California Horse Racing Board | Horse Racing Free Tips

View From The Eighth Pole: Veering Off Into La-La Land

I seriously doubt if trainer Bob Baffert or anyone in his stable knowingly gave scopolamine to Justify prior to his victory in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 7, 2018. But the drug showed up above the threshold limit in post-race testing for both the eventual Triple Crown winner and for Hoppertunity, another Baffert runner, who won the G3 Tokyo City Cup the following day at the Arcadia, Calif., track.

Scopolamine has found its way into California hay supplies via jimson weed, so it's not unreasonable to conclude the positive test was a result of environmental contamination. It's also unlikely that the drug's presence at a low yet impermissible level had any impact on performance.

But rules are rules.

According to California Horse Racing Board rule 1859.5 (Disqualification Upon Positive Test Finding), a positive test of drugs in classes 1, 2 or 3 (as defined by the CHRB) “shall require disqualification of the horse from the race in which it participated and forfeiture of any purse … regardless of culpability for the condition of the horse.”

In April 2018, scopolamine was a Class 3 drug under CHRB rules.

CHRB members, meeting in executive session on Aug. 23, 2018, circumvented those rules by voting to not pursue the matter, acceding to the recommendations of the CHRB's equine medical director, Dr. Rick Arthur, and the board's then-executive director, Rick Baedeker.

There is an old expression that “we don't know what we don't know.” In this case, we don't know how many previous times the board took such actions, stopping an alleged medication violation before it reached the stewards for a hearing. We do know the CHRB has prosecuted numerous cases of positive drug tests that any rational person would assume resulted from environmental contamination.

So what was different about this case?

For starters, by the time this came before the CHRB in August 2018, Justify had a) won the Triple Crown, b) had his breeding rights sold for a record $75 million, and c) been retired from racing. He was also trained by a Hall of Famer who had become the “face” of the sport.

Additionally, there was a can of worms labeled “Derby Points” that some might try to open if Justify was disqualified from the Santa Anita Derby, a race that gave the son of Scat Daddy the points needed to qualify for the Kentucky Derby field.

So the CHRB voted behind closed doors to end the investigation and successfully tamped down what could have been an embarrassing situation – until a September 2019 report by Joe Drape in the New York Times exposed what had happened.

There's another old expression that “it's not the crime, it's the coverup.” Scopolamine positives have been called before in California. Trainers were not sanctioned but their horses disqualified. No one likes when that happens, but it's a matter of following the rules. Maybe the rules need to be changed to accommodate environmental contaminations, but until that happens it isn't right for regulators to circumvent the rules they don't like.

The New York Times article hit as California racing was trying to recover from the high-profile equine fatality spike at Santa Anita earlier in the year that thrust the sport in the national spotlight in a most unflattering way. The handling of the Justify case only poured gasoline onto the regulatory fire.

The controversies riled the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom and dominoes started falling at the CHRB. Chuck Winner had already stepped down as board chairman when the Justify story broke. Vice chair Madeline Auerbach resigned from the board when she was passed over to chair the organization. Executive director Baedeker announced that he was retiring and other staff positions changed. New appointees came from outside the industry and without direct investment in racing or conflicts of interest.

Mick Ruis, who owned Santa Anita Derby runner-up Bolt d'Oro, sued the CHRB in January 2020, claiming he was entitled to the $600,000 first-place money from the race. In July, Ruis reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit when the CHRB said it would file a complaint to conduct a purse disqualification hearing on Justify. That hearing, which also included a complaint filed on Hoppertunity's positive test, was conducted on Oct. 29.

Here's where things start veering off into La-La Land.

The three stewards, John Herbuveaux, Kim Sawyer and Ron Church, did their due diligence sifting through the evidence and testimony. They put together a lengthy findings of fact and timeline, including making note that scopolamine changed from a Class 3 drug to Class 4 months after the Santa Anita Derby and Tokyo City Cup were run. The stewards did all the things you would expect them to do when conducting a hearing of this type and then making a determination.

Then they took the ultimate copout. No matter what the evidence was, no matter what the rules stated, they dismissed the complaint “because the CHRB has already ruled on this matter, in executive session, at the Aug. 23, 2018, meeting.”

Are you kidding me?

Unless this was some kind of carefully orchestrated kabuki theater involving CHRB members, staff and stewards to go through the motions of a hearing in order to satisfy the terms of the settlement agreement with Ruis – which seems highly unlikely – the final order by the stewards is mind-boggling.

If the stewards felt as though the matter was dismissed in August 2018, why did they go to the trouble of conducting a hearing? Couldn't they have sought clarification from legal counsel at the CHRB as to whether or not the matter was settled?

The order by the stewards may not be the final word. Attorney Darrell Vienna, representing Ruis, pointed out that California's Business and Professions Code, section 19517, states the CHRB “may overrule any steward's decision other than a decision to disqualify a horse due to a foul or a riding or driving infraction in a race, if a preponderance of the evidence indicates any of the following:

“1) The steward mistakenly interpreted the law.

“2) New evidence of a convincing nature is produced

“3) The best interests of racing and the state may be better served.

“…Furthermore, any decision pertaining to the distribution of purses may be changed only if a claim is made in writing to the board by one of the involved owners or trainers, and a preponderance of the evidence clearly indicates to the board that one or more of the grounds for protest, as outlined in regulations adopted by the board, has been substantiated.”

Within hours of the decision by the stewards to dismiss the complaint, Vienna filed a claim with the board on behalf of Ruis, asking for the CHRB to overrule the stewards.

The ball is back in the CHRB's court, but these are not the same CHRB members who opted to bury this matter in August 2018.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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Ask Ray: Where Did The Comments Sections Go?

As publisher Ray Paulick said in the introduction to this latest installment of “Ask Ray,” it's been a while. But the Paulick Report is in the process of deciding whether or not to permanently remove the comments section from the website, and Ray wanted to explain the reasons for the possible change after receiving a number of inquiries. Comments have been disabled … for now at least.

And since he got out of his pajamas, shaved and made himself somewhat presentable, he decided to dip into the “Ask Ray” mailbag and answer a few other questions from readers.

Ray tries to respond to all the emails and “Ask Ray” inquiries he receives. so if you don't hear from him immediately, you can probably assume he's forgotten, or your query is pushed too far down into his inbox. Don't be afraid to remind him again. And again if necessary.

The post Ask Ray: Where Did The Comments Sections Go? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Week in Review: Before Feasting Upon Thanksgiving Fare, Chew On This

Last week’s headlines had little to do with on-track action. This coming week though, we awaken from the sport’s annual post-Breeders’ Cup snooze with an eye toward decent Thanksgiving weekend racing and on-the-horizon stakes that could add a touch of intrigue to the tail end of the 2020 season.

But before you feast upon the holiday fare, chew on these side dishes that anchored the last seven days of the news cycle (plus a few other tidbits that didn’t land on the front pages):

Last Tuesday we learned via federal prosecutors that more doping charges could be in the pipeline for existing and new defendants in the alleged years-long drugging conspiracy involving now-barred trainers Jason Servis, Jorge Navarro, and a wide-ranging cast of enablers that includes veterinarians.

A key takeaway from that Nov. 17 court hearing is that the lead prosecutor said he now believes that two of the alleged performance-enhancing drug (PED) suppliers were pushing at least some sham pharmaceuticals to Servis that didn’t really do anything to make a horse faster or stronger.

But, the prosecutor added, the government will still be treating those substances as if they were actual PEDs, because the true intent on the part of Servis was to allegedly pump horses full of illicit drugs.

The other main point gleaned from last Tuesday’s hearing is that this case isn’t likely to go to trial until the second half of 2021 because of the voluminous amount of evidence that is surfacing in the discovery process.

So it’s conceivable we could still be batting around this court case over next year’s Thanksgiving turkey.

Meanwhile, on the western front…

The day after the federal doping case hearings, TDN asked California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) equine medical director Rick Arthur, DVM, to identify what under-the-radar substance might be likely to next surface as drug of abuse.

Arthur replied in the Nov. 18 Q&A that “It’s not really under the radar. We are concerned with SARMs [selective androgen receptor modulators]. Those are a class of drugs that have anabolic-like activity, but they are not really anabolic steroids. We’ve seen some of them in testing already [and] that is a group of drugs that I think that we have to pay attention to.”

The following day, during the CHRB’s monthly meeting, Arthur brought up a separate topic about an abused substance that hasn’t been in the headlines lately: Thyroxine.

In introducing a new rule proposal Nov. 19 to curb thyroxine “to the point that it really will not be used any longer within CHRB facilities,” Arthur revealed that since the start of this year, veterinarians on the Southern California circuit alone have reported 287 prescriptions for thyroxine. Incredibly, he added that “over half of the prescriptions” were written for just two trainers, and 80% of that thyroxine was “prescribed by just three veterinarians.”

This despite a CHRB advisory against thyroxine that has been in effect for more than six years warning against its use in horses that don’t legitimately need it because of the drug’s nasty reputation for producing cardiac arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation. Arthur added that “while we cannot assert a cause-and-effect relationship, one sudden death already in 2020 occurred five days after the horse was prescribed thyroxine.”

The CHRB did not disclose the names of the trainers, veterinarians, or the horse that perished after receiving thyroxine. The motion to advance the rule passed, 7-0.

Fixed-odds experiment coming to NJ…maybe

Dennis Drazin, the chairman and chief executive of Darby Development LLC, which operates Monmouth Park and its sports book, predicted to the New Jersey Racing Commission (NJRC) last Wednesday that within five years, fixed-odds betting has the potential to comprise “a significant portion of the handle” in horse racing.

Several commissioners expressed fears about fixed-odds betting cannibalizing the existing pari-mutuel system. Yet despite their repeated lamenting about “last rites” to a model that “will lose out in the end if it has to compete” with fixed odds, no one on the NJRC inquired about what a realistic pricing structure might look like for the new model so it could benefit bet-makers, bet-takers and the horsemen.

Fixed-odds bookmaking, which allows a customer to lock in pricing at the time of the wager, does indeed have theoretical promise to revolutionize, reenergize, and even replace traditional straight wagering in this country (while leaving exotics to be better handled by pari-mutuels).

But when the NJRC voted 4-0 Nov. 18 to approve a fixed-odds pilot program for 2021 that would be limited to bets on out-of-state Grade I races, it didn’t even raise the issue of how the bets would be priced in terms of takeout so that the tracks that fund those races get paid for their product.

Granted, the pilot program wasn’t even the NJRC’s idea. It was handed down by the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, which has the authority to regulate fixed-odds wagers. The NJRC was only involved because a provision in the Interstate Horse Racing Act of 1978 requires approval from the receiving state’s racing commission before wagers can be taken on imported signals.

What’s in a name?

It’s great that a smaller track laden with no-frills charm like Fairmount Park will have its lifespan extended thanks to 2019 legislation in Illinois that granted it the privilege to host slot machines, table games and sports betting.

Not so enthusing was last week’s announcement that Fairmount’s corporate gaming partner is “rebranding” (read: obliterating) the name of the storied oval 12 miles east of St. Louis so it will now be known as “FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing.”

Apparently, 95 years of history are getting tossed into the nearby Mississippi River. Sure, the corporate backer is putting up millions of dollars. But FanDuel wouldn’t be there in the first place if it wasn’t for Fairmount hanging in there long beyond most expectations for it to survive.

In the Nov. 16 press release that heralded the erasure of the Fairmount name, the partners also announced that the company will “fund the renewal and running of the $250,000 St. Louis Derby, the track’s signature event, which has not been conducted since 2006 due to financial constraints.”

Actually, the 2006 St. Louis Derby was the only edition of the race ever conducted. It was the legacy of the old Fairmount Derby, which was run inconsistently between 1926 and 1996, with decades-long gaps between some runnings.

But that one and only St. Louis Derby did produce a good trivia question. Can you name the winner of that 2006 stakes? He was a colt who won six straight races leading up to the GI Kentucky Derby. He ran 12th behind Barbaro, and it was discovered post-race that he had been hindered by an ankle chip. After surgery to repair it, this chestnut was pounded to 4-5 favoritism when returning to his winning ways at Fairmount on a muggy Saturday night in August.

Need another hint? A year later, that colt flourished as a Grade I force, sweeping both the Whitney H. and Woodward S. at Saratoga.

Lawyer Ron is the answer. I’ll be rooting for Fairmount to lure another high-profile horse to the St. Louis Derby in 2021.

I just won’t be referring to that appealing old track by its unimaginative new name.

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Thyroxine In SoCal: Nearly 300 Scrips This Year, Over Half for Two Trainers

Despite an advisory designed to eliminate stable-wide usage of thyroxine that has been in effect since the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) investigated seven sudden deaths of horses trained by Bob Baffert in 2013 and found that all of them had been administered that drug “more as a supplement than a medication,” the use of thyroxine in Southern California remains astoundingly high.

In introducing a new rule proposal on Thursday to curb thyroxine use “to the point that it really will not be used any longer within CHRB facilities,” CHRB equine medical director Rick Arthur, DVM, revealed that between January and the first week of October this year, “veterinarians reporting to the official veterinarians on just the Southern California Thoroughbred circuit and their auxiliary training centers have reported 256 prescriptions for thyroxine between January 2020 and the first week of October.”

Arthur added that there have been 31 additional thyroxine prescriptions logged since that report was compiled a month ago, then tacked on this stunner: “Over half of the prescriptions are for just two trainers, and 80% of the thyroxine has been prescribed by just three veterinarians.”

Arthur did not name the trainers or veterinarians involved, nor did CHRB board members inquire as to who they were during the public portion of the Nov. 19 meeting.

“Hypothyroidism is rare in horses and especially so in young racehorses, to the extent that it’s virtually non-existent,” Arthur said.

“Nevertheless, thyroid hormones, primarily levo-thyroxine, are commonly prescribed,” Arthur continued. “Thyroxine has been associated with cardiac arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation in humans, and anecdotally similar cardiac arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation have been reported in horses. While we cannot assert a cause-and-effect relationship, one sudden death already in 2020 occurred five days after the horse was prescribed thyroxine.”

Arthur said that “the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) and Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) issued a thyroxine advisory [in August], noting the practice of prescribing levothyroxine to racehorses has drawn scrutiny and raised questions about the legitimacy of its use in horses engaged in training and racing.”

Arthur also explained how “the New York Gaming Commission has already required a similar restriction at New York tracks [and] The Stronach Group has imposed similar restrictions at their Maryland and Florida tracks as a matter of policy.”

The CHRB proposal, which advanced to the 45-day public commentary period after a 7-0 vote, largely mirrors policies the above-mentioned jurisdictions have crafted.

According to the CHRB’s information packet for the thyroxine agenda item, “the adoption of Rule 1866.4 would require a TRH-response test to be performed be a Board-licensed veterinarian, a positive hypothyroidism test be obtained, and the positive result indicating hypothyroidism be submitted to the official veterinarian or equine medical director for review and approval of a thyroxine prescription.

“Following approval of the prescription, the thyroxine prescription cannot exceed 90 calendar days without further re-authorization from the official veterinarian or equine medical director, and a horse administered thyroxine is ineligible to start in a race for 30 calendar days of last administration.”

Back in 2013, the CHRB’s compilation of Sudden Death Reports stated that although “the blanket prescribing of thyroxine to all horses in Baffert’s barn does appear unusual” the cluster of seven sudden deaths of horses “remains unexplained [and] there is no evidence whatsoever CHRB rules or regulations have been violated or any illicit activity played a part.”

The investigation of those deaths did, however, led to the CHRB’s 2014 advisory that is still in effect requiring a specific diagnosis and other prescribing, reporting and labeling restrictions for thyroxine and any other thyroid hormones or analogs.

“This proposed regulation addresses an issue that’s frustrated me for almost the whole time I’ve been equine medical director,” Arthur said.

MMV Coming to CA

In other medication-related news, the CHRB Thursday voted 7-0 to adopt the Multiple Medication Violations (MMV) program used in other jurisdictions. It will establish a points system by which enhanced penalties are imposed, whereby the number of points assigned to a trainer depends on the class and number of violations committed.

The number of points accumulated determines the length of the suspension, and the class of violation determines the length of time before the points expire. The new MMV rule will go into effect once it is certified by the state’s Office of Administrative Law.

2021 NorCal Dates

Few people are looking to relive the pandemic-skewed racing season known as 2020. But to come up with a workable version of a 2021 Northern California calendar that satisfies most stakeholders, the CHRB voted 7-0 Thursday to try again with a template for next year that nearly matches the dates that were allotted–but not entirely run–this year.

Health-related cancellations during 2020 caused the Santa Rosa, Ferndale and Fresno meets to get transferred to Golden Gate Fields, while Pleasanton ran an extended meet that included Sacramento’s dates.

Back at the October meeting, the CHRB had assigned a Dec. 23, 2020-June 16, 2021 block to Golden Gate Fields, leaving the second half of 2021 dates in the region to be determined later.

Commissioners on Thursday recognized there is not much clarity involving how COVID-19 might impact the racing schedule seven months from now. After brief debate about tabling the region’s dates allotment because of all the unknowns, the board opted to move forward as if there will be no interruptions, with the backup plan of reconsidering each meet’s allotment at a later date if needed.

“We’ll put it in place so people can make plans as if it is going to be normal, and then adjust accordingly. That’s kind of how we all have to live our lives right now,” said commissioner Wendy Mitchell.

Prior to the vote, CHRB executive director Scott Chaney said that after conferring with stakeholders to try and craft a schedule, “The two real sort of bones of contention seem to be Santa Rosa preferring to [add in] a week earlier, which obviously would cut a week into Sacramento. And [also] if part of Ferndale should run overlapped with Golden Gate Fields.”

CHRB vice chair Oscar Gonzales said that to the first point, Santa Rosa officials have indicated that they are willing to compromise and race just two weeks as proposed, so long as for 2022, the CHRB will give Santa Rosa special consideration to host the three-week meet it prefers.

As for Ferndale, its desire not to have any overlapping dates with Golden Gate Fields wasn’t able to be completely worked out. The fair meet and the commercial track will go head-to-head during the second of Ferndale’s two-weeks, a setup that was last in effect in 2018. In 2019, the two venues had conflicting meets for the entire two-week period.

Based on those considerations, the CHRB ended up approving the following 2021 NorCal schedule (per custom, the calendar is allocated in blocks of dates, not actual race days):

Golden Gate Fields (GGF): Dec. 23, 2020-June 16, 2021

Pleasanton: June 16-July 13

Sacramento: July 14-Aug. 3

Santa Rosa: Aug. 4-17

Ferndale: Aug. 18-31

GGF: Aug. 25-Oct. 5

Fresno: Oct. 6-19

GGF: Oct. 20-Dec. 21

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