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Federal Defendants File Motion Asking Judge To Recuse

The defendants in the ongoing federal drug adulteration and misbranding case have filed a letter motion asking the presiding judge in the case to recuse herself. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil will consider the motion during a previously-scheduled status update in the case on May 14.

Attorneys for the defendants say Vyskocil has previously bred Thoroughbred racehorses and on four occasions was the breeder of a horse which ran against starters from defendants Jason Servis or Jorge Navarro. Court documents indicate that in two of those four races, the horse bred by Vyskocil finished better than the defendant's starter. Three of those starts were made by one horse, Here's Ya Souvenir, who was sold at auction as a 2-year-old and apparently no longer belonged to Vyskocil at the time of those starts. The other start came from Last Boat Home, who made the start in question while owned by Dreamland Racing.

Vyskocil bred both horses in partnership with Barry Ostranger, who the defense points out is a member of The Jockey Club. Jockey Club principals have been outspoken about the organization's role in the investigations which led to these indictments, and of their desire for serious punishment for the defendants.

Those races took place, according to court documents, between 2006 and 2009 — well before Vyskocil took the bench in the Southern District of New York.

Prosecutors filed a motion in opposition of the defense's request this week, questioning why it took the defense a year to make these connections between Vyskocil and hinting that this revelation could be related to a number of motions that had not gone in the defendants' favor. The government argues that judges do not have to recuse themselves from cases simply because they have some interest in a relevant industry, but only if those interests directly involve a person or legal issue at play. They also point out that Vyskocil didn't stand to gain financially from any of the four races in question against Navarro and Servis because they either took place outside New York state (where the horses were bred) or involved a horse that was not registered with the New York breeder incentive program anyway.

Vyskocil is expected to address the recusal motion during Friday's conference.

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Bloodlines: English Channel’s Stature As A Leading Sire Grows On Racetrack, If Not In Auction Ring

Is there a less-appreciated upper-tier sire in the country than English Channel?

Channel Cat's victory in the Grade 1 Man o' War Stakes was a reminder of the excellence that the stallion imparts to his offspring and that English Channel showed emphatically during his own racing career.

The 19-year-old son of Smart Strike and the Theatrical mare Belva proved himself a hickory racer, winning 13 of 23 starts over four seasons and $5.3 million. At the races, English Channel began his career the right way: winning his debut at 2 at Saratoga.

The horse then proceeded to win four of his first five starts at 3, including the Grade 3 Virginia Derby, and he also placed second in a pair of G1 races, the Secretariat at Arlington and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont.

English Channel returned to the races at 4 to win a trio of G1 stakes: the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs, the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont, and the United Nations at Monmouth Park. Then the horse returned at 5 and did the same thing. And this time, a trio of G1s, the Turf Classic at Belmont and the United Nations, plus the Breeders' Cup Turf run at Monmouth Park, brought English Channel the Eclipse Award as champion male turf horse.

And a turn at stud.

English Channel's sire, Smart Strike, could not have been hotter at the time. He was the leading sire in North America, due not only to English Channel but also to Curlin, who was elected champion 3-year-old colt and Horse of the Year in 2007 after G1 victories in the Preakness, Jockey Club Gold Cup, and Breeders' Cup Classic.

The cachet of a stallion like Smart Strike – himself a son of the great Mr. Prospector – who could sire such good horses brought considerable attention to his sons and then sent them to stud with lordly expectations of success.

Yet, aside from their sire, high racing class, and chestnut coats, two horses could hardly be more different than English Channel and Curlin.

The latter is a brawny beast who left some breeders wondering whether he might not be too massive a specimen to breed on successfully. Time and the proof of elite racing class have disproven those concerns.

The exact opposite concern was held for English Channel, who came to stud looking so racy, lean, and elegant that some breeders wondered if he would produce enough muscle and mass in his stock to make them high-class racehorses.

Time and the test of the racecourse have proven that English Channel can sire those top horses, with 30 graded stakes winners to date, which is more than half of all his 58 stakes winners. They come in a range of sizes, colors, and shapes that has tended to bewilder the commercial market, which values consistency very nearly as much as quality.

A stallion of similar character is the broodmare sire of Channel Cat: Kitten's Joy. A champion turf racer like English Channel, Kitten's Joy throws a wild array of physical types, from the lean-bodied sort who remind us of whippets to the hulking powerhouses similar to himself.

Yet both Kitten's Joy and English Channel are very good sires, especially of turf horses, and in part that is because a turf horse has to have some level of pace to succeed. It is a great gift if the racer possesses a first-rate change of pace like these two champion turf performers, but the ability to get up to the lead and tough it out to the wire is evidence of a grand racing character and a hardy constitution.

Channel Cat possesses these in spades. He relied upon his strengths so effectively that he made the Man o' War a considerable test of stamina (starting with an opening quarter mile in :22.69) and then refused to be swamped for speed in the final three furlongs, which he ran in :35.85.

In addition to his own genetic contribution to the greatest game, English Channel has succeeded because breeders, especially the owner of Calumet Farm, have believed in the stallion and have supported him with quality mares. For a stallion who does not often get the “sales type” of yearling, this is an essential support system, and the sport is all the richer for it.

Frank Mitchell is author of Racehorse Breeding Theories, as well as the book Great Breeders and Their Methods: The Hancocks. In addition to writing the column “Sires and Dams” in Daily Racing Form for nearly 15 years, he has contributed articles to Thoroughbred Daily News, Thoroughbred Times, Thoroughbred Record, International Thoroughbred, and other major publications. In addition, Frank is chief of biomechanics for DataTrack International and is a hands-on caretaker of his own broodmares and foals in Central Kentucky. Check out his Bloodstock in the Bluegrass blog.

The post Bloodlines: English Channel’s Stature As A Leading Sire Grows On Racetrack, If Not In Auction Ring appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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About That Connection Between SGF-1000 And Dexamethasone

When news broke last weekend that Medina Spirit had tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone, Paulick Report staff received several questions from readers asking about a phone conversation intercepted by federal agents. Court documents from the federal indictments of March 2020 recalled a conversation between trainer Jason Servis and veterinarian Dr. Kristian Rhein in which they were discussing a substance called SGF-1000, which prosecutors say was one of the misbranded or adulterated drugs at the heart of the case. Rhein told Servis that the substance could sometimes create a false positive for “dex,” widely believed to refer to dexamethasone, and Servis asked Rhein to alter his veterinary records to make it appear as though horses had been treated with dexamethasone in case of a positive test.

Read more about SGF-1000 in this Paulick Report feature.

Since both dexamethasone and betamethasone are corticosteroids, some readers wondered whether a positive test for betamethasone could actually be a guise for something more sinister.

According to Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director for the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the answer is no.

Scollay explained that the testing and confirmation process used in mass spectronomy makes it virtually impossible for one drug to be misidentified as another. She doesn't believe betamethasone is a false positive result, nor that SGF-1000 could actually have shown up as dexamethasone in post-race tests. (No one ever said the indicted individuals were always accurate in their intercepted conversations.)

Mass spectronomy works by identifying foreign molecules inside blood or urine and weighing them as part of a process called screening analysis. Those molecular weights are then checked against the lab's drug catalogue. The catalogue contains the molecular weights of known substances and is developed through rigorous testing of known drugs. If a molecular weight matches something in the catalogue, that's an initial finding.

Before the lab can actually call the test a positive for the substance though, it goes through a second process called confirmatory analysis. It's possible two substances could have the same weight but be made up of different components, so the lab must find out if their compositions are the same. In this process, the molecules of the substance are bombarded with energy until they split apart, and the ratios of the resulting pieces are measured against the catalogued substance.

“Each specific molecule has its own way of fragmenting,” said Scollay. “It's like a Hershey bar – it's scored in a certain way, it's going to break the same way every time if you apply force at certain points. When you go to identify the molecule, you look at the candidate ions, the ions that result from fragmenting it, and also the ratio of those ions to each other. They should be present in very specific proportions. If they're not, or if the candidate ions are not present, or even one of them is missing, you have not identified the substance.

“I would argue that if you identify the candidate ions in the right ratio, you've identified betamethasone.”

By the time a lab calls a positive using this testing method, it's justifiably confident that the substance at play has been correctly identified.

So what of the SGF-1000/dex connection?

“Maybe dexamethasone was in the SGF-1000, and that's why they said it would show as dexamethasone, but if a molecule has the same exact molecular weight as dexamethasone and you apply energy to it and it fragments, and the fragmented parts are the ions you would get from dexamethasone in the relative concentrations, I'm going to say you've identified dexamethasone,” she said.

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Santa Anita: Sunday Mandatory Payout On Rainbow Pick 6 Jackpot

With the middle jewel in racing's Triple Crown, the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, scheduled for next Saturday, Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., has announced a mandatory payout in its popular 20 Rainbow Pick 6 Jackpot the following day, Sunday, May 16.

Providing there is no Single Ticket Rainbow 6 winner on Friday or Saturday, and an expected carryover in place heading into next Sunday of more than $500,000, track officials project Sunday's total Rainbow Pick 6 pool could approach $4 million. As an additional enticement to players, 1/ST Bet, the official app of Santa Anita Park, is offering Sunday's players a free wager, up to $10, on Sunday's Rainbow Pick 6.

In order to be eligible, players are asked to download the 1/ST Bet app and to place a wager on Sunday's Rainbow 6, and the first $10 will be on the house.

With entries to be taken on Thursday for a nine-race card Sunday, the Rainbow 6 will begin with Sunday's fourth race, which has an approximate post time of 2:30 p.m. PT.

First post time on Sunday will be at 1 p.m. and the Grade 3, $100,000 Desert Stormer Stakes, for fillies and mares at six furlongs, will highlight the nine-race program.

Although there is still no walk-up admission, Santa Anita is now open to the public on a limited basis by visiting santaanita.com

For those not attending in-person, all of Santa Anita's races are available free of charge at santaanita.com/live and fans can watch and wager via several ADW platforms, including 1ST.com/bet.

For additional information, please visit santaanita.com, or call (626) 574-RACE.

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