Five years after his owner and trainer licenses were revoked in Pennsylvania, Ramon Preciado is back on the backstretch at Parx. Preciado was granted a stable employee's license in December 2020 and has been working as a groom for trainer Penny Pearce ever since, according to his attorney, Alan Pincus.
State stewards ordered Preciado's licenses revoked in December 2016 after one of his runners was positive in a post-race test for clenbuterol. The racing commission apparently felt the positive, which came following a race in July, was the last straw. The test results came in as Preciado was appealing a 270-day suspension for eight medication violations that occurred earlier in the year. Parx banned Preciado from its grounds in April 2016, a move which Preciado contested in court.
A former Preciado employee would later be arrested on one count of rigging a publicly exhibited contest after she said she illegally administered clenbuterol to Preciado horses to seek revenge against the trainer. That employee, Marian Vega, was deferred to Pennsylvania's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program and bypassed a trial.
At the end of 2016, Pincus said his client decided to accept the decisions of the track and the commission, and made plans to reapply for a license at a future date, should he show he had “rehabilitated.” In 2018, Preciado's application for a stable employee license was denied due to “his background and numerous medication violations.” At the end of last year however, Pincus said Preciado's application was granted. He still does not hold an owner's license.
Pearce, meanwhile, is having her best year yet. While her win percentage in 2020 was 8 percent, it jumped to 25 percent thus far in 2021. She has sent out 36 runners, which have picked up nine wins, six seconds and two thirds, meaning she finishes in the money 47 percent of the time now.
“I imagine that, he's a top-flight horseman, that, you know, he would function as a groom and she could benefit from his expertise with the horses,” said Pincus of Preciado's role in Pearce's shedrow.
One of Pearce's runners, Beto's Girl, moved to the barn earlier this year after a second-place effort at Tampa Bay Downs and is now owned by the partnership of JAG Racing and Jettany Thoroughbred Corp, which ran horses with Preciado prior to his license revocation.
When asked about the distinction between a trainer's role and Preciado's function as a groom, Pincus said, “A trainer is in charge, enters the horses, supervises everything. He, like any other employee, assists in whatever way he can, but he's not the trainer.”
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