Trainer Dennis VanMeter, a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran, is no longer provisionally suspended by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU), the enforcement arm of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), nor does he face a two-year suspension and $25,000 fine, thanks to a final decision issued Sept. 26 by arbitrator Laura Abrahamson.
In the case of an adverse analytical finding for the banned substance isoxsuprine in VanMeter trainee Templement, Abrahamson concluded that “Mr. VanMeter was not at fault and not negligent in preventing isoxsuprine from entering Templement's system.”
The positive test for isoxsuprine was returned after Templement ran sixth in an allowance race at Thistledown on June 7, 2023. According to the arbitrator's final report, Templement shipped in to Thistledown in Ohio for the race from VanMeter's West Virginia base.
However, instead of shipping the horse into the receiving barn, VanMeter opted to send 6-year-old mare Templement to the barn of trainer John Brown, a friend. VanMeter had recently undergone open heart surgery, and Brown's barn is closer to the paddock.
In Brown's barn, Templement was stabled in a stall that had been occupied by Brown's stable pony, “Bucky.” Bucky has a valid prescription for isoxsuprine and had been taking the medication “almost daily for five years,” according to testimony.
VanMeter testified that prior to the June 7 race, he did not know what isoxsuprine was, that Bucky had been taking isoxsuprine, or that Templement could ingest the medication by being stabled in Bucky's stall. VanMeter was also unaware that a horse trained by Brown had tested positive for isoxsuprine on May 31 (Brown was notified on June 27).
The arbitrator's report cited a study by C.S. Russell and S. Maynard, which detailed a case in which a horse was treated with isoxuprine for 10 weeks, but continued to test positive for the medication for an additional 10 weeks after finishing treatment. The study found that multiple samples from the horse's environment tested positive for isoxsuprine: the “paper bedding, scrapings of wood from around the manger, the window and partition wall, cobwebs in the rafters above the manger, the salt lick, and the feed manger itself.”
HIWU's veterinary expert Dr. Mark Papich testified that Templement would have had to consume five to six liters of Bucky's urine to achieve the 471 ng/mL concentration reported by HIWU, which Dr. Papich considered “extremely unlikely.” However, based on the aforementioned study, Dr. Papich testified that Templement would have had to have consumed between 36 and 44 mg of isoxuprine powder residue in the stall to achieve the same concentration.
VanMeter's regular veterinarian, Dr. Shell, testified that Templement is a cribber, prone to nibbling/chewing on the wood in stalls.
“Considering the totality of the evidence, the Arbitrator finds that Mr. VanMeter established by a balance of the probabilities that the source of the isoxsuprine in Templement's system was contamination from Bucky's stall,” the report stated.
The report continues: “In this case, although HIWU criticizes Mr. VanMeter' s failure to ask Mr. Brown if any of his horses were taking isoxsuprine or any Banned Substance, the Arbitrator considers that [VanMeter] did not have any reason to suspect Mr. Brown was giving any of his horses isoxsuprine. […] Even if he had known, [the] Arbitrator finds Mr. VanMeter would still not have had any reason to suspect that Templement could come into contact with and have ingested or absorbed isoxsuprine from contamination in Bucky's stall, which was cleaned before Templement was put into it.”
The arbitrator's “No Fault or Negligence” ruling means that VanMeter will not be subject to either a two-year suspension or $25,000 fine. Templement was disqualified from that sixth-place finish, and remains subject to a period of ineligibility of 60 days, commencing on July 6. However, since that 60-day period has already run its course, so “to be reinstated Templement need only be subject to a Negative Finding from a Re-Entry test administered by HIWU.”
Templement has been entered in a Mountaineer Park allowance race on Oct. 1.
VanMeter has been racing horses at Mountaineer Park since his provisional suspension was enacted on July 7; the West Virginia racetrack does not fall under HISA rules (neither do tracks in Texas or Louisiana, thanks to ongoing legal battles).
Attorney Alan Pincus of Grantville, Pa., represented VanMeter.
The post HIWU Arbitrator: ‘No Fault Or Negligence’ Thanks To ‘Contamination’ In 76-Year-Old Trainer’s Banned Substance Case appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
