It turns out Jorge Navarro really was “The Juiceman,” and contrary to remarks on a 2017 video captured by a horseplayer at New Jersey's Monmouth Park, it was anything but vegetable juice.
In federal court on Wednesday, Navarro acknowledged his role in a racehorse doping scheme that involved multiple performance-enhancing substances, including imported clenbuterol and blood-building drugs he both admitted giving to his horses and distributing to others.
As the Department of Justice stated in a press release, Navarro was a “reckless fraudster whose veneer of success relied on the systematic abuse of the animals under his control.”
Furthermore, Audrey Strauss, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who is prosecuting the cases against more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians and suppliers, said performance-enhancing drugs “have corrupted much of the horse racing industry.”
The guilty plea by Navarro and last week's admission of guilt by veterinarian Kristian Rhein, Strauss said, “demonstrate the continued commitment of this office and our partners at the FBI to the investigation and prosecution of corruption, fraud and endangerment at every level of the horse racing industry.”
Navarro admitted to doping numerous horses, including Sharp Azteca, winner of eight of 17 races, including the Grade 1 Cigar Mile in 2017. He now stands at stud at Three Chimneys Farm.
Among the horses veterinarian Rhein admitted doping was Jason Servis-trained Maximum Security, who won four Grade 1 races and was disqualified from first place for interference in the 2019 Kentucky Derby. Transferred to Bob Baffert after Servis was indicted at the same time as Navarro (Servis has pleaded not guilty), Maximum Security won two of his final four starts before retiring to stud at Coolmore's Ashford Stud.
Just as Major League Baseball's record book is littered with the accomplishments of steroid cheaters like Barry Bonds, so too does horse racing now have a tainted database, with major races won by horses associated with convicted or indicted dopers. Even the Stud Book is polluted.
What happens next?
Can we really take Strauss at her word that the feds will continue their investigation? We know that the more guilty pleas there are, the greater likelihood that the convicted cheaters will cooperate with the government, widening the investigation and likely resulting in more trainers and veterinarians being charged. Prosecutors have collected massive amounts of information via computer and phone records, and cooperating witnesses can help connect some of the dots.
It probably comes down to how much more time and resources the Southern District of New York wants to commit to expose further corruption and cheating in this game.
Racing has been exposed as a sport with weak or non-existent leadership at the racetrack and regulatory level when it comes to integrity issues. Track executives care more about filling the entry box than they do about the ethics or character of the trainers and owners who are supplying those entries.
Regulators concern themselves more with finding the cheapest testing laboratories than hiring the ones that have proven to be most effective at finding illicit drugs. And then they brag about how clean the game is because there are so few positive tests.
One example: In 2015, Truesdail Laboratories was found during a blind sample audit conducted by the Indiana Horse Racing Commission to have missed multiple positive tests, including a Class 1 drug – the most severe. Indiana fired Truesdail and moved their testing to another lab. It took years for a number of other racing commission to follow suit, even though Truesdail's failures were widely reported. Those racing commissions, from Maryland to New Jersey to Arkansas, simply didn't care.
Regulators also have known (or should know), based on the March 2020 indictments, that a representative for one of the owners of the Navarro-trained Nanoosh (according to Equibase, he was owned by Zayat Stables, Rockingham Ranch and David Bernsen) was on a conference call with the trainer discussing the horse's poor performances. According to the federal indictment, that person asked whether Navarro was “giving them all the shit,” and, “Is this horse jacked out? Is he on f – – king pills or what or are we just f – – king…” Navarro said, “Everything … he gets everything.”
Has a single racing commission or board of stewards – in California where the indictment said the stable is based or in any other state – called in the horse's owners to discuss this phone call with Navarro?
I doubt it. The last thing many commissions want to do – especially those rife with conflicts of interest – is hold owners accountable. To repeat: Racing commissions do not care.
There is a reason The Jockey Club – which has no official role in regulating horse racing – hired 5 Stones Intelligence, the private investigation firm that began the doping probe eventually turned over to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. There was plenty of smoke coming from certain stables: incredible form reversals off the claim or private purchase, win percentages that defied logic and runners that would routinely re-break at the eighth pole. Jockey Club officials assumed there was fire associated with that smoke, and they were right.
There is also a reason The Jockey Club has been so adamant in pushing for federal legislation that would turn over medication, integrity and safety issues to a group like the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that oversees Olympic athletes and the UFC, among other sports. It is because state racing commissions are not capable of policing the sport adequately.
It remains to be seen whether the March 2020 round-up was just the tip of the iceberg of corruption and cheating in our game. Some people should be very nervous going forward. Others should be ashamed for letting it get to this point.
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