The Pennsylvania board of stewards has suspended controversial trainer Juan Vazquez through Jan. 26, 2025, alleging that Vazquez shipped a horse from Belmont Park to Parx Racing in January that was in such poor condition that it had to be euthanized shortly after its arrival. In their ruling, the stewards pulled no punches, calling Vazquez's actions “grossly negligent, cruel and abusive.”
According to the ruling, Vazquez shipped the 5-year-old mare Shining Colors (Paynter) from Belmont to Parx on Jan. 6. The horse was euthanized three days later due to a severe case of laminitis.
“The evidence presented by veterinarian witnesses and the necropsy report clearly revealed that the horse “Shining Colors” was suffering from this severe chronic condition and should never have been shipped to Parx Racing by owner/trainer Juan C. Vazquez,” the ruling read.
The ruling continues: “After considering all testimony presented and the information and evidence submitted to the board of stewards by investigators of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission, the board of stewards determine that owner/trainer Juan C. Vazquez was grossly negligent, cruel, and abusive in the shipping of the horse Shining Colors from Belmont Park to Parx Racing.”
Shining Colors was 1-for-1 lifetime and made her last start on Oct. 17, 2021 at Belmont. She was claimed by Vazquez for $20,000 on July 18 at Saratoga.
Vazquez met with the stewards on June 23 regarding whether or not his actions were a matter of conduct detrimental to the best interests of horse racing. The ruling was issued July 7.
Vazquez was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. His suspension begins July 18. He has a horse entered for the Saturday card at Parx and another at Parx next Thursday.
According to the Paulick Report, the end date of Vazquez's suspension coincides with the day his current Pennsylvania license expires. That means that he will have to apply for a new license when his suspension runs out. It is often easier to deny a person a new license than it is to revoke a current license.
This was not the first time that a Vazquez-trained horse died when shipping from one track to another. Last November, the Vazquez trained Ekhtibaar (Bernardini) was found dead in a van when it arrived at Belmont Park. At the time of the incident, the cause of death was listed as “unknown.”
Vazquez found his way into trouble earlier in 2021 when he received two consecutive 15-say suspensions from the Pennsylvania Racing Commission afer two horses he trained tested positive for the dewormer levamisole. One, Hollywood Talent (Talent Search), tested positive after winning the GIII Turf Monster S. at odds of 108-1. Having appealed those positives, he was allowed to continue to train.
Vazquez is 25-for-209 on the year and has won 773 races in his career.
If this is seeing the future, then maybe it really will work. Among all these tiny, straggling groups negotiating the arid wastes of the dirt stakes program, we finally reach a true oasis in the GI Caesars Belmont Derby Inv. Here is a field that matches quality with quantity: a win for the owners, and a win for the bettors.
It is also, lest we forget, staged on a benign surface. As such, it is also a win for a whole community that needs to present its way of life to the wider world with absolute confidence. To a degree, you could almost say that the rapid maturity of the elite turf schedule devised by NYRA has become one way for the East Coast to complement the fantastic recent work, celebrated here a couple of weeks ago, on the dirt tracks of California.
In fact, you could even argue that it also dovetails with the progressive aspirations that have just inaugurated the HISA era. We know that some people will cling stubbornly to the wreckage, fiercely opposing federal interference with their constitutional right to treat the training of Thoroughbreds as a branch of pharmacology. But it's good to see so many industry stakeholders beginning to see the bigger picture; to recognize the trouble we've been inviting for ourselves, and to do something about it.
Click the play button below to listen to this week's edition of This Side Up.
And that's heartening, because right now we only have to look around to realize what a special product we have to share, if only we get our act together.
Look at last weekend, and look what's coming down the tracks, and shout it from the rooftops: we have a great game here. Provided we care for them as they deserve–and that includes the provision of scrupulously maintained dirt tracks, and a properly respected turf/synthetics division–we could have no more captivating advocate than these noble horses of ours.
So long as we have Saratoga, we still have a chance. Much as can again be said of Santa Anita, here's a sanctuary from the cares of life to win over even the most surly and snarling of sceptics. And the meet looks more exciting than ever after Olympiad (Speightstown) and Life Is Good (Into Mischief) threw down the gauntlet for the GI Whitney S.
The one pity is that they've dropped all talk of Flightline (Tapit) shipping back across for that race, too. Connections would evidently rather stay in his backyard, this time, even at the cost of a more abrupt step up in distance. We won't reprise our irritation that this huge talent should have become such an extreme example of the modern horseman's dread of actually racing a racehorse. But we all know that while life may indeed be good, it seldom contrives its very best possibilities. And experience sadly tells us that the idea of all three of these horses converging on the same race at the Breeders' Cup, in the same form as now, is a fanciful one.
What we do know is that right here, right now, we could put on one of the great races of our time. Nobody can be complacent about that happening in November, especially if their respective fortunes in the meantime happen to make the Dirt Mile more tempting than the Classic. Of course, we can't expect individual horsemen to base their gameplan on sheer altruism, when they need to redeem such heavy stakes already committed to the industry. But it does just seem a shame that when people start comparing horses to greats of the past, very often they don't see them measured even against the best of their contemporaries.
That became a familiar charge against Frankel (GB), albeit without eroding his status as one of the undisputed giants of the breed. The relentless style trademarked by his stock, in what is proving a no less brilliant stud career, has only heightened regret that he spurned both the Arc and the Breeders' Cup Classic.
But we have long become bleakly familiar with the schism nowadays dividing the industries either side of the pond. The only real trafficking between them today is about plugging the gaps in American grass racing. Frankel's two daughters in the GI Belmont Oaks show that this can be done by participation or trade: one, homebred by Godolphin, mounts a raid from Newmarket; the other was imported from that same town as a yearling. A third way is elaborated, however, by the presence in the colts' race of Stone Age (Ire), a White Birch-bred son of Galileo (Ire) shared by farm owner Peter Brant with partners from Coolmore. It's a massive tribute to the impresarios behind the Turf Triple that once again, as with last year's winner Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), this race has been chosen as the next target for Ballydoyle's principal candidate in the Epsom Derby itself.
Yet while the import market for European horses-in-training and yearlings grows ever stronger, it somehow remains impossible even for highly eligible European stallions to achieve commercial traction in Kentucky. Flintshire (GB) (Dansili {GB}) was retired as the highest earner in the history of the Juddmonte program, and supplanted only by a member of his own family in Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}). Yet during his final spring in the Bluegrass–when his first crop had just turned three, one of its members flying into fifth of 19 in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club–he was outrageously reduced to just eight mares.
American horsemen increasingly talk a good game about turf, but in practice most of them are no less culpable than Europeans about dirt blood. I know this is a drum I have long since banged to a pulp, but it's worth reflecting that all four of Stone Age's grandparents were bred in Kentucky: the icons Sadler's Wells and Urban Sea obviously stand behind Galileo, while his dam is by Danzig's son Anabaa out of an Alysheba mare. Stone Age's maternal line actually tapers to none other than La Troienne (Fr), but as eighth dam she is also the first not to have been conceived with Kentucky seed.
For sure, some horses are more versatile than others. Tiz The Bomb (Hit It A Bomb), for instance, was plainly born for chlorophyll. His connections were originally talking about a tilt at the Classics in Britain, only to be seduced to Churchill–understandably enough–when he found himself with those coveted starting points. Look closer, however, and you'll see that this horse, too, cautions against a prescriptive view of surfaces: his first two dams are by avowed dirt influences, in Tiznow and A.P. Indy, yet both ended up on turf.
His trainer also saddles recent recruit Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), famously one of three colts from the final crop of one of the last of the old school, a crossover force in both careers. As befits a son of the Iron Horse, he is being turned round just two weeks after his debut for the barn. That kind of thing makes Kenny McPeek a real outlier, in this day and age. And that's why, when I see the future, actually I don't see it working at all.
Not, that is, until breeders start renewing the kind of cross-pollination that previously opened such dynamic cycles in the evolution of the Thoroughbred, from Nasrullah going one way to all those sons of Northern Dancer going the other. In those days, we bred robust horses by the constant, mutual invigoration of the gene pool, either side of the water. If cynical, in-and-out, fast-buck trading in the freshman window is producing horses that can only run every couple of months, that's actually a welfare issue. So while we have found one welcome oasis, we must navigate with care if our final destination is not to prove a mirage.
Fasig-Tipton has added seven supplemental entries to Monday's July Selected Horses of All Ages sale.
These latest entries – which are cataloged as hips 611-617 – include horses of racing age, breeding stock, and a lifetime breeding right to exciting young stallion Girvin (hip 611).
Girvin is off to a quick start at stud with his first crop of 2-year-olds this year, siring five winners from eight runners to date. These include the undefeated Devious Dame, who captured the Astoria Stakes at Belmont on June 9 in a 5 ¼ length romp.
Girvin sired two more impressive maiden special weight winners this past weekend. These include Damon's Mound, who was named a TDN Rising Star following his 12 1/2 length debut win at Churchill Downs on Saturday.
A debut winner himself at two, Girvin won the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes, G2 Risen Star Stakes, and G2 Louisiana Derby at three on his way to career earnings of more than $1.6 million. He is a half-brother to graded stakes winners Midnight Bourbon, Cocked and Loaded, and Pirate's Punch. His immediate family includes Grade 1 winners Silver Max and Yes It's True.
“The lifetime breeding right to Girvin is an exciting, unique addition to this year's sale,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning. “It offers breeders an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with a stallion with unlimited potential.”
The newest entries may now be viewed online and will also be available in the Equineline sales catalogue app. Print versions of all supplemental entries are available on the sales grounds.
The July Selected Horses of All Ages sale will take place this coming Monday, July 11, at 3 p.m. in Lexington, Ky. Fasig-Tipton will conduct the July Sale of Selected Yearlings the following day, beginning at 10 a.m.
