Hall Of Fame Trainer Fighting Testosterone Positive For Harness Racing Champion

Perfect Sting, named 3-year-old male pacing champion of 2021 by the U.S. Harness Writers Association when Dan Patch Award winners were announced on Dec. 20, was subsequently found to have failed a drug test from the $148,332 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes at The Meadows that took place six months earlier.

The ruling, published  at the United States Trotting Association website on Dec. 31 and reported at HarnessLink.com, stated that Perfect Sting tested positive for testosterone at a level of 3,765 pg/ml. A split sample subsequently confirmed the finding at a level of 3,635/pg/ml.

Trainer Joseph Holloway has been suspended 15 days from Jan. 17, 2022, through Jan. 31, 2022, and fined $500. Perfect Sting, who was elevated to first place in the Pennsylania Sire Stakes via disqualification of the original first-place finisher, has been disqualified from his win, with $74,166 in purse money ordered returned and redistributed.

Perfect Sting, also the champion 2-year-old pacer in 2020, was harness racing's richest performer in 2021 (prior to this ruling). Holloway, a member of the Harness Racing Museum Hall of Fame, was recipient of the Dan Patch Good Guy Award in 2021.

Holloway, who has appealed the ruling, contends Perfect Sting was never given testosterone, according to a report in HarnessLink.com. Instead, he suggests, the testosterone level of Perfect Sting – an intact horse – may have spiked naturally through proximity to an in-heat mare or other reason. Levels for testosterone for females and gelded males are more predictable than full colts and stallions.

“Stallions can have seasonal highs and lows for testosterone levels,” said Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director and chief operating officer of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. “That's why RMTC does not recommend a threshold level for testosterone.”

Pennsylvania may be the only racing state that has a threshold level for testosterone for intact male horses, apparently set at 3,000 pg/ml.

Holloway told HarnessLink.com he has sent hair samples from Perfect Sting to a laboratory in the United Kingdom that he said “can tell whether the testosterone at that time was given to him, or  it is just natural in his system at such a high level.”

Read more at HarnessLink.com

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Aug. 26 Insight

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

WELL-BRED DUO DEBUT AT THE SPA

6th-SAR, $100K, Msw, 2yo, f, 5 1/2fT, 3:55p.m.

Stronach homebred SUPER STING (Awesome Again) is one of two well-bred fillies making her career bow in this event. She is out of champion Perfect Sting (Red Ransom), who is also the dam of GSW Smart Sting (Smart Strike), GSP Perfect Bullet (El Prado {Ire}) and SP Sweet Sting (Awesome Again). Live Oak went to $300,000 at the OBS March Sale to acquire Our Souper Love (Union Rags) after she breezed in :10 flat. Out of GSW Kiss the Devil (Kris S.), she is a half to GSW Kiss Moon (Malibu Moon) and MSW & MGSP Kiss Mine (Mienshaft). TJCIS PPs

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Grade 1 Winner Viadera Headlines Saturday’s $100,000 Perfect Sting Stakes

Multiple graded stakes-winners will comprise an accomplished field in Saturday's $100,000 Perfect Sting for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up competing at one mile on the Widener turf course at Belmont Park.

The Perfect Sting is one of two stakes on the Saturday card, including the Grade 2, $400,000 Suburban Handicap that is a “Win and You're In” qualifier to the Grade 1, $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic in November at Del Mar.

While the eighth edition of the Perfect Sting is not graded, the resume of the participants provides a big-race pedigree, highlighted by Juddmonte's Grade 1-winner Viadera.

The Chad Brown trainee will be making her 5-year-old debut after capping 2020 with three consecutive stakes scores by slim margins, starting with a win by a neck in the one-mile De La Rose in July at Saratoga Race Course in her second North American start.

The British-bred daughter of Bated Breath posted another victory by a neck in the Grade 3 Noble Damsel going one mile on the Belmont turf in September and concluded her successful year by edging Blowout by a nose in the Grade 1 Matriarch going one mile in November at Del Mar, earning a career-best 98 Beyer Speed Figure.

Viadera, who has been training at Saratoga leading into the Perfect Sting, won three of her first nine starts in Ireland and Great Britain before being shipped to the United States and transferred to Brown's care.

Joel Rosario will ride from post 9.

Susan and John Moore's Princess Grace also will be making her seasonal bow off graded-stakes success, with the 4-year-old Karakontie filly concluding her sophomore year with a 2 3/4-length win in the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere moved off the turf in November at Churchill Downs.

Princess Grace has won three of her four starts, getting her picture taken in her first two outings before earning a personal-best 88 Beyer for a runner-up effort in her stakes debut when she finished just a half-length back to Stunning Sky in the 1 1/16-mile Grade 3 Valley View in October at Keeneland.

“She's a small, feminine looking filly but she runs huge in her races and everything she does is game and all heart,” Stidham said. “Those kind don't have to be big and powerful, they just have what it takes inside and she seems to have that.”

Luis Saez will have the call from post 3.

Piedi Bianchi has won three stakes on dirt but earned black type going seven furlongs on the turf last out, finishing just 1 1/2 lengths back to Change of Control in a strong runner-up finish in the Grade 3 Intercontinental on June 3 as part of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.

Owned by Jay Oringer, Jack Bick, Al Bianchi Racing, Adam Bayroff and Mike Maturo, Piedi Bianchi, whose experience at Belmont includes a third-place finish in the 2020 Grade 2 Ruffian on Big Sandy, put in a strong breeze going five furlongs in 1:01.55 on June 20 over the Belmont inner turf. Trainer Carlos Martin said her workout sustained her progress after earning an 86 Beyer for her Intercontinental effort.

“She showed another dimension last time and ran her best turf race. She really ran a terrific race,” Martin said. “We only got beat by Change of Control, who is one of the better turf fillies out there. She's keeping the momentum and I'm optimistic. We'll see. It just came up a very tough race for a listed stakes. This looks like a Grade 2 field.”

Piedi Bianchi, who won her first stakes in the Frances Slocum in 2018 before adding wins last year in the Correction at Aqueduct Racetrack and another in the 2020 edition of the Frances Slocum at Indiana Grand Race Course, will be seeking her first turf win in five starts.

The Overanalyze grey will break from post 4 under Flavien Prat.

Augustin Stable's Honey Cake, an Irish-bred daughter of Siyouni who last raced in November when winning the seven-furlong Prix Ceres at the Fontainebleau in France, will make her first start in the United States.

Transferred into the care of Jonathan Thomas, the 4-year-old Honey Cake has been breezing at Belmont, including a five-furlong work in 1:01.80 on the inner turf Sunday.

Honey Cake will look to return off a seven-month layoff and show the form that led to four wins in eight starts in France to begin her career.

“She came with a nice resume,” Thomas said. “We're just hoping to pick up where it left off. She's a beautiful filly and seems to have a lot of class and had some good works on the turf. She's shown a very nice turn-of-foot.”

Manny Franco will ride from the inside post.

Team Valor Racing and Everything's Cricket Racing's Madita, the runner-up in the One Dreamer in September at Kentucky Downs, will make her first start in more than eight months for trainer Arnaud Delacour, drawing post 7 with Hall of Famer John Velazquez in the irons. The German-bred Madita, making her 6-year-old bow, will be looking for her second win in seven starts since arriving from her native country in 2019.

Rounding out the field are Hogans Holiday [post 2, Irad Ortiz, Jr.] and Sunset Kiss [post 6, Jose Lezcano]. Truth Hurts and Velvet Crush are entered for the main-track only.

The Perfect Sting is carded as Race 9 on Saturday's 10-race program. First post is 1 p.m. Eastern.

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Imprimis Puts Orseno Back in the Spotlight

You have to have the right horses, manage them properly and get them to the big races when they are at their best.

Those are the sentiments of Classic-winning trainer Joe Orseno, who will saddle Saturday’s GI Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint morning-line co-second choice Imprimis (Broken Vow).

It’s been some time, 20 years to be exact, but this isn’t Orseno’s first trip to the Breeders’ Cup with a live runner. Far from it.

Back-to-back wins at the 2000 Breeders’ Cup-held then as just a one-day, blockbuster eight-race program-put an exclamation point on a career year for the now 65-year-old.

“That year, we won two Breeders’ Cups, the Preakness, and a bunch of Grade Ones, and I just thought it was gonna happen every year,” said Orseno, a former private trainer for Stronach Stables between 1998-2002.

“It’s not like I forgot how to train in the last 20 years,” he added with a laugh. “You have to have the horses.”

Orseno certainly had the horses on that aforementioned Championship Saturday at Churchill Downs. Perfect Sting and Macho Uno reeled off dramatic wins in consecutive fashion beneath Hall of Famer Jerry Bailey, providing Orseno with a rolling double in the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf and GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, respectively. He also tightened the girth on Red Bullet to an upset victory over GI Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus earlier that spring in the second leg of the Triple Crown.

“That was a great day, obviously, for myself, the owners and my whole team, and a few of those guys are still with me,” Orseno reflected of the 2000 Breeders’ Cup.

“I thought I should’ve won one the year before and was very disappointed that Perfect Sting had a rough trip. I was like, ‘Geez, is this really ever going to happen for me?’ Then when she won, it was just like a big weight was lifted. We won a Breeders’ Cup! Wow! Then to come back and win the very next one. What can you say? It was just a great day. Two very good horses. And you know what? We had ’em ready to run that particular day. That’s what it’s about.”

Orseno looks like he has another one ready to run Saturday.

A punchless sixth in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita–Orseno’s first starter at the Championships since 2002–Imprimis underwent a pair of throat surgeries to repair a breathing issue this off season.

“Gene Recio had him on the farm in Ocala and started to hear a little noise once he was back in training,” Orseno said. “We went ahead and scoped him and saw that the first surgery was starting to fail a little bit. We walked him across the street to Equine Performance Center and did another surgery in February. This one worked and he hasn’t looked back since. It 100% has helped him.”

Imprimis crossed the wire a dominant winner in his comebacker for his 6-year-old debut, but had his number controversially taken down to third for causing interference in the stretch in Saratoga’s GIII Troy S. Aug. 8.

“Take the human aspect out of it as far as taking him down, the horse ran his race and he couldn’t have run any better off a 10-month layoff,” Orseno said. “I sent him there to Saratoga and he ran a great race, and I was very proud of that.”

The gelding got his chance at redemption and backed up that strong performance with a visually impressive, come-from-behind score in the ‘Win and You’re In’ GIII Runhappy Turf Sprint S. over the soft going at Kentucky Downs last time Sept. 12.

He’s earned Beyer Speed Figures of 101 and 102 in his two starts this year. Irad Ortiz, Jr, a perfect three-for-three in the irons aboard Imprimis, is booked again to ride this weekend.

Imprimis’s six-race campaign in 2019, led by a course-and-distance tally in Keeneland’s GII Shakertown S., included a trip to Royal Ascot, where he finished sixth in the G1 King’s Stand S.

“This year we chose to do a different path. He didn’t run as much and he’s very fresh,” Orseno said. “He was getting little to no air [last year], and he still tried every single time.”

Produced by the Put It Back mare Shoppers Return, Imprimis was purchased privately by Mike Hall and Sam Ross’s Breeze Easy LLC after beginning his career with a pair of wins for breeder Craig Wheeler and trainer Tim Hills at the age of four.

The Florida-bred’s resume also includes wins in the 2018 Jim McKay Turf Sprint S. at Pimlico and the Wolf Hill S. at Monmouth, and the 2019 Silks Run S. at Gulfstream. Hailing from the family of GISWs Miss Shop (Deputy Minister) and Power Broker (Pulpit), he sports a record of 15-8-0-2 and career earnings of $759,948.

“When he’s right, he brings his ‘A’ game,” Orseno said. “I’m going in there knowing that my horse is as good as I can have him and as good as he could be. He’s ready.”

A native of Philadelphia, Orseno grew up not far from the now defunct Garden State Racetrack and went to the races with his father as a kid. He paved his own way into the business, taking out his trainer’s license in 1977. “When I was in high school, I played sports. I didn’t grow up around the horses,” Orseno said.

Based year-round at Gulfstream Park with 40 stalls, Orseno is closing in on 2,000 victories and $50 million in career earnings. Since re-opening his stable to the public in 2002, his runners have grossed seven figures in earnings in every season bar three. Other standouts campaigned by Orseno include GISWs: Golden Missile, also a longshot third in the 1999 GI Breeders’ Cup Classic, Collect the Cash, Roaring Twenties and Tap to Music.

“I’ve always been a hands-on trainer,” Orseno concluded. “The game’s changed a lot since I first came in. [Late trainer] Mickey Crock took me from the ground up and taught me the right way. The horsemen way. I always say, ‘There’s horse trainers and there’s horsemen.’ I always considered myself a horseman.”

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