled there and

they're scheduled. Very scheduled.

And so that's why we need an organization to really promote

horse racing. But at the end of the day, the

regionality, I mean, yes, it creates some of the separation,

but it also creates the competition, right?

I mean, it's, you know, it's like the SEC in Big 10, you

know, you got people from different parts of the country

and when they come together for competition, that makes it fun,

that makes it exciting. That's obviously what makes a

Derby so cool. Plus now we got international

competition. Yeah, I was.

Boy, you predicted my next question, Zach.

Let's take a break, though. We'll come back with Eric,

10:40, we'll talk to Ron Mulquet.

He's down at Oaklawn Park. Speaking of.

We're going to, we're going to just look.

Matt's welcome. Matt's welcome comes on the

happy hour five times, gets a job at Oakland.

I'm just elevate people. It is what it is.

These are things. Eric comes on here, he gets to

keep the job. It is what it is.

What it is. All right, but we are presented

by the Kentucky HBPAKYHBP a.com. Go check them out.

Jenny sitting right next to me, which is the first time she sat

down since about 4:30 this morning.

Videos, which. Stall.

Are you? Living in.

Which stall are you? Actually, in this is her

apartment right here. Yeah, she keeps those cactuses

right there. All right, we are presented by

them. Go check them out.

Tons of great articles, videos, pictures from around the track

for sure as we get ready for Kentucky Derby 150.

Louie, your bowl alongside Mike Adolfo Horse Racing Happy Hour

Takeover over BOCO. More with Eric Campbell back

next here, ESP at 680-1057. As an LSU fan, knowing how much

the University of Florida embraces Tom Petty, can you

enjoy Tom Petty? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

All right. Absolutely.

Florida's not a threat to LSU. No, not anymore.

Three or eight walking through that door.

That's right, talk about Kentucky.

Urban Meyer's not coming. Through oh man.

But Eric Camelback is with us. He is the CEO of the national

HBPA. The word benevolent is in there

somewhere. We were talking about a lot of

different things, but we, I mean, look, some of the advocacy

that you're working on right now deals with a federal legislation

known as HISA Hyssa. And I I think that almost

certainly the people that put it together thought they were

well-intentioned and we're going to do good things.

But we talked about the regionalities and the

differences around the country, Eric, as far as medication

testing and different things. I I always laugh this day

because I'll look and a horse was on Lasix for example in

Louisiana in a grated stakes but they weren't in Kentucky or

something. And these kinds of talk about

what you're working on right now.

I I can't. I can't really.

I don't want to lead you down a path.

No, no, that's fine Louis. Thank you.

I I mean I want to obviously open up and say that you know

with the intended the intention of passing HISSA, the Horse

Racing Integrity and Safety Act. I would not sit here and say

that our goals as an organization were different.

That and being said uniformity within testing uniformity within

wanted that uniform from state to state.

We all want safety regulations to be increased but safety

regulations definitely take into effect the regionality.

You can't treat a racetrack at Santa Anita the exact same way

you treat a racetrack. It's at Churchill.

So we don't want, you know, a pigeon holed.

Everything has to fit in this square mentality for that.

But under the Hissa regime, we were very open in our analysis

of the bill well before it was passed.

We advocated against the bill. We, alongside advocating with

other horsemen's groups for many years, understood that and felt

that and certainly still believe that Hissa is unconstitutional

on its face. OK, so set that aside.

We also are law abiding citizens.

Horsemen have never been regulators.

You know, you hear all of that to me.

Very frustrating rhetoric that, Oh well, Horseman had, you know,

decades to quote, UN quote. Get it right.

And you are the reason HISSA is there now.

No, people horsemen have always been regulated.

We have never been regulators and so we were not the ones

putting everything together. As a matter of fact, a lot of

the leadership still remains the same and there's problems with

that. So, but we understand it's the

law of the land, it is a federal law.

And while we are litigating HYSSA and currently there are

four cases that are active engaging the Constitutionality

Act also including the one Louis that you bring up West Virginia

and the state of Louisiana that is case three.

That is what has them enjoined from HISSA all together.

So those two states, along with Texas, along with Nebraska,

don't operate under HISSA for various reasons.

But the states who are participating, we understand

it's the law. But we're also trying to,

alongside of the fact we are litigating, we are still trying

to do what we can to work to make things better because the

the courts are going to decide what they're going to decide.

And I respect Miss Lazarus from the standpoint of she has a job

to do. Who is Miss Lazarus?

So I'm sorry. Lisa Lazarus is the CEO for the

Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act.

She has a job to do. She's outside the litigation

right now. Her goal is to get the

uniformity horse racing is all looking for and find a way to

make it work. So now during the litigation,

yes, our organization does try to have some positive impact on

what can be changed. You know, we openly say that the

the construct of the bill did not have all the right people at

the table. And I don't think you can deny

that. Now when you look at some of the

things that have tripped Hissa up and high woo the horse racing

integrity and welfare unit, the the testing enforcement aspect.

Now you're seeing some of the problems that we quite frankly

in DC waved the flag saying this is a problem.

And I often now start my conversations in DC with, you

know, I carry around my I told you so flag because not not to

be, not not to be obstinate, certainly not to be an

obstructionist. Like I get labeled on Twitter

all the time. We were there and wanted to try

to make it right, to make it better.

And I've said actually to miss Lazarus if they would have just

adopted a model rules of one state.

I always laugh and say pick a state.

Kentucky, California, New York adopted that set of model rules

and moved forward. There would have been much more

buy in because the adjudication would have been the same and

ultimately. Everyone would have understood

the rules at the outside as well, right?

And and the enforcement which has become very much a problem

and you know, so for our mission right now, our biggest advocacy

really revolves around what I term no effect thresholds and

that's not new. You know, I don't want any of

your or listeners to think that, you know, we just pulled this

out of the hat. We have always really tried to

advocate for no effect thresholds.

So what does that mean when you're testing for race horses

Now the testing sensitivity and I would say in the last decade

has become so sensitive that we are picking up things that are

in the environment. If you look at the EPA, so the

Environmental Protection Agency, when they test drinking water,

drinking water, they don't test below or anything I would say in

the picogram level. For humans.

For humans, that makes it a legal drinking water, so, but

what's happening in our industry is that we have a presence of

sort of mentality. If it's in the horse, no matter

what the quantity, you're going to have a violation.

Can you give an example here? So Eric Campbell back with the

CEO of the national HBPA, So the give an example of this

environmental versus something that would have been

administered by a physician or whatever, something like you

know, some kind of veterinarian. What, what's an example?

You know what, let's do it. Let's make it personal.

Pick someone who has probably had an environmental issue and

what that was, who it was and then what the penalty was.

Well, I I'd like to pick Rusty Arnold because he's been very

vocal. I feel very comfortable talking

about his situation because I'm passionately supporting.

By the way, been on this show? Terrific guy clearly cares.

Yes, Good Guy cares about the horses.

Exactly. So he had a horse who tested

positive for a human medication called Tramadol.

Tramadol is essentially an anti-inflammatory, the.

Anti inflammatories, it should be said, is a big part of horse

racing. Absolutely.

For horses. They're like every other athlete

on the on the planet that Anti not having inflammation is a

good thing. Absolutely.

So a legal anti-inflammatory just decides.

Like Tylenol? Exactly so.

So Tylenol or Advil in the horse world is called Butte, right?

Banamine is another one, Ketophen is another one.

Now you can't use them all together.

We call that stacking. But as a professional athlete,

yes, anti inflammatories are positive.

But this is not tramadol, is not a medication.

Normally I'm not going to say never, but normally is not an

equine specific anti-inflammatory.

Therefore, when a horse gets exposed to it in some fashion,

whether it could be, you know, rubbing lips on a stall wall or

a webbing or in often cases what's happened is you might

have a groom who urinates in the stall, infects the straw of the

bedding and the muzzle of the horse connects with that.

And you'll have a trace level of of what we call transfer

contaminant, which ultimately then will cause a positive.

But what we're trying to institute, what we're trying to

bring to light is from a scientific view at what effect

would that medication have something to perform or to

enhance performance in a horse, right.

And so that's why we say no effect thresholds.

We believe that in most circumstances even looking at

methamphetamine, cocaine, you know there are, there are

contaminant levels that you will find in the environment.

Many legal medications like Metformin, you know we tested

two different water sources at racetrack in Indiana and we

found metformin in the drinking water at at micro levels.

So again it's in the environment and you know 10-15 years ago

when the laboratory equipment wasn't as sensitive, it wasn't a

problem. Now we see it as a problem.

We're trying to get to the point, but what's the point,

right? Why are we fighting so hard to

express no effect threshold? Because the public sees every

positive as a negative, right. If you get a positive test, our

racing public suffers for it. And what ends up happening under

the current regime and, and I'm going to use this term, the term

now is you're guilty until proven innocent.

It's entirely different adjudication process than

historical and I would say constitutional.

So you know you're done, you know based off some

circumstances until we get it quote UN quote adjudicated.

But there's an there's a threshold amount, a no effect

threshold amount that we're trying to get to, but we also

feel that it's because we don't want there to be any more black

eyes on horse racing when it isn't really causing a problem.

I got two things for this. Eric Campbell back with us from

the National HBPA. Do you remember Shakari

Richardson, the sprinter who couldn't go to the Olympics

because of marijuana? From and I.

From LSU, right. And I remember at the time I, I,

I was doing shows with Dan and I and I said I I think she should

get to go. Like this isn't performance

enhancing. I mean like if she's stressed

out and she, you know, pops a gummy or something that's going

to help her Sprint. I mean, she's.

Not in the rifle, yeah. Right, right, right.

Exactly. No, that's exactly right.

Yeah. She's not doing biathlon here,

you know, those sorts of things. The the other one was something

that I completely forgot now. Dog.

Dog on it. I'm sorry for talking.

No, no, it's OK, the scare, Rich said.

One reminds me of that, though, but like this idea of what?

What is performance enhancing? What isn't?

Right. I mean you know and and there

are certainly levels of the same medication that could be

considered performance enhancing.

But if you look at you know one of the medications that we're

really dealing with now is metformin.

Metformin is anti diabetic drug or I guess diabetic drug, I

guess how you say that, but it is, I believe I'm quoting this

correctly, the third most prescribed medication in the

United States, right. So it's everywhere.

It's going great here, us fat. People and you know.

I'm pointing a microphone. When you when you compare often

as I do, what does it on the water list.

So the World Anti Doping Association list Metformin is

not a performance enhancing medication with water yet the

metformin positives have been very prolific and you know

unfortunately but in horse racing and we're trying to deal

with it and make and create an understanding for the folks at

High Wu that you know we need to push for a no effect threshold

because we and in particular the public don't need to be alerted

to something that doesn't have a performance enhancement in the.

Horse. The stunning thing about this is

in the United States generally, you know if you're on trial

they'll release you on probation essentially, right.

And and you know you got to show up to, you got to show up for

the trial and you got to do those things.

This, I mean a guy like Rusty Arnold, this is essentially

detainment. It's career detainment.

It really is. And that's a that's a really, I

think people lose sight of this. So we I've had Jonathan Wong on

the podcast. A couple.

Times. Yeah, great.

Guy, right, right, right. Bay Area guy really tried to

slug it out of Golden Gate Fields.

I mean, like one of these guys that literally is trying to

prop, he had a horse in every race out there for a while.

I mean, like he and even he had to move to Kentucky and then

there's an environmental issue and he's done two years, They

just tell hey, you're going to jail, brother.

I mean, and they just did it. And it's it's literally messing

with people's livelihoods. I mean, we're talking families.

And when we talked about to open this interview, you get inside

the walls of this place and there's a freaking town.

You shut down part of that town. Exactly.

You know and you know, and the fact that it's, you know, in the

environment, obviously it's a societal problem when you're

looking at, you know, recreational drug use.

But we're not isolated, obviously.

You know, it's in every industry and we do a good job I think

from an educational standpoint and obviously trainers are doing

better at at getting to the point where they're educating,

you know, staff and help better, but you're not going to get rid

of it. You know Jonathan, his case is

you know, almost a mirror image of Mike Lauer again a trainer

from Indiana races tremendously here in Kentucky.

And yet the the, you know, you look at how the cases were

adjudicated and ultimately you know the the suspensions handed

down, certainly not uniform, but yet they both had grooms who had

prescriptions for it. They both had prescriptions for

it themselves. So, so there are some things

that still need to get worked out.

But again, I'm going to continue to preach and really focus on no

effect thresholds because we have the science even behind

drugs that we don't want to hear about like methamphetamine,

certainly metformin, certainly tramadol.

We have no effect thresholds and we're working to try to make

that at least something. Hi Wu will reach far and have

the understanding that the science is there.

This is not something we're just pulling out of our hat.

Well, congratulations on your pharmacy degree.

It's a fantastic accomplishment by you.

But he is Eric Campbell back at Eric the Tiger on Twitter.

You can go call him an obstructionist.

There he is with the national HBPA here Otter boat, go on

ESPN, 680-1057. We got to go.

But I I do encourage people. KYHBP a.com this week.

Go check them out for sure. Eric.

Here's what I want to do with you.

Can we do a series of chats with you on the podcast about what

you're working on? And I don't want to say bring on

like a someone to debate with you or whatever, but bring on

someone from a part of the industry that we want to talk

about. Can we do like a four or five

part series with you? Yeah, no, I'm I'm definitely

looking to put. Them on the spot, you know.

No, no, I I. If I do this in front of

thousands of people or the thirty listening to their show,

then he has to do it. That's right, right.

No, no, I I'm definitely up for that.

I mean, you know, we have some constraints that revolve around

the litigation, but at the end of the day, healthy debate is

where we need. I do remember, and I'll close

with this because I think it's an important anecdote, 2 years

ago, I interviewed Umberto riskfully because he was going

to try to move his tack here, right?

He just had a baby, the whole thing.

And I interviewed him and I and I did the Hey, do you feel like

you get a fair shake every time you go to the gate?

Question.