Nick Surick

After the venerable and influential news show 60 Minutes aired a piece on horse racing last week, people within the industry were understandably upset. The story was ugly, filled with graphic and grisly coverage of horses breaking down, and portrayed racing as a sport where drugs, corruption and horse fatalities had reached the point of being out of control. "Horse racing is an industry where extremely devoted people labor because of one common thing: we all love horses, especially thoroughbred horses," Denali Stud's Craig Bandoroff wrote to 60 Minutes. "That...

The former Standardbred trainer Nick Surick, who was sentenced to 62 months in federal prison last month for his role as a "doping mentor" in a years-long scheme that eventually resulted in him pleading guilty to two counts of drug adulteration and misbranding and one count of obstruction, lodged an appeal of both his conviction and his sentence Feb. 7. As TDN's Bill Finley reported from Surick's Jan. 19 sentencing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York), Surick was ordered to serve one of the longer prison...

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...

Monday marks an important date for trainer Rick Dutrow and his fight to get back into the sport. It was exactly 10 years ago that he started a horse named Colossal Gift (Songandaprayer) in a claiming race at Aqueduct. Then he was forced to disappear, the result of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board revoking his license for a 10-year period, which has now expired. The regulators acted after Dutrow, always a controversial figure, had a horse he trained, Fastus Cactus (Cactus Ridge), test positive for butorphanol in...

The federal judge in charge of the alleged racehorse doping case involving trainers Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis, and 18 other defendants has set Apr. 2 as the new arraignment date. Court closures related to COVID-19 have already caused two postponements of the arraignment since Mar 23. In an effort to avoid another delay, the judge has ordered this Thursday's arraignment to be conducted via conference call. United States District Court (Southern District of New York) Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil also wrote in the Mar. 27 order that the missed time...

Trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis, the two biggest names among the 27 people indicted Monday after an investigation into horse doping, are due back in court Mar. 23 for their arraignment. Both were arrested Monday in Miami and released on bail. As part of the bail agreement, the court imposed the requirement that Servis and Navarro not have any contact with racehorses without the presence of the third party owner of the premises where the horse is stabled. The indicted horsemen will be allowed to enter a guilty or...

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...