doping

The CBS news program "60 Minutes," which aired Sunday evening included a segment that covered horse racing's worst problems, horses breaking down and dying and the use of performance-enhancing drugs on horses. 60 Minutes often reaches as many as 12 million viewers. The segment was hosted by correspondent Cecilia Vega. Though the program gave ample time to Jockey Club Chairman Stuart Janney III, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority CEO Lisa Lazarus, Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural, and others who have been working to solve the problems, it left no doubt that...

The sentencing for barred trainer Jason Servis, the final--and most notoriously prominent--defendant in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy scandal, was rescheduled by a judge's order on Thursday, from May 18 to July 26. The May 4 court order got handed down four years to the date that the Servis-trained Maximum Security (New Year's Day) crossed the finish wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby. The colt was subsequently disqualified for in-race interference. Unbeknownst to Servis at the time, federal investigators had already begun compiling a trove of wiretapped phone conversations...

Edited Press Release New and enhanced anti-doping regulations took effect in U.S. Thoroughbred horse racing Monday following the Federal Trade Commission's approval of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's (HISA) Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program. HISA's ADMC Program, administered by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU), brings all testing and results management under one national authority, standardizes the categories of substances laboratories test for and institutes clear and consistent penalties for violations. In its authority as the independent administrator of the ADMC Program, HIWU is introducing to the...

The Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) program has proposed enforcing the screening limit of phenylbutazone at 300 ng/mL in blood, rather than the previously established screening limit of 200 ng/mL in blood. HISA will file Guidance with the Federal Trade Commission that will implement this change in the enforcement of the screening limit. The RMTC's Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) has been asked by industry stakeholders to review its withdrawal guidance of phenylbutazone based upon the updated proposed screening limit. Based on the updated screening limit of 300 ng/mL in blood...

NEW YORK--Standardbred trainer Nick Surick, who has admitted to doping his own horses as well as assisting Jorge Navarro in that trainer's own doping scheme, was sentenced to 62 months in federal prison Thursday by U. S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in United States District Court, Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan. Among the many defendants in the doping case that have come before Vyskocil, it was one of the longest sentences handed out and two months longer than the 60 months she gave Navarro. Navarro has...

The New York-based veterinarian Alexander Chan, facing three felony charges related to drug adulteration, misbranding, and wire fraud conspiracies for allegedly injecting purported performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) into racehorses trained by co-defendant Jason Servis and then hiding the billing for his services, cut a plea bargain with the government Monday. Chan's deal involved waiving indictment and pleading guilty to a single superseding information charge of drug adulteration and misbranding in exchange for the other charges against him being dropped, a format that is similar in substance to deals that other convicted...

Thomas Guido, III, a 57-year-old former Standardbred trainer based in the Northeast, became the third defendant in related criminal racehorse doping cases this week to be sentenced to prison. On Thursday, a federal judge put Guido behind bars for 20 months as part of an agreement with prosecutors in which Guido pleaded guilty to one felony count of substantive drug misbranding and adulteration with intent to defraud and mislead in exchange for three conspiracy charges against him being dropped. Guido was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Prior to...

The veterinarian Seth Fishman, who is currently imprisoned but appealing his 11-year sentence for two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has filed legal paperwork objecting to the $13.5-million forfeiture that was also imposed upon him, claiming the judge's order was illegal. "The forfeiture sought here is not authorized by statute and is therefore unlawful in its entirety," Fishman's attorney, Steven Kessler, stated in a Sept. 12 filing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York). "The Preliminary Order of Forfeiture (POF) seeks a...

Dr. Seth Fishman, the Florida veterinarian snared in the federal government's sweeping horse doping investigation, was sentenced Monday to an 11-year prison sentence in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The sentence is the longest meted out in the case that led to charges against 31 individuals, including prominent trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Fishman is the 11th to be sentenced, which includes Navarro. Most of the others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Servis faces trial next year. Fishman, who has been behind...

Six days before veterinarian Seth Fishman is to be sentenced for his two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, United States prosecutors told a judge he deserves a prison term greater than the 10 years recommended by federal probation officials, but below the maximum sentencing guideline of 20 years. The feds also recommended that the judge not use convicted trainer Jorge Navarro's five-year sentence-the most severe among prison terms meted out so far in this conspiracy-as a measuring stick, because Fishman's criminal actions had a multiplying...

Harness trainer Rene Allard, who was third in North America in both wins and purse earnings in the year before he was arrested and indicted in the March 2020 international doping conspiracy investigation, on Thursday changed his plea to "guilty" on one felony count of misbranding and altering drugs. Allard faces up to five years in prison when he gets sentenced Sept. 13. As part of a June 2 plea agreement in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, Allard also agreed to pay a $628,553 money judgment,...

Day three of Lisa Giannelli's horse doping trial Apr. 29 featured the cross-examination of a key government witness. Former New York harness trainer Ross Cohen had testified that Gianelli had sold him performance-enhancing drugs that he used to secretly dope horses under his care. He agreed to cooperate with the government after his arrest in 2020 in connection with the FBI's sweeping horse-doping probe. The investigation led to charges against a number of individuals including the prominent trainer Jason Servis. Under questioning by Giannelli attorney Louis Fasulo in U.S. District...