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.
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