drugs in racing

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...

NEW YORK--Standardbred trainer Chris Oakes, who has admitted to supplying Jorge Navarro with performance- enhancing drugs as well as using illegal drugs with his own horses, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday. In October, Oakes, 57, pled guilty to one count of misbranding and drug adulteration with intent to defraud or deceive. The decision was handed down by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York before a small audience that included Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. Under the sentencing...

Animal remedies banned for use in racehorses were seized during a raid of a farm in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare, on Tuesday, the Irish Field reports. The raid was conducted by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine acting on their own investigations and information received. The horses at the facility are under the care of various trainers. "On Tuesday, 9th November 2021, authorised officers acting on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine carried out an enforcement operation supported by Gardai attached to the Kildare-Laois drug...

Note from the publisher: If you're like many of us, you have been assailed by friends, family and members of your community as you have gone about your daily life for the past two weeks. "Was the horse drugged? Was it the cream?" I never thought I'd be discussing picograms at pickleball, but here we are. Sunday brought a new wave of texts and emails with the publication of an op/ed from the New York Times editorial board, and a devastating article in the New Yorker. People I haven't heard...

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) advanced a proposal Dec. 8 that will create a set of new regulations designed to curb clenbuterol's off-label abuse as a lean muscle mass builder. The move is part of a trend this year among North American racing jurisdictions aiming to eliminate clenbuterol's misuse as a performance enhancer while putting in place restrictions that will still allow the drug to be prescribed for its intended purpose as a bronchodilator to treat airway disease. The new Kentucky rules on clenbuterol will require 1) A specific...

The New York clenbuterol clampdown that was foreshadowed earlier this month by New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) equine medical director Scott Palmer, VMD, has been codified into a series of proposed rule amendments that advanced Nov. 30 by a unanimous 5-0 commission vote. The new clenbuterol regulations follow a model rule of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) that was approved last August. After publication in the New York State Register and a public commentary period, the commission will have to vote again to formally adopt the changes....

Editor's Note: In Monday's TDN, Bill Finley made reference to Mark Casse's comments on Clenbuterol in a Mar. 2 Op/Ed in the TDN. Casse sent us this note in response. Much has changed since my Mar. 2 Op/Ed with regards to Clenbuterol. Canada made big changes to their Clenbuterol policy and, as a result, we have seen almost none of the nonsensical form reversals that had haunted us in the past at Woodbine in 2020. I was elated to see the Clenbuterol changes for 2021 in the Mid-Atlantic region. Also,...

The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) on Sept. 21 suspended Standardbred trainer Michael Temming for 20 years after two of his horses tested positive for a blood doping agent in a pair of December 2019 races at Yonkers Raceway. The Paulick Report first reported the story, describing the drug involved as IOX-2, a stabilizer of hypoxia-inducible factor, which is known as a blood and gene doping agent. TDN reported back in January that when the New York Equine Drug Testing Program announced the detection of this drug in Temming's...

In a settlement agreement and mutual release with the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), leading California trainer John Sadler has been fined $15,000 and handed a 60-day suspension--45 days of which are stayed--for three medication violations dating from 2019. The suspension runs June 29 through June 13. As part of the agreement, Sadler has been placed on probation for one year, ending June 28, 2021. If he incurs any medication violations during that period, the 45 days of stayed suspension will be imposed following a noticed hearing. As first reported...

Patience is a virtue in racing, and trainer Brendan Walsh showed it in spades over the winter with his first Grade I winner, Godolphin's Maxfield (Street Sense). A blowout victor of the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity last fall, the homebred was slated to be one of the favorites in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, but had to be scratched with an ankle injury and was slowly brought along by Walsh to a triumphant sophomore debut in the GIII Matt Winn S. Saturday, almost eight months after his last start. The...

Trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis have both racked up well-above-norm winning ratios of 29% since 2017, and no Thoroughbred horseman in this day and age can sustain such gaudy numbers without inviting allegations of cheating via illegal horse doping. Monday, those suspicions exploded beyond the boundaries of our sport when four unsealed federal indictments implicated 27 individuals in a "widespread, corrupt scheme" dating to at least 2017 that centers on Navarro, Servis, and a vast network of co-conspirators who allegedly manufactured, mislabeled, rebranded, distributed and administered performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)...

Jorge Navarro, among the 27 individuals indicted Monday by the District Attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan for doping horses, had become the go-to trainer for many harness racing horsemen who dabbled in thoroughbred racing. Including Shancelot (Shanghai Bobby), who was owned by prominent harness breeders and owners Al and Michelle Crawford, Navarro trained a number of horses for people involved in the standardbred game. According to the indictment, Navarro's ties to several of those individuals involved far more than the typical client-trainer relationship. Harness trainers...