Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup-winning trainer Rick Dutrow returned to the Belmont Park backstretch to begin setting up his stalls on Tuesday, April 4, according to the Thoroughbred Daily News. The first horse will arrive from Ocala on Thursday.
“They gave me stalls in barn 28,” Dutrow said. “They allowed me to come back [Tuesday]. It was mid-day and I went straight to the barn to set things up. I will have a couple of horses by the end of the week and hope to keep adding from there. I'm back and all is good. I just want to look forward. I don't want to look back at what happened. How does it feel? Great. Just great.”
Dutrow hopes to have a string of 25 to 30 horses by the end of the Saratoga meet.
The New York State Gaming Commission granted Dutrow a license to resume training on Feb. 27. The trainer had been suspended 10 years and fined $50,000 by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board – which was replaced by the New York State Gaming Commission – for a string of suspensions and rules violations, the last being a positive drug test in one of his horses for butorphanol and the discovery of loaded syringes in a desk drawer in his barn office at Aqueduct. Regulators at the time called Dutrow's conduct “obnoxious” and “unbecoming.”
Dutrow lost his appeals of the penalties and eventually ran out of legal options. His last starter, Colossal Gift, was victorious at Aqueduct on Jan. 16, 2013.
Dutrow has been a divisive figure in racing ever since. In 2019, the Paulick Report's Natalie Voss wrote about the trainer's career, legal case, and each side of the argument for allowing the trainer to return to racing: 'Bring Rick Back'? Years Later, Dutrow's Ban Still Divides.
Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.
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