Robin Goodfellow’s racing tips: Best bets for Tuesday, August 22
Mail Sport's racing expert Robin Goodfellow delivers his tips for Tuesday's meetings at Newton Abbot, Newmarket, Northerner and Worcestor.
Month: August 2023
Prominent Harness Trainer Fined $200,000 For Violations Of Clean Water Act At New York Training Center
Prominent harness trainer Mark Ford has settled a four-year civil case filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over violations of the Clean Water Act. According to the Times-Herald Record, Ford will have to pay a $200,000 fine for illegally filling wetlands and polluting waters at his training center in Orange County, New York.
The complaint, filed in 2019, alleged that from 2007 to 2016, Ford destroyed existing federal wetlands and rerouted streams in the course of building a horse racing training center at 90 Slaughter Road and 482/484 Stony Ford Road.
In the consent decree, Ford admitted, acknowledged, and accepted responsibility for the violations. He will be required to create or restore 18 acres of wetlands on his property, fix two streams, and address the animal waste and wastewater on his land. The consent decree needs to be approved by a court and is subject to public comment.
Ford told the Times-Union that he hoped a judge would approve the consent decree because of the high cost of ongoing litigation. He also said he never knowingly engaged in any wrongdoing.
“This is one of the biggest travesties that has ever happened,” Ford told the Times-Union. “A lot of the things, I don't even know what they're talking about.”
Named Trainer of the Year by the United States Harness Writers' Association in 2000, Ford is a director of the United States Trotting Association. A biography on the USTA website explains that Ford is the youngest trainer in history to reach milestones of $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $40 million, $50 million and $60 million in career earnings. He is also the only trainer to have won a pair of million-dollar races before his 30th birthday.
Ford trained 2000 Horse of the Year Gallo Blue Chip along with millionaires Whosurboy, Turnpike Token, Armbro Animate, Stonebridge Kisses and Self Professed, top performer On The Attack and double-gaited world champion Six Day War. Ford has won training titles at both Meadowlands Racetrack and Yonkers Raceway. He races one of the largest stables in North America and is continually one of the top competitors at Yonkers Raceway, Meadowlands Racetrack, The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono and the Woodbine Entertainment Group for some of the sport's top owners. In 2015, he became president of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey.
Read more at the Times-Herald Record.
The post Prominent Harness Trainer Fined $200,000 For Violations Of Clean Water Act At New York Training Center appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
NYRA, State Want Dismissal Of ‘Meritless’ Lawsuit To Block Belmont Renovation
The New York Racing Association (NYRA) and the state of New York asked the Supreme Court of New York Aug. 18 to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two residents that is attempting to block the $455 million state loan to NYRA that will renovate Belmont Park.
In addition, both the state and NYRA want to quash a motion for preliminary injunction that the plaintiffs initiated back on June 22 to try to halt any state money for the project from flowing to NYRA.
The Belmont renovation was approved back in May when the final New York state budget for fiscal year 2024 included the funding.
Belmont was last significantly updated in 1968, and the current, long-planned refurbishment is being undertaken with an eye toward consolidating all of NYRA's racing at Belmont and Saratoga Race Course, with the state-owned Aqueduct Racetrack property to eventually be sold.
“NYRA's motion to dismiss should be granted, the Court should issue a judgment in favor of Defendants declaring that the Belmont Legislation is constitutional, and the Complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and with prejudice,” stated a memorandum of law that NYRA filed with the court Friday.
“As Plaintiffs claim fails as a matter of law and is not likely to succeed on the merits, and as the challenged appropriation to NYRA serves an important public interest and Plaintiffs cannot establish irreparable harm, or that the equities weigh in their favor, Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction should be denied,” the NYRA filing continued.
The plaintiffs, Jannette Patterson and John Di Leonardo, each identified themselves in the initial complaint as a “citizen taxpayer of the State of New York who has paid, and is paying, New York State income and sales taxes.” They have asked for a judgment declaring that the state's loan to NYRA “would be an illegal and unconstitutional expenditure, misappropriation, misapplication, or disbursement of State funds.”
The defendants are the State of New York, the New York State Assembly, the New York State Senate, Governor Kathy Hochul, state comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, and NYRA.
NYRA's 30-page memorandum stated that the two plaintiffs “contend that the 'plain language' of the Gift and Loan Clause bars the State from appropriating any funds to NYRA.”
The Plaintiffs, however, are wrong “for at least two reasons,” NYRA argued.
“First, Plaintiffs' insistence upon a strict construction of the Gift and Loan Clause betrays an untenable, ostrich-like approach to settled law. Although one would not know it from Plaintiffs' papers, the Court of Appeals long ago ruled that the expenditure of public funds to a private entity is permissible under the Gift and Loan Clause if such expenditure serves a public purpose,” the filing continued.
“Moreover, the Court of Appeals and the Third Department have upheld financing arrangements for the construction and operation of sports venues and facilities that serve a public purpose, notwithstanding the co-existence of an incidental private benefit. Thus, the appropriation to NYRA authorized by the Belmont Legislation cannot be equated to an impermissible gift or loan under [the New York state constitution.],” the filing stated.
“Second, although at one point in their Complaint Plaintiffs correctly describe NYRA as a 'not-for-profit corporation that has the exclusive franchise to operate' Belmont Park, they otherwise refer to, and analyze, NYRA as though it is a run-of-the-mill 'private corporation' for purposes of the Gift and Loan Clause. In doing so, Plaintiffs yet again fail to reference, or even acknowledge, case law from both State and federal courts that uniformly holds that NYRA-as a State-franchisee that operates racing facilities owned by the State on public property pursuant to statute and regulation-is a 'state actor,'” the filing continued.
“In this regard, the funds received by NYRA will be used to renovate public property and facilities owned by the State. Put simply, NYRA-as a 'state actor'-is not the type of 'private corporation' that the Gift and Loan Clause was intended to cover,” the filing stated.
A separate Aug. 18 memorandum filed by the New York Attorney General's office on behalf of the state government defendants told the court that “Plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction because they cannot make the required showing of irreparable harm. Plaintiffs urge the Court to maintain the status quo and halt the disbursement of funds so that their constitutional argument may be heard. But Plaintiffs' constitutional argument is meritless and there is no valid basis for the Court to preliminarily enjoin the Challenged Appropriation…”
The post NYRA, State Want Dismissal Of ‘Meritless’ Lawsuit To Block Belmont Renovation appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
New Mexico: Quarter Horse Trainer, Owner Summarily Suspended After Being Caught Injecting Horse
An owner and trainer in New Mexico have been summarily suspended after the state veterinarian witnessed that owner injecting a horse on race day.
New Mexico Racing Commission state veterinarian Dr. Victoria Lowe witnessed owner Ricardo Morales injecting the horse Stoli Best Card Rme with a needle and syringe with an unknown medication on race day, Aug. 18, according to a ruling posted on the Association of Racing Commissioners International website.
The 2-year-old Quarter Horse filly, a homebred for Morales who has not started, was in the barn of trainer Salvador Soto. She was scratched from the race after Dr. Lowe witnessed the injection.
Both Morales and Soto are scheduled to attend separate summary suspension hearings with the stewards on Aug. 27.
Soto is a Grade 1-winning Quarter Horse trainer with 200 wins on his resume, according to Equibase. He has been training since 2004.
The trainer was suspended 365 days in 2015 after two horses he trained tested positive for drugs at Sunland Park. The first of Soto's horses, Hi Class Local, tested positive for Dexamethasone after finishing tenth in a race Jan. 4. Soto was fined $1,000 for that infraction.
The second horse, the 8-year-old Whatever Bill, tested positive for a “cocktail of drugs” after winning a race Jan. 11. The horse was found to be above the legal limits for phenylbutazone, methylprednisolone, and Flunixin, a powerful painkiller.
That infraction marked Soto's fourth drug violation within a year. He was fined $5,000, had to forfeit the winning purse, and was suspended from June 27, 2015 through June 27, 2016.
The post New Mexico: Quarter Horse Trainer, Owner Summarily Suspended After Being Caught Injecting Horse appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
