harness racing | Horse Racing Free Tips

Harness Owner Howard Taylor Sues Jeff Gural for Defamation

On Nov. 3, Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural announced that the track was banning 33 trainers and owners, including Howard Taylor, after claiming that evidence and exhibits track officials were able to retain from the doping trials that had taken place over the previous months revealed a list of individuals who had purchased banned substances. An email sent to TDN listed Taylor as being among those who had allegedly purchased EPO.

On Tuesday, Taylor fired back. According to an email from Tilden Katz of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies, Taylor has sued Gural alleging defamation and related crimes for his accusations that Taylor was purchasing EPO, which, Gural implied, he was supplying to his trainers.

Katz said that the statements Gural had made were untrue. “No facts, in either the Meadowlands press release or the article, supported the claim that Taylor ever gave Epogen to any of his trainers or that Taylor ever instructed any trainer to use Epogen on his horses,” Katz said.

The lawsuit, Howard Taylor v. Jeffrey Gural, was filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Taylor is a lawyer based in Philadelphia who specializes in equine and horse racing related issues. He has one of the largest stables in the sport of harness racing, one that normally has about 170 horses.

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Gabe Prewitt to The Red Mile

Harness racing's Gabe Prewitt has been named VP of Racing & Sports Wagering Operations at The Red Mile in Lexington, Kentucky. Caesars Entertainment has an agreement with a joint venture between Keeneland Association and The Red Mile to open Central Kentucky's only brick-and-mortar retail sportsbook locations, subject to regulatory approvals from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

Prewitt was formerly the Director of Racing with Caesars Entertainment, overseeing racing operations at five properties, as well as serving as a track announcer and as part of several broadcast teams on harness racing's biggest days.

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More Than Three Years After Original Indictments, A New Name Surfaces

In the case involving high-profile thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and more than two dozen others, Standardbred horseman Brandon Simpson has pled guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy for his role in a scheme to provide horses with performance-enhancing drugs.

What makes the Simpson case unusual is that his guilty plea came some three years after the original charges against Navarro, Servis et. al. were unsealed and there was no mention of Simpson's name in the indictments released at that time. Court records released this week show that Simpson came to the government's attention as early as mid-November, 2020 when the government and Simpson's attorneys agreed on a bail package. What happened over the next several months and why was Simpson's name omitted from the original indictment remain unanswered questions. The Simpson development also raises the question as to whether or not more new names will surface in the near future when it comes to those being indicted as part of the drugging scandal.

Simpson both trained and drove, winning 1,643 races as a driver and 375 as a trainer. He last drove in 2017 and it appears that around that time he accepted a job as an assistant to trainer Rene Allard. Allard is among the bigger names caught up in the scandal and is currently serving a 27-month prison sentence after he previously plead guilty to one felony count of misbranding and altering drugs.

In a particularly troubling chapter in the Allard scandal, the Federal Bureau of Investigation intercepted a phone conversation in which two other alleged conspirators discussed the deaths of horses trained by Allard after they had been given illegal drugs. One reference caught on wiretap described the trainer's operation as the “Allard death camp.”

Court documents released this week detailed Simpson's activities, which included purchasing drugs at a pharmacy in South Carolina and then shipping them to a training center located in the Southern District of New York. Simpson also, the government claims, “administered prescription drugs to racehorses under Simpson's and others' control without a valid veterinary prescription, for the purposes of enhancing the horses' race performance.”

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Awaiting Prison In Doping Scandal, Vet Charged With Cheating Casino Out Of $21,646

The convicted New York-based harness racing veterinarian Louis Attilio Grasso, who is scheduled to report to federal prison Jan. 24 to begin serving a 50-month sentence for his admitted role in peddling drugs in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy sweep of arrests, was arraigned Friday in Pennsylvania on charges that he swindled $21,646 from a casino over the past week by allegedly conspiring with a dealer in a cheating scheme.

According to stories first reported by the Pennsylvania news outlet the Times Leader and the gaming industry site Casino.org, security officials at the Mohegan Pennsylvania casino in Wilkes-Barre began more closely monitoring a dealer there Dec. 30 after detecting a “sudden large win rate” at his table.

Citing court records filed by the Pennsylvania State Police's Bureau of Gaming Enforcement, the Times Leader reported that “Jason Richard Kutney, 52, was a dealer for the craps electronic table game responsible for pushing a button at the end of a 30 second clock allowing patrons to place bets. Kutney pushed the button early, allowing casino patron Louis Attilio Grasso, 66, to see the numbers prior to placing his bet.”

The Times Leader's reporting continued: “State police in court records said the scheme occurred on Dec. 30, when Grasso won $17,521, and again [Jan. 5], when Grasso won $4,125. Kutney admitted to pushing the button on the machine earlier, giving Grasso the benefit of seeing the numbers.”

Casino.org added that “Surveillance video captured Kutney allegedly hitting the dice button early at least nine times. During the incidents, police say bettors were given as much as 20 seconds to place their bets even though the dice had been rolled and the winning numbers were displayed on the electronic [table].”

“Police said in an affidavit that Kutney admitted to law officers that he was assisting Grasso through a difficult time. Grasso declined to speak with police and instead requested an attorney,” Casino.org reported.

Casino.org reported that Kutney was arrested and charged with three felony charges for receiving stolen property, theft by unlawful taking, and conspiring to trick, fraud, or manipulate a casino, plus a first-degree misdemeanor for knowingly tricking and/or defrauding a business.

The Luzerne County court docket noted that Grasso's charges are similar, reporting them in court shorthand as “Knowingly by trick/fraud/manipulation win or reduce loss” without designating them as felonies or misdemeanors.

Although the Times Union additionally reported on Friday that both defendants “were jailed at the county correctional facility for lack of $25,000 unsecured bail,” neither was listed on the inmate roster as of Saturday afternoon.

In May 2022, when Grasso entered a guilty plea in the racehorse doping conspiracy case, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District Court issued a press release in which U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, “In peddling illegal drugs and selling prescriptions to corrupt trainers, Louis Grasso abdicated his responsibilities as a medical professional to ensure the safety and health of the racehorses he 'treated.'”

The website Sports Litigation Alert reported on Dec. 16,. 2022, that Grasso's doping conspiracy conviction was hardly his first brush with the law or state racing regulators.

“In 1992, Grasso was previously convicted in federal court of selling anabolic steroids and his license to practice equine medicine was suspended by the State of New York. In 1993, based on Grasso's guilty plea in New York to three counts of possession and distribution of anabolic steroids, his New Jersey license to practice veterinary medicine in New Jersey was also suspended for five years.

“[In 2000] Delaware authorities suspected Grasso of practicing without a license and when police tried to arrest him Grasso led the police on a wild car chase. When the police finally stopped Grasso they found needles, syringes and banned drugs in his car. In 2005, New York State Racing and Wagering Board upheld a refusal to license Grasso to participate in pari-mutuel harness racing as a veterinarian,” Sports Litigation Alert reported.

Beyond his upcoming federal prison sentence in the doping conviction, the court has also mandated that Grasso pay restitution in the amount of $47,656,576 and a forfeiture of $412,442.

Just prior to his Nov. 15 sentencing, Grasso wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency because of health issues and his modest financial means.

“I am a physical wreck,” Grasso wrote. “I am not a rich man. I don't have much in the way of money or possessions. I have no savings, I have little cash available… While I don't live hand to mouth, I don't have the ability to withstand any catastrophic events in my life.”

Grasso is due to appear in Luzerne County Court next on Jan. 17 for a preliminary hearing on the casino charges.

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