Joe Sharp | Horse Racing Free Tips

Weekly Stewards and Commissions Rulings: Jan. 11-17

Every week, the TDN publishes a roundup of key official rulings from the primary tracks within the four major racing jurisdictions of California, New York, Florida and Kentucky.

Here's a primer on how each of these jurisdictions adjudicates different offenses, what they make public and where.

California

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/14/2022
Licensee: Kent Desormeaux, jockey
Penalty: $500
Violation: Excessive use of the riding crop
Explainer: Jockey Kent Desormeaux is fined $500.00 for violation of California Horse Racing Board rule #1688(b)(8) (Use of Riding Crop–more than six times–first offense within the past 60 days) during the eighth race at Santa Anita Park on January 9, 2022.

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/15/2022
Licensee: Peter Eurton, trainer
Penalty: $400
Violation: Late registration of Lasix
Explainer: Trainer Peter Eurton is fined $400.00 for violation of California Horse Racing Board rule #1845 (Authorized Bleeder Medication–late registration) of Memes in the eighth race on January 14, 2022, at Santa Anita Park.

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/15/2022
Licensee: John Velazquez, jockey
Penalty: Three-day suspension
Violation: Careless riding
Explainer: Jockey John Velazquez, who rode Con on the Run in the first race at Santa Anita Park on January 14, 2022, is suspended for three (3) racing days (January 22, 23 and 28, 2022) for failure to make the proper effort to maintain a straight course in the stretch, causing interference which resulted in the disqualification of his mount from first to second. This constitutes a violation of California Horse Racing Board rule #1699 (Riding Rules–Careless Riding).

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/16/2022
Licensee: Drayden Van Dyke, jockey
Penalty: $500
Violation: Excessive use of the riding crop
Explainer: Jockey Drayden Van Dyke is fined $500.00 for violation of California Horse Racing Board rule #1688(b)(8) (Use of Riding Crop–more than six times–first offense within the past sixty days) during the third race at Santa Anita Park on January 15, 2022.

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/16/2022
Licensee: Reid France, trainer
Penalty: $200
Violation: Failure to saddle
Explainer: Trainer Reid France, who failed to saddle Big Papa Steve in the first race at Santa Anita Park on January 15, 2022, is fined $200.00 for violation of California Horse Racing Board Rule #1894 (Duties of Trainer–failure to appear to saddle–second offense).

Track: Santa Anita
Date: 01/17/2022
Licensee: Daisuke Fukumoto, jockey
Penalty: $500
Violation: Excessive use of the riding crop
Explainer: Jockey Daisuke Fukumoto is fined $500.00 for violation of California Horse Racing Board rule #1688(b)(8) (Use of Riding Crop–more than six times–first offense within the past sixty days) during the sixth race at Santa Anita Park on January 16, 2022.

New York

Track: Aqueduct
Date: 01/16/2022
Licensee: Steven Fret, jockey
Penalty: Three-day suspension
Violation: Careless riding
Explainer: Horse Charlotte Webley # (4) ridden by Steven Fret was disqualified from second position and placed last this for careless riding during the running of the fourth race at Aqueduct racetrack on January 9, 2022. For having waived his right to appeal jockey Steven Fret is hereby suspended three NYRA racing days January 21-23 2022, inclusive.

Kentucky

Track: Turfway Park
Date: 01/14/2022
Licensee: Joe Sharp, trainer
Penalty: Vacation of penalties
Violation: N/A
Explainer: Due to the de-classification of levamisole in August 2015 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, all penalties previously assessed to Owner/Trainer Joe Sharp in Stewards' Rulings #21-0006, #21-0008, #21-0010, #21-0011 and #21-0012 are hereby vacated. Read more from the TDN on the ruling here.

The post Weekly Stewards and Commissions Rulings: Jan. 11-17 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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KHRC Vacates Levamisole Rulings Against Sharp

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission has vacated the sanctions it imposed on trainer Joe Sharp following five positive tests for levamisole in horses who ran at Churchill Downs in November 2019. A KHRC ruling issued Thursday and first reported by Blood-Horse, read, “Due to the de-classification of levamisole in August 2015 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, all penalties previously assessed to Owner/Trainer Joe Sharp in Stewards' Rulings #21-0006, #21-0008, #21-0010, #21-0011 and #21-0012 are hereby vacated.”

Sharp was suspended 30 days and fined $2,500 by the KHRC last January for the levamisole positives. The trainer also had eight horses test positive for the drug at Fair Grounds and was issued $1,000 fine for each horse, but not suspended for the Louisiana violations. He blamed the levamisole positives on an over-the-counter dewormer he had purchased and used to treat his horses.

While announcing his client was appealing the KHRC decision last January, attorney Clark Brewster told TDN, “The stewards sent out this notice saying [levamisole] is a class B drug. Not only is it not a class B, it's not listed at all. They held a hearing where I strongly urged them to dismiss this and they got real quiet. Then they returned a suspension of 30 days and fines. It was truly astonishing. We expect public servants to apply the law based on what is set forth.”

Brewster said that levamisole is only prohibited when it metabolizes into the drug aminorex, which he said did not happen in the case of Sharp's horses. He also pointed to a 2015 case in which the KHRC suspended trainer Daniel Werre for a full year after a levamisole positive. The suspension was reversed by the Franklin Circuit Court, which cited its finding that the KHRC had improperly classified the drug at the time. Werre was eventually given a seven-day suspension.

The post KHRC Vacates Levamisole Rulings Against Sharp appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf Could Lure Summer In Saratoga To Florida In Winter

Trainer Joe Sharp said he would like to run multiple stakes-winner Summer in Saratoga in the $500,000 Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf (G3) at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., on Jan. 29. He and co-owner Anderson Farms just want to make sure she fits.

“We're going to make a decision as it gets a little closer, but it's definitely under strong consideration,” Sharp said. “From what I'm gathering, it looks like her (handicapping) numbers will be pretty competitive in the Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf. As long as we're both comfortable taking a shot, that might be what we do.”

Summer in Saratoga was fresh off a victory for then-owner Highlander Training Center in Keeneland's Grade 3 Dowager Stakes when the mare was sold for $630,000 at Fasig-Tipton's November sale. Sharp figured that probably was the last time he'd see the daughter of 2007 Kentucky Derby runner-up Hard Spun. However, Anderson Farms owner David Anderson sent her back to Sharp. In her first and so far only start for her new owners, Summer in Saratoga won the $75,000 Blushing KD Stakes at the New Orleans Fair Grounds.

“Obviously you hope it would work out the way it did,” Sharp said of being able to keep Summer in Saratoga in his barn. “At that price range where she was expected to sell, most people would be purchasing her as a broodmare prospect. There was no guarantee you were going to get somebody who would want to continue to race her, let alone trust us to have her again. It really all came together nicely.”

Sharp had never before met David Anderson, who campaigns the now 6-year-old mare in the name of his farm in Ontario, Canada, and with Narola LLC. Success would come quickly, but not before facing a speed bump.

“We actually sent her up to New York,” Sharp said. “She got scratched in the paddock; she kind of sat down behind. So we brought her down to the Fair Grounds. She got herself back together and ran huge the other day. Corey (Lanerie, her regular jockey) happened to be in town. He knows her so well. It all worked out, basically first start for the new connections to get a win.”

Whether Summer in Saratoga races a full season or races a time or two before being bred would appear up to the 6-year-old mare.

“It's on a start-by-start basis, Sharp said. “From what I understood from Dave, as long as she's performing at a level that can add to her resume, then I think he's content to move forward with racing.”

Sharp has had Summer in Saratoga for all but her first two races. That span encompasses her seven victories, four coming in stakes – including in three of her last four starts.

“Honestly, this moment right now is probably my favorite version of Summer in Saratoga that I've been around,” he said. “There are probably a lot of different factors contributing to that, but mainly maturity. She has that being about her of a good horse that's very alpha and very confident. She makes my job easy.”

While Sharp's main winter base of the Fair Grounds has a series of turf stakes for fillies and mares, those purses don't come close to Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf's $500,000.

“The Fair Grounds series has been good to us over the years,” Sharp said. “But we get spoiled in the spring, summer and fall with the purse structure in Kentucky. So it's nice to have some big purse money to run for in January if you can be competitive. So we're grateful to Gulfstream for putting that on.”

The post Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf Could Lure Summer In Saratoga To Florida In Winter appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Kentucky Horse Racing Commission Vacates Levamisole Sanctions Against Joe Sharp

Nearly one year after trainer Joe Sharp appealed a 30-day suspension for a series of positive tests for levamisole, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission issued a one-sentence ruling on Jan. 14 vacating all sanctions against him.

The ruling read: “Due to the de-classification in August 2015 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, all penalties previously assessed to Owner/Trainer Joe Sharp in Stewards' Rulings #21-0006, #21-0008, #21-0010, #21-0011 and #21-0012 are hereby vacated. By Order of the Stewards.”

The decision was first reported by Bloodhorse.com.

Sharp was cited for five positive tests for levamisole in horses that raced at Churchill Downs in November 2019. The Jan. 21, 2021, rulings stated levamisole is a Class B drug, even though the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission had voted in 2015 to declassify levamisole.

The Kentucky sanctions came after Sharp was fined $1,000 each but not suspended for eight positives in Louisiana for levamisole. Sharp said the positives resulted from use of an FDA-approved deworming product designed for cattle, sheep and goats that he used on his horses.

Clark Brewster, Sharp's attorney, told Paulick Report's Natalie Voss at the time the appeal was filed: “I found it to be extraordinarily unfair and damaging to Joe. It's just the intransigence of the stewards not having the courage to recognize the truth and say, 'OK, we're sorry about that. Let's get it right.”

Voss wrote at the time of the appeal: An important difference to Brewster is the history of changes of levamisole's classification. At one point, the drug was considered a Class A drug (the most serious category) and was later made a Class B. Then, in 2015, commissioners for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission unanimously agreed to remove levamisole from the drug classification scheme altogether after they detangled the association between levamisole and another drug called aminorex. Aminorex is a stimulant which has the potential for performance enhancement and was the primary substance of concern, they concluded. Initially it had been unclear whether one was a sign that the other had been administered, but Brewster said it's now generally accepted that levamisole can metabolize into aminorex, but not the other way around.

(Read more about the challenges of regulating levamisole and aminorex in this 2018 feature.

“This is truly beyond the pale of regulation,” Brewster told Voss when filing the appeal. “[The positives were] all over the news. Joe couldn't get stalls at Fair Grounds for a while. People pulled their horses, including one that ran in the Kentucky Derby (Art Collector). He was completely pilloried in the press, all on the basis that the stewards just didn't read the list.”

The five horses who tested positive for levamisole were disqualified and purse monies redistributed, according to 2020 rulings. They are: Zero Gravity (Nov. 14, 2019); Chitto (Nov. 19, 2019); Street Dazzle (Nov. 23, 2019); Blackberry Wine (Nov. 30, 2019); Art Collector (Nov. 30, 2019). The reversal of sanctions against Sharp does not affect those disqualifications.

The post Kentucky Horse Racing Commission Vacates Levamisole Sanctions Against Joe Sharp appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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