federal indictments | Horse Racing Free Tips

Gural Reveals Indicted Trainer Allard Still Operating, Bans Horses And Owners From His Barn

Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural issued the following statement to media on March 6 regarding horses associated with Rene Allard. Harness trainer Rene Allard was included in a superseding indictment filed in federal court in December. The indictment was part of a drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy case that also included Louis Grasso, Donato Poliseno, Thomas Guido III, and Richard Banca. The defendants were alleged to be involved in a scheme to “manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses under scheme participants' control.”

The indictment revealed that an office at a Middletown, N.Y., training center where Allard operated was searched by federal agents who found bottles of injectable products labeled “for research purposes only.” That case was originally filed around the same time as a larger case brought by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York against alleged doping rings which included a number of Thoroughbred and harness trainers, assistants, and veterinarians.

Meadowlands management has become aware that Rene Allard is training a stable of horses in South Florida. As a result, The Meadowlands, Tioga & Vernon Downs will exclude any horse being trained or that has been trained in that stable in any stake and is actively investigating who owns the horses that are or have been in his stable this winter.

Those owners who currently have or have had horses in Allard's stable this winter are advised that all horses owned wholly or in part by them will be excluded from participation in all Meadowlands, Tioga & Vernon Downs races and that all of horses owned wholly or in part by them will be deemed ineligible to for any/all Meadowlands, Tioga & Vernon Downs administered stakes races for a minimum of three years.

If owners affected by the above are a minority partner on horses with owners that are not affected by the above and are being trained by accepted trainers, they must legitimately divest their interest in those horses, which will be required to be done and demonstrated to the satisfaction of The Meadowlands before the March 15 stakes payments will be accepted on those horses.

The affected owners should notify their partners on the horses that fall into the above category immediately.

“This news is particularly disturbing after the indictments of March and a later superseding charge in December of last year,” said Meadowlands President Jeff Gural. “We, along with the Thoroughbred Jockey Club, spent much time and money employing the Five Stones investigators to prepare a case to get the feds interested which led to all of those indictments. We will continue to partner with The Jockey Club to fund the continuing investigation by Five Stones. We could use support in this initiative and welcome anyone who would like to aid in the funding of this necessary and important endeavor.

“To learn that people actually give this guy horses to train after what was discovered by the federal investigation boggles the mind. The only reason to do this, that I do this, is to clean up racing so we might have a future and to protect the guys that do try to follow the rules.

“Horsemen seem to have this absurd unspoken bond that they protect each other. Well let me be perfectly clear, trainers that break the rules and use performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are stealing from you, not me. They are beating your horse with a PED-enhanced horse then, they are buying or claiming your horse and them beating you with your own horse. I just don't get it.”

Meadowlands investigator Brice Cote will respond to questions at Bcote@playmeadowlands.com

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What It Takes For A Reporter To Call Out A Cheating Trainer

We received a frustrated letter to the editor this past weekend with a familiar tune. A horse had won a graded stakes race in impressive fashion, continuing a trend of improved form that had started after the horse left the barn of one trainer for another. Why, the reader asked, did they not see coverage of the race dotted with warnings or aspersions about the trainer and his horse's meteoric rise?

It's a question we've heard before when a trainer has what a horseplayer considers an unusually high win percentage or when a horse turns in a dominant performance.

'Why are you too scared to just say the guy is cheating?' people will ask, usually with too many exclamation points. 'Why do you promote these trainers all the time?' they'll write at the end of a race preview or recap.

There are a few reasons we elected not to run that letter, and a few reasons we're not going to put out articles accusing someone of illegal activity based on suspicions or statistics.

First of all, it's important to understand there are different types of coverage on this and other publications. In our case, stories fall into the basic categories of news, features, and investigations.

If a trainer who readers are suspicious of wins a big race, we cannot pretend they didn't win it. We have to report on the results of that race. Likewise, when a trainer has a top contender for an upcoming race, we have to acknowledge that. These types of stories tend to come with quotes from owners, jockeys, and yes, trainers. Quotes may or may not ring as genuine to us or to our readers, but our job as reporters is to report those quotes and that information accurately. It is not for us to opine on them in those spaces.

Secondly, we get a lot of questions about why we don't “expose” a trainer for what a reader may believe is obvious cheating. Many readers may not realize how difficult that is to do – or how much work goes into an investigation of any kind. For us to report on an illegal drug program, we need details. What substance is being given, how it's given, to which horses, when, and where it comes from. We need proof of all those details, and we need to be able to verify that proof independently. There are relatively few people with access to those details in a barn. Probably, it comes down to the trainer, the trainer's supplier, and some number of staff.

There's a reason it took FBI wire taps to reveal the web of connections between indicted trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis and their alleged doping rings – it's because they believed they were giving horses a performance advantage that would benefit their connections financially, but only if they kept their programs a secret.

One section of the government's evidence included in the March 2020 federal indictment included a mention that Servis warned Navarro via text message about the presence of a racing official in the barn area where the two trainers allegedly stored and administered performance-enhancing drugs to horses. In a call later intercepted between Navarro and co-defendant Michael Tannuzzo, Navarro said “[H]e would've caught our assess [expletive] pumping and pumping and fuming every [expletive] horse [that] runs today.”

But he didn't catch them.

Trainers who are giving horses an illegal edge know how to evade testing, and they know to avoid being caught red-handed by the racing investigators who walk the barns daily in some (but not all) states. Their careers depend on keeping that a secret. They and their suppliers have financial incentive to make sure they leave no proof – in sales records, in the feed room, or, as we saw in the indictment, in veterinary records. They have power over their staff members, who would certainly lose their jobs if they reported their bosses and who may legitimately fear they'd never find work on the backstretch again if they crossed someone powerful.

A reporter like me – with limited access to barns, no subpoena power, and no wire taps – has two choices: call and ask a trainer if they're cheating, or hope someone on the inside can help me get the proof I need. The former isn't likely to help much, since they will either truthfully tell me they're not or lie. It will put them on notice, and if they're doing something they shouldn't be, they're probably going to take that activity more underground than it already was, making it harder for me or anyone else to catch them. The latter is extremely unlikely, but my inbox is always open.

I like to think the Paulick Report has gained the reputation it has for investigative reporting because of how carefully we verify our information before it's published. When pursuing something controversial, we try to not only report the story as fairly as we can, but to verify and reverify every detail to ensure our confidence in the facts we have. Sometimes that means leaving out salacious details, and sometimes it means passing on stories altogether if we can't get the evidence we need. We approach stories this way, yes, partly because we don't want to be hit with a libel suit, but also because we believe these standards foster trust in our readers.

None of this is to say that we don't have our own opinions about what we see out there – just that we can't base a true investigative story on an opinion and a win percentage. Opinions, after all, are like … well, you know the phrase.

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How We Brought You The Most Important Stories Of This Most Strange Year Of Racing

As we all prepare to close the book on 2020 (slam it shut enthusiastically in most cases), it's time for our traditional look back at the stories we brought to you this year. This year has been a busy one for us at the Paulick Report, as we've covered major stories within racing and news from the broader world spilling over into the sport.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic was a central focus of our reporting this year, from the initial series of racetrack closures to the rescheduling of major events like the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. As it became clear the disruptions to daily life were not going away, we reported on the uncertainty and stress of horsemen across the country, and have continued our follow-up on from Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Mexico, where the loss of wagering revenue has hobbled already-fragile circuits. In the face of the stress and fear that was common in the early days of the pandemic, we also brought you tales of kindness – horsemen helping each other feed their animals, helping to feed their communities, and an entire series on the dogged perseverance of the men and women who rise early each day to care for the horses we love. The economic disruption of the virus will not vanish when the calendars flip to 2021, and international racing experts have expressed concern about long-term impacts of the virus on public interest in wagering and ownership.

Activity in the national legislature became more impactful on racing this year than it has been before, as the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was introduced, passed, and finally signed into law in December when it was attached to a broader government spending bill. We've endeavored to answer your questions about the basics of the new authority that will be created by the bill. We've also published responses from key industry figures and organizations – some of whom enthusiastically support the bill, some of whom oppose it, and others who have advised caution in the face of scant details about the funding of the new group.

It's been a big year for news within racing, too. Several of our most-read stories of the year dealt with the indictment earlier this year of more than two dozen trainers, assistants, veterinarians, and others in connection with what the FBI says was an illegal racehorse doping ring. High profile horsemen Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis were among those arrested on charges of drug adulteration and misbranding, with horses in their stables extensively tested and transferred to other trainers. They have entered pleas of not guilty to the federal charges against them in the case. Other racing connections, both from the harness and flat racing worlds, would be indicted later, with authorities all the while hinting throughout 2020 since that more arrests could be coming. We sought to better understand what the health and welfare risks to the horses who had allegedly received the drugs described in the federal indictments, and to learn more about the history of SGF-1000, the drug Servis is accused of giving to the majority of horses in his barn. All indicted licensees saw their racing licenses suspended in March, but a Paulick Report investigation into the business of paper training questioned how easy it really is for a bad actor to be kept out of the sport.

Of course, Servis's arrest dredged up debate about the record of Maximum Security, the colt who crossed the finish line first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby but was later disqualified for interference. Owner Gary West had not finished his legal fight to have his horse declared the race's winner at the time of the indictments. West continued pursuing his civil case until three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court's ruling dismissing the suit in August. Meanwhile, West sent Maximum Security for a series of tests and a thorough medical examination by Dr. Larry Bramlage before resting the colt and sending him on to trainer Bob Baffert for a 4-year-old campaign. Though earlier in the year, Maximum Security had won the world's richest race at the inaugural Saudi Cup, the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia later withheld the winner's share of the purse pending an independent investigation into whether the colt ran the race under the influence of performance-enhancing drugs. As the colt's legacy continued to be a subject of debate, Maximum Security was retired to Coolmore, and a subsequent stallion ad touting the purity of his performances prompted some critical analysis from our publisher.

If there was one subject that ignited readers more than Maximum Security or the federal indictments, it was trainer Bob Baffert. Although he won this year's Kentucky Derby (and Breeders' Cup Classic) with Authentic, Baffert stumbled on the Derby trail when Charlatan tested positive for lidocaine after his win in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. Subsequently, Baffert runner Gamine would come up positive for betamethasone in initial post-race testing after the Kentucky Oaks and Merneith would test positive for dextromethorphan after a run at Del Mar in July. Baffert released statements explaining each result and is in the process of appealing the ruling in Arkansas. We took a look at whether having multiple medication violations in so short a time would be likely to compound penalties for the Hall of Fame trainer, and why test results for the split sample from Arkansas seemed to come so slowly.

At the start of 2020, Triple Crown-winning owner Ahmed Zayat became embroiled in an ever-more complicated legal battle stemming from a multi-million-dollar loan he failed to repay to New York firm MGG Investments. A judge appointed a receiver to manage and liquidate the Zayat Stable roster over the course of the 2020 racing season, and MGG eventually received a summary judgment against Zayat Stables in the amount of $24 million. As news spread of the civil case, trainers and other creditors came forward to say the stable owed them money, too. Zayat himself would later declare bankruptcy. The case made lots of documents publicly available that most people never get to see, including contracts for the sales of breeding rights, high-end bloodstock, and appraisals for horses in the Zayat program. We took a look at those documents to better understand how stud deals are made, how horses are appraised, and to sort out the legal process for Zayat's trainers and other industry creditors awaiting payment.

It hasn't all been court documents and COVID-19, though. As always, we aimed to bring you warm and fuzzy stories, too. Our weekly Connections series, authored by Chelsea Hackbarth, tells the story behind a recent winner – often a stakes winner, but sometimes the winner of a bread-and-butter race that meant so much more to a horse's connections. We've brought you monthly perspective from announcer and eventer Jonathan Horowitz in our Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries series as he navigates the highs and lows of retraining an off-track horse while still a novice rider himself.

In an effort to better serve our readers, we've also overhauled the section of our website we call The Paddock to bring you opinion and editorial content from a variety of voices. Mostly, it's dedicated to written commentary but expect to see a return of The Friday Show appearing there soon.

Our goal at the Paulick Report has always been to present you with the most important stories from the racing and equine industries and to shine light on their challenges and their triumphs. We could not do this work without our readers. Thanks to all of you for your support, and best wishes for the new year.

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Harness Trainer Allard Included In Superseding Indictment Against Grasso, Others In Federal Drug Case

Harness trainer Rene Allard has been included in a superseding indictment filed in federal court last week against Louis Grass, Donato Poliseno, Thomas Guido III, and Richard Banca. All defendants have entered not guilty pleas to one count each of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy for their role in what prosecutors say was a scheme to “manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated ad misbranded PEDs and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses under scheme participants' control.”

The allegations in the Dec. 3 indictment are nearly identical to those in the indictment filed against Grasso, Poliseno, Guido and Banca in February and March of this year. The timing of the indictments and arrests earlier in the year coincides with a larger case also from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York into alleged doping schemes utilized by Thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis.

At that time, a complaint was filed against Allard but prosecutors requested several extensions of time in the case throughout the spring and summer. The complaint details Allard's involvement in the alleged scheme with his co-defendants, as recounted by FBI special agent Bruce Turpin.

Turpin stated that Grasso, who had a veterinary license, worked for Allard. Turpin also stated Grasso operated a company that manufactured adulterated and misbranded drugs. Last week's indictment explained that Grasso allowed his veterinary license number to be used by non-veterinarians calling in orders to pharmacies for a charge of $100 per prescription, despite not knowing what the non-vets were prescribing to themselves. The drugs involved in the scheme allegedly included bleeding medications, pain blockers, and EPO-like products, among others. Poliseno stands accused of purchasing and distributing the drugs made by Grasso. Guido and Banca are fellow harness trainers.

The drugs, according to the indictment, were designed to be undetectable in testing.

The substances appeared to carry significant risk to the horses, according to court paperwork. An intercepted conversation between Guido and Grasso about the death of an unidentified horse indicated Grasso thought the horse had been “over juiced” with a bleeding medication.

“I've seen that happen 20 times,” Grasso said.

The complaint filed earlier this year against Allard includes bits of a conversation intercepted by federal agents between Ross Cohen (named in the original indictment alongside Navarro and Servis but absent from a later indictment in that case) and Grasso about Allard's barn. According to the transcript of the phone call from fall 2019, Cohen referred to Allard's operation as “the Allard death camp,” referring to two or three horses that died after receiving what Grasso said was an amino acid supplement from Weatherford, Texas compounding pharmacy NexGen.

A search of an office at a Middletown, N.Y. training center where Allard kept horses revealed empty syringes, bottles of injectable products labeled “for research purposes only” and bottles with labels the agent suspected did not match the content.

The superseding indictment calls for the defendants to forfeit assets acquired as a result of the alleged criminal acts.

Allard was the winningest trainer in 2019 at Pocono Downs is one of the top trainers at Yonkers. Allard was also previously excluded from the Meadowlands by owner Jeff Gural, as was Banca, according to a report earlier this year from Thoroughbred Daily News.

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