Many Maryland-based horsemen were surprised when former trainer Ramon Preciado started showing up by the rail at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., toward the end of 2022.
Fair Hill has a reputation as the home of largely rule-abiding trainers who opt for the verdant facility to give horses turnout time or mental breaks galloping through the facility's many rolling grassy fields and forgiving track surfaces.
Preciado had his training license revoked by stewards in Pennsylvania in December 2016 after one of his runners tested positive for clenbuterol. The test was the latest in a string of positives for Preciado, who was fighting eight other medication violations earlier in the year and who was banned by Parx in April 2016.
Preciado had resurfaced at Parx after the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission granted him a stable employee's license in December 2020. (He had applied for, and been denied, a stable employee license in 2018.) After his application was approved, he went to work as a groom for trainer Penny Pearce. Pearce subsequently saw her win percentage jump from 8 percent in 2020 to 23 percent in 2021 and 25 percent in 2022, by far her most lucrative years yet. On Aug. 29 of last year, Pearce was handed a multi-year suspension for six clenbuterol positives detected in out-of-competition samples. A stay of her suspension was granted in early September, but she has not saddled a runner since Oct. 7.
On Oct. 4, JKX Racing purchased stalls in a barn at Fair Hill. Prior to her most recent start on Oct. 7, Pearce was one of several trainers working for JKX. JKX is the nom de course for Joseph Klausa, who has raced under his own name and also as Joey P Stables.
Last year, JKX Racing's win percentage was 28 percent with earnings of over $2 million. Other trainers working for JKX have included Jamie Ness (who was recently handed a six-month suspension for bufotenine) and Juan Carlos Guerrero (who was implicated alongside Silvio Martin and Marcos Zulueta in an alleged hidden ownership and program training scheme in 2017).
Several of Pearce's last starters made their way from her barn at Parx to Fair Hill, where they later posted breezes for trainer Michael E. Jones, Jr.
Although he is primarily based at Charles Town with a string of 28 horses for several clients, Jones said he travels to Fair Hill twice a week to check in on nearly 30 horses there, most of which are owned by JKX.
When reached by the Paulick Report on Jan. 4, Jones said Preciado is operating as his assistant trainer at Fair Hill even though Preciado is not licensed in any capacity in the state of Maryland.
“I set the training chart and go over it every day,” said Jones of his relationship with Preciado. “I tell him what I want done and we go from there.”
Jones said his relationships with Preciado and with JKX Racing go back several years.
Multiple sources at the training center claimed to have seen Preciado regularly accompanying sets to the track but indicated that they had not witnessed Jones at the barn.
The training center at Fair Hill is owned by a condo association and, as such, is subject to housing anti-discrimination rules even though the facility is not a traditional housing development. The principals at the ownership group were advised by legal counsel that they could not refuse to sell stalls or barns to someone.
“We have caught some flak for allowing this to happen but unfortunately there is not a whole lot we can do,” said trainer and Fair Hill barn owner Graham Motion. “It is more up to the racetracks to not allow this to happen in my opinion if he has horses competing, which I assume he does.”
Mike Rogers, executive vice president of 1/ST Racing and acting president of Maryland Jockey Club, said on Jan. 4 that the racing organization had received complaints that Jones was not the trainer of the Fair Hill-based horses he was entering at Laurel Park.
“We've been provided information that [Jones] is not managing the stable at Fair Hill,” said Rogers, who indicated that entries from Jones' Fair Hill string are not currently being accepted at 1/ST tracks. “We do know he has a string at Charles Town, so if he enters something from the string at Charles Town, those entries are being taken, because we know he's there and is managing them.
“The information we're getting is multiple sources, not just one.”
Rogers said Jones has been informed of the policy.
When reached on Jan. 4, Jones said he was “not aware of” of any limitation on his entries at Laurel. He last started a horse at Laurel on Dec. 30.
The problem of paper training
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.
In recent years it has been racetracks that have denied stalls and/or entries to a trainer based on evidence of paper training, but it is somewhat more unusual for a commission to do so.
There is a model rule in the language of the Association of Racing Commissioners International giving states guidance on how to make paper training illegal. Many states already have language that could allow them to take action against someone who is operating as a paper trainer for an unlicensed person or someone on suspension.
Section 9.19.01.57 of Code of Maryland Regulations appears to address this, setting up the requirement that anyone training horses must meet the licensing requirements of a trainer. Regulation D in that section states “a trainer may not practice his profession except under his own name” while Regulation S states “A trainer or owner who harbors anyone not provided with a license issued by the Commission shall be immediately reported to the stewards, so they may make investigation and take appropriate action as they deem necessary, if any, as provided under Regulation .45V of this chapter.”
Marc Guilfoil, former executive director at the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and now director of state racing commission relations at the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, said many states choose not to enforce regulations that would appear to address paper training.
“It takes a little footwork,” said Guilfoil, who recalled staking out a barn to investigate one complaint of paper training. “If you follow the money on a lot of things – stewards have the right to subpoena for lack of a better word bills, who's paying what, who's paying the feed bill. If someone really wants to cover their tracks, they'll cover that, but you can find out.”
Guilfoil admits that it's more difficult, though still not impossible, to verify claims of activity going on at a non-sanctioned facility – which Fair Hill is.
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If you appreciate our work, you can support us by subscribing to our Patreon stream. Learn more.“If you can hide behind a training center and ship horses in, it is difficult,” he said. “But most of the time as a steward if you'll listen, other horsemen will tell you. They tell on each other. And you just start tracing it down, have your security talk to people. Go observe. If you've been around a while, you develop friendships and people will tell you. They usually tell you where to watch and what to watch. It just takes a little bit of ground work.”
Cases where the person who is seeking assistance of a paper trainer is not suspended but rather totally unlicensed are somewhat more challenging.
“Really you can't do anything more to them because they're not licensed anyway,” said Guilfoil. “The person who's aiding and abetting them, if they have a license you can always withhold that. If one person isn't licensed, they have grooms, they have other people who are helping them who are licensed and you can get to them that way.”
Hopkins said he had received no complaints about paper training with relation to Preciado.
When asked about the commission's enforcement ability at Fair Hill, Hopkins said simply, “We do not have any jurisdiction over a training center.”
Jones has horses from his Fair Hill string entered at Parx in the upcoming days, and has an entry in Saturday's Queens County Stakes at Aqueduct with Naval Aviator, a JKX Racing trainee who has spent November and December at Fair Hill.
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