The May 4 court order got handed down four years to the date that the Servis-trained Maximum Security (New Year's Day) crossed the finish wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby. The colt was subsequently disqualified for in-race interference.

Unbeknownst to Servis at the time, federal investigators had already begun compiling a trove of wiretapped phone conversations between Servis and other now-convicted horsemen, veterinarians, and pharmaceutical suppliers, 31 of whom were arrested and charged in a series of coordinated law enforcement sweeps in March 2020.

Even after being implicated by other guilty-pleading conspirators, Servis had maintained his innocence and held out for a trial until Dec. 9, 2022.

As part of a negotiated plea deal with the government, he then pled guilty to a felony charge of misbranding and adulterating a chemical substance (described by prosecutors as similar to the bronchodilator clenbuterol but stronger), and to a misdemeanor, of misbranding and adulterating a purportedly performance-enhancing chemical called SGF-1000.

Prosecutors had alleged (and other convicted conspirators had admitted their roles in) Servis's administration of SGF-1000 to Maximum Security during the first half of 2019, when the colt rose from being a $16,000 maiden-claimer to a Grade I winner.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York) granted the sentencing date change at the request of Servis's attorney.

“I make this request for the following reasons,” attorney Rita Glavin wrote in a May 3 letter to the court. “First, the Apr. 27, 2023, Presentence Investigation Report contains numerous defense objections to certain factual assertions, as well as the Government's responses to the defense objections. Because of (i) the number of disagreements and (ii) the issues around those disagreements, the defense needs additional time to review documents and respond.

“Further, given the extent of the disagreements, the parties have scheduled time to meet and engage in a good faith effort to resolve as many disagreements as possible, such that if there remain disagreements, they can be streamlined and narrowed for the Court.

“Finally, I am lead counsel on another matter proceeding to trial in June 2023, which is why we seek a date later in July,” Glavin wrote.

The presentence investigation report is generally a public document that is available for anyone to access on the court's electronic docket. But the disputed one Servis's attorney referenced was not listed there as of deadline for this story.

Servis, 66, faces four years in prison when he is sentenced.

Prior to his plea deal, Servis had been scheduled to go on trial on two felony counts: Conspiracy to misbrand and adulterate performance-enhancing drugs, and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He would have faced 25 years in prison on those two counts if convicted.

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The disclosure was revealed late Friday afternoon in an otherwise routine court filing asking for an extension of time to file motions in Servis's upcoming trial, which has a Jan. 9 start date.

“The Government and counsel for defendant Jason Servis are currently in discussions regarding a potential pre-trial disposition, which may obviate the need for trial,” wrote United States Attorney Damian Williams in his letter to the court.

The request for extra time was granted by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

The Dec. 2 filing also referenced a change-of-plea hearing that same judge had granted the day before to the New York-based veterinarian Alexander Chan, who is accused of his own trio of felony charges related to injecting purported performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) into Servis's horses and then hiding the charges from billing and veterinary records.

Chan, as part of his plea change, could very well implicate his former client, Servis, during his Dec. 5 hearing.

That's what another veterinarian who worked for Servis, Kristian Rhein, did in August 2021 when he changed his own plea to guilty on one felony count within the federal government's sprawling prosecution of an allegedly years-long conspiracy to dope racehorses. Rhein got the maximum sentence of three years imprisonment for his crimes.

Chan and Servis were scheduled to be tried together next month.

“In light of the foregoing, the parties respectfully contend that a brief adjournment of the upcoming deadline [to file motions] will facilitate the parties' ongoing efforts to reach a resolution short of trial,” Williams wrote to the judge.

The feds have already disclosed they have a trove of wiretapped evidence involving Servis speaking about his doping regimens to Rhein, Chan, and the now-imprisoned trainer Jorge Navarro, who in December 2021 was sentenced to five years behind bars for his rampant criminal usage of equine PEDs.

Some of those secretly recorded phone conversations involved the MGISW Maximum Security, who crossed the wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby, but was DQ'd for in-race interference.

One of the elixirs of choice for both Servis and Navarro was SGF-1000, a custom-made, purported PED intended to promote tissue repair and increase a racehorse's stamina and endurance beyond its natural capability. The two trainers discussed this PED in an intercepted call on March 5, 2019. The transcript reads as such:

Servis: I'll tell you what, Jorge. I'm using that [expletive] shot. What is it, SGF?

Navarro: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I got, uh, I got more than 12 horses on that so I'll let you know, okay?

Servis: I've been using it on everything, almost.

Navarro: Jay, we'll sit down and talk about this [expletive]. I don't want to talk about this [expletive] on the phone, okay?

Servis: All right. You're right.

On June 5, 2019, a call between Servis and Rhein went like this, according to the feds:

Servis: Are you by yourself?

Rhein: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just walked out of the barn.

Servis: Hey. So they've been doing some out-of-competition testing, which I have no problem with. Um, they took Maximum Security Monday and they came back again today. But Monday he got the KS. I just want to make sure we are all good with that.

Rhein: Wait, what did he get?

Servis: I'm sorry, I said “KS.” The, you know, your shot. The…

Rhein: Oh, the SG.

Servis: Yeah, that stuff.

Rhein: Yeah-no, no, no. The Jockey Club tested it, and I met the guy who tested it way back when. It comes back as collagen. They don't even have a test for it.

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Grasso was also ordered to pay a forfeiture totaling $412,442.62 and restitution in the amount of $47,656,576. He must surrender to authorities on January 24, 2023, at which time he will enter prison.

Grasso was charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, a felony. He faced a maximum sentence of five years. Several other defendants in the doping case that have pled guilty received sentences in the neighborhood of three years.  That Castel gave Grasso more than four years seems to reflect the severity of the charges against him.

The prosecution had maintained that Grasso's doping led to corrupt trainers collecting over $47 million in ill-gotten purse winnings.

In May, when Grasso entered a guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District Court issued a press release in which U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented on the Grasso plea as well as the guilty plea entered by harness trainer Richard Banca. Banca was sentenced to 30 months.

“Grasso and Banca represent the corruption and greed of those in the racehorse industry looking to win at any cost,” 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.' By injecting horses with unnecessary and, at times, unknown drugs, Grasso risked the lives and welfare of the animals under his care, all in service of helping corrupt racehorse trainers like Banca line their pockets through fraud. These latest convictions demonstrate the commitment of this Office and of our partners at the FBI to hold accountable individuals seeking to profit from animal abuse and deceit.”

In the indictment of Grasso, the government portrayed him as a central figure in a scheme to manufacture, distribute and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs which were administered to horses. The government charged that Grasso and others delivered and received “at least thousands” of units of PEDs issued by pharmacies pursuant to invalid prescriptions. Banca was among his customers.

According to the indictment, Grasso was also manufacturing and/or selling “epogen,” pain shots of joint blocks, bronchodilators and a substance called “red acid.” Red acid is believed to reduce inflammation in joints.

It appears that Grasso's doping may have been restricted to harness racing as the indictment does not mention any illegal activities that involved Thoroughbred racing.

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Giannelli, 56, of Dalton, Delaware, was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and to forfeit $900,000.

“This was not a one-time thing,” Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) said at the time of sentencing. “For 18 years, Ms. Giannelli marketed and sold what she knew were illegal and powerful performance-enhancing drugs.”

Fishman, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on July 11 after two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has also appealed his conviction and penalties.

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While Tuesday's session focused on the KHRC's medication rules, along with those established by the industry's Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) and the model rules of the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI), the center of interest Wednesday was the corticosteroid betamethasone itself.

The day started off with Dr. Heather Knych, a professor of clinical veterinary pharmacology and head of the pharmacology section at the K.L. Maddy Equine Analytical Pharmacology Laboratory at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University California, Davis. She provided her testimony via Zoom (from California) as an expert witness.

Called to the stand (virtually) by KHRC general counsel Jennifer Wolsing, Knych spoke to her area of specialty in equine pharmacology, with special interests specifically in studying drug metabolism, anti-inflammatory drugs, pain management and emerging threats. Knych explained that she has studied the effects of drugs on performance horses for nearly 15 years and has had several studies focused on corticosteroids published.

Wolsing asked Knych to explain what betamethasone is, what the effects of it are, and made note of the longevity of its effects in a genomic sense. Along that line of questioning, the KHRC's Medication Classification Schedule was pulled up as an exhibit, as Knych was asked if she agreed with betamethasone being listed as a Class C medication.

“I agree with its classification as a Class C medication. Based on the description, it's an FDA approved drug, it's a therapeutic agent and it has moderate potential to affect performance. [It] could potentially mask a lameness or injury and fits nicely with the other medications in this category,” said Knych, who also serves on the RMTC's Scientific Advisory Committee.

When asked if the administration of the drug matters in terms of measuring its impact, she replied, “I don't think it matters. The drug is the drug. Once it gets in the system, that's what we're looking at, [what it does] once it gets in the body and its effect.”

Diving deeper into the specifics of betamethasone and corticosteroids in general, Knych discussed the effects of various cortisol levels, how that is measured, and the overall picture when it comes to how the concentration of a drug in the horse's system correlates directly with the effects of the drug. Wolsing presented various published studies on the topics at hand during this time, including some that Knych was involved with herself. Some of the studies focused on betamethasone, while others centered around the effects of dexamethasone, a comparable drug that is also listed as a Class C medication.

When asked if the health and safety of the horse is part of the focus in equine pharmacology work, Knych said, “The primary reason corticosteroids are so tightly regulated is to eliminate the potential to affect performance, the potential to mask [things such as] lameness.”

Knych also acknowledged that there is potential of masking underlying health issues when using higher amounts of betamethasone.

However, when it came to the findings from the studies presented, Knych did say, “We don't know the end pharmacological effect of betamethasone in the horse.” She also said there have been no studies done specifically on the effects of betamethasone in horses when administered as a topical ointment.

During this time, Wolsing cited the KHRC's case with trainer Graham Motion in 2015, involving a stewards' ruling after a horse he trained that raced was found with too much methocarbamol in its system, to show that the commission has a right to regulate in situations where there is gray scientific area with regard to medication. Craig Robertson, an attorney for Baffert, argued against its relevance when discussing the systemic effects of corticosteroids.

Motion claimed he followed the RMTC guidelines for withdrawal but was still flagged, which is a similar claim from Baffert in terms of what happened with Medina Spirit's post-race result that revealed a betamethasone overage, which ultimately resulted in the colt's disqualification from his victory in the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby.

Robertson, who was part of the KHRC case involving Motion in 2015, believed the case was being mischaracterized and stated, “The case says that you have to have a rational scientific basis for what you do.”

Wolsing also asked Knych if the route of administration of the drug has any bearing on the effect of the drug once it is in the horse's system. She replied, “No. It depends on what the concentration of the drug is regardless. I'm talking about the concentrations at the end, when we still see suppression of cortisol.”

In one of her final inquiries, Wolsing stated, “Medina Spirit was administered approximately 45 milligrams of Otomax from a bottle over a period of about Apr. 9 and going through Apr. 30, the day before the [2021] Derby.” She followed up asking Knych what the impact of that would be on the horse.

“I don't think we can say one way or another. We don't have the science to say one way or another,” she replied.

Her response was met with audible satisfaction from Baffert's legal team, who took over from there, as they continued to argue that the KHRC's medication rules lack detail and scientific backing, specifically when it comes to administering betamethasone in the form of a topical ointment.

The cross-examination of Knych, conducted by Baffert's attorney Joe DeAngelis, delved into the inexactness of the science in the studies of and testing for betamethasone, along with how long it takes for betamethasone to leave a horse's system–intended to enforce that the 14-day withdrawal period established by the KHRC was unreliable.

The RMTC's Controlled Therapeutic Substances Monograph Series was also brought up, as DeAngelis asked if Knych recalled discussing or hearing any discussion about the ethics and safety of topical use of betamethasone. She said she hadn't. When asked if there had been any recommendation from the RMTC specifically on a stand-down period for topical use of corticosteroids, Knych replied, “No.”

DeAngelis also referenced RMTC's Position Statement on Corticosteroids, a study published in 2013, which showed that the use of topical corticosteroids was known to RMTC at the time the findings were published.

When asked if she approved of the 14-day stand-down period, Knych replied, “Yes,” and admitted she did not recall any discussion of recommending it to be longer.

Knych's time as a witness, which lasted nearly 3 1/2 hours, ended with some final questions from Wolsing and a few remaining questions for the sake of clarification from DeAngelis.

Wolsing asked, “Could a much higher concentration affect a horse's health and safety?”

“Potentially yes, but what those levels are, I don't think we necessarily know that yet,” said Knych.

After a 45-minute lunch break, members of the media were asked to leave the conference room as lawyers met behind closed doors to discuss what hearing officer Clay Patrick, a Frankfort attorney, called “proprietary information.”

The hearing addressing Baffert's appeal to get his already served 90-day suspension and a $7,500 fine removed from his record, along with reinstating Medina Spirit's victory in last year's Kentucky Derby, continues Thursday at 9 a.m. and is expected to roll over into next week, starting Monday, Aug. 29.

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After being granted a 30-day delay to the start of his sentence because he was due for eye surgery, disgraced former trainer Jorge Navarro has begun his sentence at FCI Miami, a low security federal correctional institution in Miami. Navarro began his sentence Thursday.

In December, Navarro was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Judge Mary Kay Vsykocil of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit drug adulteration or misbranding. Navarro has also been ordered to pay $25.8 million in restitution to the owners, trainers and jockeys he defeated from 2016 to when he was arrested in March 2020.

Things could have been worse for Navarro. He is not a U.S. citizen, which caused his attorney Jason Kreiss to speculate that he might be sent to a prison under the control of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a worse fate than being sentenced to a minimum security federal prison. Prior to entering prison Navarro had been living with his family in Ocala and Kreiss had sought to have him incarcerated at a facility near his home.

Navarro is one of 754 inmates at the main prison. The FCI facility also includes a satellite camp with 201 inmates.

Navarro's new uniform will be khaki trousers and shirts with institution issued boots or approved medical shoes. He will also be assigned to a work detail, which could mean working in the laundry, the commissary, the kitchen or doing landscaping. The pay for those jobs ranges from 12 cents an hour to 40 cents an hour. He will receive three meals a day, starting with breakfast at 6:10 am. Dinner begins at 5:15 pm.

FCI Miami opened in 1976 as a center for youth offenders and is built along the lines of a campus. The campus includes a lake in the middle of the compound. In 2000, the prison was renamed FCI Miami.

Its most famous prisoner was former Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega, who was convicted of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. After spending 20 years at FCI Miami, he was extradited to France.

According to the website whitecollaradvice.com, over half the prison population is Hispanic and many are from Puerto Rico. Navarro is Panamanian.

In a 2020 article that appeared in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, the newspaper wrote of a situation where smuggled contraband was a rising problem. Fifty prohibited cell phones were found in one investigation.

“FCI Miami sits on a patch of scrubby Pine Rockland shared with Zoo Miami and a small U.S. Army base,” the article reads. “The facility has held the famous and the infamous. Ponzi schemer Peter Madoff, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and Jamaican reggae legend Buju Banton have called it home.”

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Robert Gearty of the Blood-Horse first broke the Feb. 24 story from United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

Gearty reported that the former trainer's trial will take place in the first quarter of 2023 along with that of veterinarian Alexander Chan.

Previously, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil had been aiming for a mid-2022 trial for Servis, the most prominent name among the remaining defendants asserting innocence.

“Vyskocil blamed the postponement on the courthouse's coronavirus restrictions that have made it more difficult to schedule trials in a timely manner,” Gearty wrote. “When scheduling criminal trials preference goes to defendants awaiting trial behind bars. Servis and Chan are free on bond.”

Servis amassed gaudily high win percentages during the 2010s decade prior to getting arrested on three felony drug misbranding and conspiracy to commit fraud charges in March 2020.

According to a trove of wiretaps the government has produced as evidence against him (and other defendants), Servis allegedly doped almost all the horses under his control in early 2019, including MGISW Maximum Security, who crossed the wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby but was DQ'd for in-race interference.

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Zulueta, 53, had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of adulterating and misbranding drugs with the intent to defraud or mislead.

As part of a plea agreement, he had previously agreed to forfeit $47,525.

At his Feb. 24 sentencing, the remaining two open felony charges against him were dropped, which was also part of the agreement.

At the time of his guilty plea in in United States District Court (Southern District of New York), it was announced that Zulueta faced up to five years in prison. But because the statutory maximum for his crime was three years, prosecutors and the defense ended up agreeing that based on federal sentencing guidelines, his actual range called for 30 to 36 months.

However, subsequent to that agreement, when a routine presentence investigation report revealed (unbeknownst to prosecutors) that Zulueta got convicted in 2018 for driving while intoxicated while already on probation for another offense, it triggered an increase in his criminal history calculation for the doping offense, so his minimum sentence based on the guidelines got bumped up to 33 months instead of 30.

The feds had advocated for a sentence within that range; the defense argued for a variance that would allow for a sentence below the guidelines. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil gave the minimum allowable sentence.

'I got creative'

A separate presentencing report issued by the feds included snippets of secretly recorded phone conversations between Zulueta and Navarro.

In some of those starkly candid discussions, Zulueta admitted to fears that he was admitting purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) so recklessly that he was afraid he was going to kill his own horses, either by injecting medications improperly or performing nasogastric tubing that went into the lungs instead of the stomach.

“I didn't want to tell you because you were going to [expletive] scold me,” Zulueta admitted to Navarro in an intercepted May 5, 2019, phone call. “I got creative, I gave them more medicine but I drown them–I drown them instead…. I didn't tell you about it because I knew you were going to get on my back…. I lost [expletive] lots [of] money. But, well, forget it–that's done.”

According to the government, Navarro had already warned Zulueta at least once to tone down his doping.

“Marcos, we need to clean up things because they are going to [expletive] us up. They are going to kick us out of the business if we keep up with the craziness,” Navarro said in a Mar. 10, 2019, call.

Zulueta agreed with Navarro, and Navarro persisted, “You have already made money…. Stop inventing [new ways to drug horses].”

Yet on other occasions, it was Zulueta who cautioned Navarro about keeping a lower profile.

“Yeah, you should be happy–happy–happy that you are not winning all of them,” Zulueta said, according to a wiretap transcript. “Otherwise, you will be arrested.”

Zulueta's words ended up being prophetic: On March 9, 2020, both trainers, plus several dozen others, were taken into federal custody in a coordinated series of arrests related to an international racehorse doping conspiracy. Listed below are the Thoroughbred-related guilty pleas and convictions that have resulted so far:

In March 2021, the guilty-pleading Scott Robinson, a veterinarian, got 18 months in prison and had to forfeit $3.8 million in profits.

In June, Sarah Izhaki was sentenced to time already served for selling misbranded versions of Epogen.

In September, Scott Mangini, a pharmacist who had pleaded guilty to one felony count related to creating custom drugs for racehorses, got sentenced to 18 months in prison and a forfeiture of $8.1 million.

In December, Navarro wept in court after getting the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. Navarro had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to administer non-FDA-approved, misbranded and adulterated drugs, including PEDs. Navarro was also ordered to pay $25.8 million in restitution (an amount he will likely never be able to pay) and could face deportation to Panama.

On Jan. 5, 2022, Kristian Rhein, a veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park, got sentenced to the maximum three years in prison after pleading guilty to one felony drug charge. Rhein must forfeit $1.02 million and pay $729,716 in victims' restitution.

On Jan. 6, Rhein's brother-in-law, Michael Kegley Jr., the former sales director for a Kentucky-based company that marketed and sold the alleged PED known as SGF-1000, got sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $3.3 million forfeiture.

The Florida-based veterinarian Seth Fishman faces 20 years in prison after being found guilty Feb. 2 on two counts of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws.

'Success story' gone wrong

Although not a “headline” trainer like the graded stakes-winning conditioners Navarro or Jason Servis (who maintains he is not guilty and has a trial date looming), Zulueta won an outsized number of races on smaller circuits. In early 2020, just prior to his arrest, Zulueta's horses were winning at a gaudy 31% clip, primarily at Parx.

“Until the time of his involvement in the activity charged in the Indictment, Marcos Zulueta was an American success story,” his legal team wrote in a presentencing report.

“Born in Cuba in 1968, he experienced a very difficult and impoverished childhood,” the defense report continued. “His father left his family when Marcos was one. As the oldest of his brothers and sisters, it fell on Marcos' shoulders to work to support his family. He engaged in all forms of manual labor and finally became proficient in working with horses, with the money he earned going straight back to his family.

“With the goal of escaping the restrictions and deprivation of freedom in Cuba, Marcos emigrated to the United States in 1994 [and in 2011] became a successful horse trainer. Aside from a DUI and two summary offenses committed in a brief time frame, Marcos led a crime free life…”

The feds framed Zulueta's story differently in their own presentencing report:

“Although Zulueta did not earn as much in purse winnings as other defendants in this matter, including his co-conspirator Jorge Navarro, he nonetheless engaged in precisely the same conduct as Navarro: (1) procuring a variety of PEDs with which to dope his racehorses, including blood builders; (2) redistributing certain PEDs to other trainers, such as Navarro; (3) experimenting with novel PEDs by administering them to the horses under his care; (4) 'cleaning' the livers of horses he had doped to counteract the deleterious effects of his doping; and (5) using dangerous methods of administration, such as 'drenching.'”

The prosecution's report continued: “Zulueta was so attuned to the dangers of his conduct that he was reluctant to tell even Navarro–his co-conspirator, a trusted friend, and a prolific doper–that he had over-medicated his horses. Zulueta's private conversations underscore the callousness he displayed to the horses under his care…”

The feds further argued that “As with other defendants in this matter, it is not the case that the defendant's crime was the result of a single lapse in judgment, nor is it the case that he ceased his criminal conduct of his own volition. Zulueta continued to order and receive PEDs up until shortly before his arrest, and there is no indication that he would have otherwise stopped.”

Zulueta reports to prison May 24. The judge has recommended he be incarcerated at Fairton, a medium-security facility in New Jersey.

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“I sold to everybody,” said Robinson, who added that he had “thousands of customers,” and not just in horse racing. Robinson said his products were bought by individuals using them with camels, racing greyhounds, racing pigeons and to people operating alpaca farms. As part of his sentence, which includes 18 months in prison, Robinson was ordered to pay a $3.8 million forfeiture.

One year to the day that the indictments against 27 individuals allegedly involved in a scheme to use performance-enhancing drugs on racehorses were announced, Robinson, a drug manufacturer and distributor, became the first of those involved in the scandal to be sentenced to prison after he pled guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding. The maximum sentence for that offense is five years.

The scope of Robinson's operation, and how many trainers and veterinarians were buying his products, was one of many subjects Robinson discussed in a series of interviews with the TDN, one by phone and several by email. Robinson is currently serving his sentence at FCI Coleman Low Correctional Institute in Sumterville, Florida. Few subjects were off limits, including his client list. It includes dozens of Thoroughbred trainers and veterinarians who bought illegal drugs from Robinson, but it's a list he says he will not divulge.

“As far as telling you who I sold this to, I'm not ready to go that far,” he said. “I know my career is over, but there are people out there who still work in racing and their livelihoods are at stake. They aren't the ones that got me into this mess, so there's no reason why I should want to see them get punished for something everybody was doing.”

Robinson, who has owned and trained Standardbreds, said the government has not pressed him for a list of his clients.

His willingness to discuss his situation stems in part from the fact that he doesn't see himself as the dope-peddling fiend the government made him out to be. Rather, he says the substances he sold were not narcotics or performance-enhancing agents but products that were not harmful to the horse and contained vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

“The definition of a PED and a non-PED is a very fine line and not black and white,” Robinson said. “The government has their own definition of PEDs. I say for it to be a PED it must be a drug. I don't consider vitamins, supplements and amino acids PEDs.”

The government would beg to differ. It charged that between at least 2011 and February, 2020, Robinson sold millions of dollars' worth of PEDs to customers across the U.S. and abroad, customers whose intent was to use the drugs to improve the performances of their horses.

“Scott Robinson created and profited from a system designed to exploit racehorses in the pursuit of speed and prize money, risking their safety and well being. Robinson sold unsanitary, misbranded, and adulterated drugs, and misled and deceived regulators and law enforcement in the process,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said after Robinson was sentenced.

Robinson, 47, admits that he mislabeled some of his products and did not properly list their ingredients, which falls under the category of misbranding.

“If you mislabel a vitamin or supplement and not put the ingredients on it, does it classify as a PED? According to the government the answer is yes,” Robinson said. “Like I said before, it's a very complicated subject. I am remorseful for having this issue burden horse racing. I should have put a list of ingredients on all products I sold and although I would still technically be in the wrong, it would shed light on what was in it.”

So far as why his products had names like “red acid,” “Blast Off Red” and “Liquid Viagra” that implied they were PEDs, Robinson said the names were part of a marketing strategy.

“Those names just sounded sexier,” he said. “It was marketing. The names didn't accurately describe what the products were for.”

So far as how bad the problem of doping race horses is, Robinson wavers. In his initial interview with the TDN he said the situation is serious.

“More people should be indicted. Definitely,” he said, questioning why the indictments stopped after the original round in March, 2020. “I'd be lying if I said there weren't people out there who need to be stopped. There are some real bad apples out there that should be indicted. Will it happen? Only time will tell. It doesn't really affect me.”

In a follow up email, he wrote: “I personally don't think there is a lot of illegal drug use in the sport.”

Part of the problem was that Robinson's drugs proved to be undetectable, a common theme that plagues the sport. Rarely does a drug test result in a positive for anything other than overages of therapeutic medications. Robinson said that the sport needs to start using testing procedures currently in use by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) that involves the use of biomarkers. With biomarkers, scientists can retest stored urine and blood samples that were collected as much as 10 years earlier.

“It's a form of testing that is far more stringent than current testing,” Robinson said.

Robinson is scheduled to be released on Dec. 15, but is hoping he will be let out earlier and able to serve the remainder of his sentence under home confinement. So far as what's next he doesn't know.

“Everybody else in here [at the Coleman facility] can go back to doing what they did before when they get out,” he said. “When I get out, I don't have a job. This is what I did for the better part of 20 years. I've lost all of my racing licenses and I'll never again be able to own or train a horse.”

That's not likely to elicit any sympathy. Robinson knows that no matter how he spins his story he will always bear the burden of having been convicted of selling drugs that were used to dope race horses. Nor does it really matter how many others were involved and who.

“I did wrong,” he said. “I know that.”

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Davidovich testified that Fishman, one of 27 individuals originally indicted in the doping probe that includes high-profile trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis, began supplying him with drugs after the two met at a Ft. Lauderdale restaurant. Asked by prosecutor Anden Chow how the subject of PEDs came up, Davidovich responded, “We were talking about different things to make the horse run better.”

Davidovich, 31, races primarily in Ohio and the commission in that state wasted little time taking action Friday. According to Ohio State Racing Commission executive director Chris Dragone, Davidovich's license has been suspended pending a hearing. The news that the Ohio commission had taken action against Davidovich was first reported by the Blood-Horse.

“He's entitled to a hearing and we'll see what he has to say,” Dragone said.

Dragone said that if the evidence shows that Davidovich doped horses his license could be permanently suspended.

“We haven't seen the transcripts (from the Fishman trial) yet,” Dragone said. “But from everything I have heard and from what he said, this was blatant. This is very serious. This came out of the blue and we had no notice so far as what he was going to say in court. But when he said in court that he drugged horses we had to take action. And it's possible that he may have his license revoked and that he will be ruled off for life.”

Reached by the TDN, Davidovich said he had no comment.

After winning just five races in 2014, Davidovich's career took off in 2015 when he went 25-for-99 (25%). He was 21-for-81 in 2016 and 9-for-59 in 2017. He said during the trial that he stopped doping in 2018, which is when his fortunes changed. Since 2018, he has won just six races from 51 starters.

Thursday's court room proceedings also included testimony from harness trainer Adrienne Hall, who also admitted she used PEDs supplied by Fishman. She last started a horse in December at the Meadowlands. Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural said he has not yet decided if he will ban Hall from his tracks.

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