Mountaineer

The chief state steward at Mountaineer Park, Jim O'Brien, on Friday defended his board's seemingly light $100 penalization of jockey Jose A. Leon after other licensees who were on horseback during training hours at the West Virginia track Sept. 10 testified that the 24-year-old rider dismounted from an unruly horse and struck it across the face with his whip. "He was wrong, but I guess he let his anger get the best of him, and he hit the horse in the face," O'Brien told TDN. O'Brien added that he and...

Jockey Jose A. Leon has been fined $100 for hitting a horse in the face during training hours at Mountaineer Park. According to a Mountaineer stewards' ruling, "Mr. Leon was caught striking a horse across the face on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023, during morning exercising." The ruling didn't specify whether Leon struck the horse with his whip or his hand. Joe Moore, the executive director of the West Virginia Racing Commission, wrote in an email that he did not have any details about the incident beyond what the Mountaineer stewards...

Sent off the third betting choice at just shy of 4-1, Red Route One (Gun Runner) sustained a run for the better part of the final five furlongs and shot past the dueling pacesetters to give his owner Winchell Thoroughbreds a third win and trainer Steve Asmussen a sixth success in the GIII West Virginia Derby. Outrun early, the homebred was third-last to make the first turn as Iowa Derby first-past-the-post One In Vermillion (Army Mule) and West Coast Cowboy (West Coast)--fifth in Altoona--eyeballed one another through honest splits. Red...

The stewards at Delaware Park have fined trainer Don Bryant, Jr. $2,000 for a series of "not conducting business in a proper manner" infractions that started with the falsification of a workout for an 0-for-12 maiden-claiming gelding he reportedly owns that hadn't raced in nearly a year. According to the June 15 ruling, the stewards "received evidence that Trainer Bryant falsified a workout" for the 4-year-old gelding Dondada (Klimt) on May 10, 2023, at Delaware Park. Dondada had not started since running second at Delaware on June 30, 2022. The...

Mountaineer Park was granted approval on Monday by the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) to race 124 dates in 2023, a six-program reduction from the 130 that the track is scheduled to race this year during its April-through-December meet. Speaking about the loss of race dates, WVRC executive director Joe Moore said, "I'm told that is as a result of the Horse Racing Integrity Authority (HISA) and Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) assessments recently received by the commission and the racetracks for calendar year 2023." Mountaineer executives were offered...

Facing a dire shortage of veterinarians at the state's two Thoroughbred tracks and under deadline pressure to decide whether to enter into a voluntary implementation agreement with the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) prior to that entity's Jan. 1 start date, the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) on Monday pressed a representative of HIWU for clarity on who, exactly, will bear responsibility if the minimum required number of equine drug testing employees can't be hired within the next six weeks. It took some polite but persistent questioning by commissioner...

Either trainer Burton Sipp is an unwitting pariah, or racing is his witting fool. Over the last 40 years, Sipp has faced allegations involving insurance scams and dead horses, animal neglect cases, race-fixing stings and regulatory malfeasance. Not all the accusations against him have stuck. Since the mid 1990s, Sipp has been barred from applying for a racing license in New Jersey due to swirling suspicions of fraudulent practices. So he moved his tack to more welcoming pastures. For the past few years, the trainer has been dogged by allegations...

The West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) on Tuesday opted to take no action either way on whether to collect and remit fees on behalf of the new Authority created by the federal Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). States are facing a May 1 deadline to declare "in or out" middleman status pertaining to the safety portion of the HISA program that will go into effect July 1. This first phase-in of oversight does not include HISA's drug testing and medication control programs, which aren't expected to be up and...

Mountaineer Park will expand its 2021 racing season by eight dates, tacking on Dec. 5-8 and 12-15 to its existing calendar. "We had five cancelled days due to lack of entries. But honestly, we wanted to finish out [with] a full [racing] week," said Jim Colvin, Mountaineer's manager of racing operations. "So we applied for eight racing days, which would give us a total of 133 for this year instead of 130." Approval was granted during Tuesday's monthly West Virginia Racing Commission meeting.

Mountaineer Park will be adding 12 dates to its current race meet while Charles Town will drop 10 programs. Both moves were approved Sept. 17 via telephonic meeting of the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC). "The action that causes this was the cancellation of the West Virginia Derby card," WVRC executive director Joe Moore explained to commissioners prior to the 3-0 approval vote for the Mountaineer increase, which will tack on the dozen programs between Dec. 6 and 23. "Now the $500,000 approved for the West Virginia Derby cannot be...

He grew up on the racetrack, mainly at the old Latonia, spending many a morning and afternoon there with his father Daryl, who worked as a jockey agent, an exercise rider and a racing official. And everywhere he went, Deshawn Parker saw people just like him. Young, Black and eager to make a name for themselves in the sport. It was the '70s and the '80s and at whatever track you went to, the majority of backstretch workers were African Americans. Today, they make up a small fraction of a...

During his Thursday press briefing, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that the state's racetracks will resume racing May 14. No spectators will be allowed to attend the races. "In regard to horse racing, on May 14 we will start spectator-less, without people, horse racing," Justice said. "It will be able to resume at that time. It takes a couple of weeks of active training and conditioning before it's safe for the horses, so they will be starting back very, very soon in preparation for us to have spectator-less horse...