Louisiana Commission Investigating After Owner Appears To Admit Program Training

It started with a Facebook post.

The Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders Association made a post on Aug. 18 congratulating the connections of M CR Pilotos, who won the seventh race at Delta Downs the previous night. According to Equibase, M CR Pilotos is owned by A and J Running Horses (James A. Copeland) and conditioned by Dale Keith. In the original version of the post, however, the organization praised Larry Keith as the trainer, prompting a response from a small-time Quarter Horse breeder and owner mocking the error.

According to screenshots provided to the Paulick Report, Copeland messaged the owner, asking “What's your problem with me[?] And my trainer[.] I'm just a small time person really nothing.”

The owner responded, asking Copeland who his trainer was.

“Lanny Keith,” Copeland replied.

He later unsent the message, but not before the owner took a screenshot of it.

Lanny and Larry Keith (Lanny's father) are both licensed trainers in Louisiana, but according to Equibase, have not saddled any horses this year. In 2022, both were handed suspensions after they each had four horses test positive for zilpaterol in the midst of a rash of positives for the substance in the Louisiana Quarter Horse world. Lanny, who had been training since 2012 and is a multiple graded stakes winner, was given a two-year suspension with another two years of probation, and is due to be suspended into 2024. (Stewards initially gave him six months for each positive, but referred the case to the full commission and the commission increased the total penalty.)

Lanny Keith's prior regulatory record also included a 2017 ruling in which he was found to be in possession of an electrical device on the grounds at Delta Downs; in May of that year, he was suspended by the stewards through the remainder of the meet plus an additional 10 days, but the commission removed the suspension in September, put him on a year's probation, and fined him $1,000.

Lanny last saddled a horse on Feb. 2, 2022. On Feb. 18, Larry applied to have his assistant trainer's license withdrawn and applied for a trainer's license and, according to testimony he'd later give before the commission, took over the training of his son Lanny's horses.

“Basically what we did was change jobs,” Larry Keith told the commission in October 2022. “I take care of the horses at home. He trains the horses at the track. He was no longer going to be able to train at the track, so I came from home to here to train them. I've been licensed in four states. This training is nothing new to me. I've been a trainer for 57 years.”

In May, three months after he took over for Lanny, Larry Keith had four horses test positive for zilpaterol, and told the commission that all four had come from Lanny (although none of them were the four Lanny had positive tests with). Larry said he had held the horses back 30 days, believing the drug would clear their systems by then but later learned it could linger for much longer.

Lanny Keith had admitted to the commission the likely source of the zilpaterol was a supplement he had been giving to horses called Muscle Mass, which is not marketed to horse owners but is designed for cattle. According to Lanny, its labeling didn't indicate it had zilpaterol in it.

Zilpaterol is a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in cattle heading to slaughter in order to increase body fat and muscle. Louisiana saw a rash of zilpaterol positives from Quarter Horse trainers in 2022 after the Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders Association board got a tip that trainers were using a new synthetic performance-enhancing medication on horses and began collaborating with the commission on additional testing of post-race samples. They didn't find a new synthetic substance but did find zilpaterol, which prompted the state to begin including the drug on its normal battery of post-race tests.

Read more about the background of the zilpaterol overages here.

The commission gave Larry a six-month suspension to cover all four of his positives, which was set to run from Oct. 26, 2022, to April 25, 2023, with a probationary period running April 26 to Oct. 25 of this year.

The commission has since launched an investigation into allegations of program training based on the messages.

The Paulick Report was unable to find contact information for any of the three Keiths or for Copeland at the time of this publication to seek further clarification about the Facebook messages or their status on the track.

Paper training or program training has been around for decades as trainers have sought to keep operating despite a commission's lengthy suspension or ban. The question of whether a trainer is “papering” for another is often the subject of racetrack rumor, but there is rarely an enforcement action.

Read our previous reporting on paper training from 2020 here.

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