Equine Law Expert Bob Heleringer Talks Medina Spirit Ruling On Writers’ Room

This week, 296 days after the race was run, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission ruled on the case of the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby, officially disqualifying winner Medina Spirit (Protonico) and elevating Mandaloun (Into Mischief) into first place. Additionally, the KHRC suspended trainer Bob Baffert for 90 days and Baffert's legal team quickly promised appeals to an administrative law judge. Bob Heleringer, a lawyer, law professor and the author of “Equine Regulatory Law”, joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Tuesday as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss the merits of the KHRC's decision, whether Baffert horses will ultimately be able to run in this year's Derby and more.

Asked if Baffert has any argument for an appeal despite the drug overage being confirmed and against the rules, Heleringer said, “The regulatory side of this is different from the judicial side of it. The regulatory side tries to have [rules] in the starkest colors with no room for prevarication or obfuscation. They don't want these cases bogging down and getting away from the absolute part of the rule. So it's only when it moves to the judicial forum that there's a possible chance of some kind of prevarication as to why the rules should not strictly apply. And they'll base that on due process grounds, whether or not you're violating [Baffert's] rights if you take it to the absolute level that the regulatory people have. That's an argument that both of these Circuit Court judges in Frankfort will at least listen to.”

Baffert also has an interest in overturning the KHRC's suspension so that he can potentially run horses in the Derby, but he also would have to win an appeal against Churchill Downs Inc.'s two-year suspension of him, and he hasn't officially filed anything yet in that case. Heleringer was asked what Baffert's chances of racing in the Derby are.

“Right now, his chances are zero,” he said. “I'm kind of perplexed, like some other people, that he hasn't filed such a challenge yet. Maybe that's forthcoming, but it hasn't happened yet and time is dwindling. It looks like most of his owners have stayed with him, but these horses are winning significant races and not racking up any [Derby qualifying] points. Churchill Downs is resolute. So at some point, he's going to have to seek judicial intervention of some kind. It's going to get very interesting.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, West Point Thoroughbreds, XBTV, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers reacted to The Jockey Club backing off of its 140-mare cap, appreciated a few performances from Saturday's Fair Grounds card and discussed the implementation of Category 1 interference rules in America. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: A Racetrack’s Private Property Rights

What does it mean when a racetrack – as opposed to a board of stewards or racing commission – suspends or excludes a trainer from its facilities? That's what happened a week ago when Gulfstream Park suspended five trainers for allegedly violating house rules regarding the use of clenbuterol.

This was not unlike Churchill Downs suspending Bob Baffert from participating in racing at any of its tracks prior to the stewards or Kentucky Horse Racing Commission conducting a hearing on the failed drug test of Medina Spirit following the colt's Kentucky Derby victory on May 1.

Attorney Bob Heleringer, author of “Equine Regulatory Law,” once again joins publisher Ray Paulick and editor in chief Natalie Voss in this week's edition of the Friday Show to explain the difference between a regulatory agency's license suspension and a racetrack's ability to exclude individuals by exercising private property rights.

Like many things in racing, the right of exclusion may vary from one state to another, and there is some case law that sets parameters, Heleringer said.

Voss pointed out that tracks may be exercising those rights more frequently lately in response to public pressure over equine safety and integrity issues while cases being heard by racing commissions can drag out for months, if not years.

Joe Nevills joins Paulick to review last weekend's Breeders' Stakes at Woodbine, won by British Royalty, making the English Channel gelding our Woodbine Star of the Week.

Watch this week's Friday Show, presented by Woodbine, below:

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Catching Up With Kenny Pruden, Onetime King Of Green Mountain Racetrack

A recent vacation in Manchester, Vt., by the writer and his wife led to a pleasant meeting with retired jockey Kenny Pruden, one of New England's best riders during the halcyon days when there were six Thoroughbred racetracks running throughout the region. A passionate rider during his career, Kenny was just as determined to meet with a visitor (your humble correspondent) who, with no cell service, couldn't find his residence in the woods of tiny Pownal, Vt. 

“Look for my maroon car with the flashers on along Route 7,” Kenny told me over a land line held by the nice woman in charge of the local post office.

Now a spry 82, the trim Mr. Pruden still has the eye of a competitor and is as fit as the proverbial fiddle. He looks like he could still work a set in the morning for any trainer in America.

Kenny Pruden at home in Vermont

Kenneth Gene Pruden was born in 1938 in Albert Lea, Minn., a town just north of the Iowa state line. He was one of eight children (five brothers, two sisters) born to his farm family parents John and Helen. The children were small in stature like their mother, but none lacked for work ethic, key to any agricultural success. While Kenny thrived on the farm – he was a member of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) – by his own frank admission he was a “bad actor” prone to finding trouble in school.

After getting expelled from the local high school, he transferred to one in Alta, Iowa, from which he graduated. From there he roamed around county fairs in Iowa and Minnesota trying his hand at various endeavors, including driving in chuck wagon races. When he was 21, a farmer offered Kenny a chance to ride one of his horses in a county fair race. With borrowed tack, wearing a football helmet, and despite losing an iron, the young tyro grabbed a handful of mane and won the race. Out of a purse of $1,000, the winning rider earned all of $10 and a $2 “stake.”

Driving a 1949 Studebaker that barely ran (and in which he often slept), Kenny worked for a trainer with a serious drinking problem at Raceway Park in Toledo, Ohio. After doing all the work as a trainer, groom and exercise rider, Kenny was rewarded by getting fired. Undeterred, the itinerant rider-to-be galloped horses at Waterford Park (now Mountaineer Park) and defunct Wheeling Downs in West Virginia before ending up in South Florida where the “weather suited his clothes” as the song goes. There, he witnessed first-hand the ugly segregation of the deep South with separate restaurants and public facilities for “whites only” and “colored,” an experience he said he never forgot.

After almost being selected by the famous cosmetics queen Elizabeth Arden to ride her stable's horses at Hialeah Park as her first-call apprentice jockey, Kenny headed to Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H., a fortuitous move. There, at the prettiest racetrack in all of New England, Kenny finally rode in his first recognized race — and found himself in the starting gate next to a horse with Bill Shoemaker in the saddle. The “Shoe” was in town to ride several mounts throughout the track's “Futurity Day.” (Kenny finished a respectable fourth in the race.)

In 1963, when the new Green Mountain Park racetrack opened in Pownal, Vt., (the writer's grandfather, Leo O'Donnell, was one of the stewards), the ambitious Mr. Pruden was ready and pounced. Over the course of that picturesque racetrack's short 14-year lifespan (it closed in 1976), Kenny led the riders' standings for nearly all of that oval's spring, summer and fall meetings. His agent during those years was his older brother, Jerry, who later became an assistant trainer for some prominent outfits, and who hustled rides from local trainers like Leo H. Veitch, brother of Hall of Fame trainer Sylvester Veitch and uncle of Hall of Fame trainer John Veitch. Team Pruden competed with much success all over New England and at Penn National, Finger Lakes and other racetracks. They spent the winter months at Florida Downs, later renamed Tampa Bay Downs.

Pruden with Green Mountain general manager Vincent Bartimo

According to Equibase and Daily Racing Form's American Racing Manual, in a career that lasted over 34 years, Kenny won 1,416 races from 11,004 mounts for total purse money earned of $2,168,876. Those stats don't include many winners he rode at the fairs in Massachusetts — Berkshire Downs, Northhampton, and Brockton Fair among others.

Later in his career, Kenny rode first call for Kentucky trainer Jerry Romans, father of Eclipse Award-winning trainer Dale Romans. Kenny still gets excited talking about the mount he rode in the Debutante Stakes on the 1978 Kentucky Derby Day card at Churchill Downs in front of 131,004 fans. (The Derby was won that year by the Triple Crown winner Affirmed.) Dale Romans, although quite young at the time, remembers Kenny very well saying that he and Kenny's brother Jerry, an assistant trainer for Dale's father, “were good racetrack people who practically raised me. Kenny rode long enough that he eventually rode for me when I got my trainer's license.”

Green Mountain publicity photo shows fellow jockeys trying to cool off the red-hot Pruden

Kenny's most cherished memory of his New England riding career is the day he met Dolores Ianelli, the sister of jockey — and good friend — Frank Ianelli. Despite being stood up by Dolores on their first date, the determined suitor (that would be Kenny) persevered and true love eventually triumphed as it usually does. After winning three races at Green Mountain on June 20, 1964, the track's betrothed leading rider hopped in his car and sped to Cranston, R.I., where he and Dolores were married. In a 1/1A entry that has lasted 57 years, the Prudens have a son, Ken, and a daughter, Deborah, and two grandchildren, all of whom live nearby in southern Vermont. 

Counting himself extremely lucky that in some 30 spills during his riding career, he never broke a bone, Kenny lives out his retirement helping his beloved Dolores through  some health issues and occasionally traveling to his Minnesota hometown to see his siblings. As his legion of family, friends, and racing fans would agree, it's been a remarkable, well-lived life for Kenneth Gene Pruden, the undisputed king of the little racetrack they built in the foothills of the Vermont Green Mountains. 

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville, Ky., attorney, former racing official and former Kentucky state Representative who, from 1970-1974, worked at Rockingham Park.

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The Friday Show Presented By Monmouth Park: What’s The Deal With Zayat?

When attorneys representing Ahmed Zayat asked a U.S. bankruptcy court judge to let them drop out of the case because they allege the Eclipse Award-winning owner and breeder stopped paying them, some wondered why any law firm would represent an individual whose racing stable owed so much money to so many people.

We aren't experts on legal issues, so went to someone who is: Bob Heleringer, a Louisville, Ky., attorney and former state legislator who joins Paulick Report publisher Ray Paulick and bloodstock editor Joe Nevills to discuss the Zayat case. (Full disclosure: Heleringer said he represents trainer Rudy Rodriguez, one of several trainers to whom Zayat Stables owes money, according to court documents.)

While Heleringer's expertise is in equine regulatory law, he has some interesting comments and observations about the Zayat bankruptcy and the $23-million lawsuit filed against him by MGG Investment Group alleging fraud and breach of contract on a loan.

Joe and Ray review the performance by Jolie Olimpica, the Woodbine Star of the Week who carried the red and white Fox Hill Farm colors of the late Rick Porter to victory in last week's Grade 2 Nassau Stakes.

Watch this week's show, presented by Monmouth Park, below:

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