Restitution | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Comments Section: Owner Responsibility And An Appreciation For The Workers In The Barn

Nearly a year after permanently disabling comments on The Paulick Report, the comments section is back! Well, sort of. We can't fire up story comments again. The number of hours our staff was collectively losing in moderation (which, despite automation tools, often failed to remove libelous or trolly comments) was too great, and the few bad actors out there made it too labor-intensive to continue, even as we tried many different systems to combat them. The good news is, we are bringing back reader voices here on the Paulick Report with this new feature. Read a previous edition here.

In response to Chelsea Hackbarth's piece 'Help Wanted: KEEP Helping Kentucky Farms With Strategies To Improve Employee Retention In A Tough Labor Market'

I love working with horses and the equine industry in general.

Why would anyone not involved with horses from a young age want to work these types of jobs when they could make more at a restaurant, work less hours and get paid overtime when they work it? Retail, warehouse, factory, restaurants and just about every other industry pays far more than farm industry.

If most general farm managers can make six-figure salaries and department managers make $60-$80k, regular employees should start out making at least $35k a year after taxes, employees shouldn't have to work six days a week, should get paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours and have access to benefits.

This industry keeps talking about how vets suffer from long hours and low pay and poor treatment, if they're treating the doctors who treat their horses like this, how do you think they treat the grooms, night watchman and the lower tier personnel? Do you think our personal well-being is valued more than a vet?

Most equine workers are there six days a week in the rain, snow, ice, blazing heat or below freezing temperatures. We're constantly filling up buckets in the summer and breaking up ice in the winter. We're watching for illness and signs of distress. We're anticipating weather movements so we can determine what to do with our horses that day. We're waiting for a mare to foal and stay as long as it takes to make sure it's all taken care of before we even consider leaving for that day.

Are we not important enough to keep happy? Are vets the only ones that matter? We are there for the horse every day while vets are there for your horse every so often, shouldn't we be part of the focus?

The love of the horse goes a long way in helping us stay in the industry but that love doesn't pick up where the low pay ends. Morale on a lot of farms is down. Spirits are low. Help is scarce.

The pandemic has and still is driving up the cost of everything and the wages are staying stagnant while most other industries have started to raise theirs to retain and gain new employees. The equine industry has refused to do this thus far and it's hemorrhaging skilled workers and deterring new ones.

I've watched more horsemen and women walk away than stay and it's still happening. More farms are losing help, they then overwork what help they have to compensate and then more leave because of that. It's a vicious cycle and until pay and hours worked and overall treatment of the equine employee gets better, it'll continue to die a slow painful death.

—Jon Hyman, fan, groom, and foreman

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In response to Ray Paulick's commentary 'View From The Eighth Pole: Soul Searching, Restitution In Order For Owners Who Supported Jorge Navarro's Stable':

Regarding your View from the Eighth Pole about restitution to owners of horses who finished behind Jorge Navarro horses: my wife and I are owners of Aaron Racing Stables and had a very nice mare named Mia Bella Rossa, who in the years 2019 through 2021 and won eight races for us after being claimed for $12,500.

On July 16, 2019, she ran very well and lost a close battle with a Navarro horse named Cuddle Kitten. We were three and a half lengths ahead of the next horse and the rest of the field were far behind. Navarro received Cuddle Kitten from her owners, Flying P Stables, a start before this one, and she promptly won four races in a row including a starter at Saratoga. The Equibase numbers in those races were 10 to 20 points higher than she had ever run before.

It would be nice for a small owner, one or two horses at a time, to receive the $12,800 difference between first and second in that race. While we doubt that Navarro will pay restitution to all of the owners so cheated, we look forward to following the path of this issue.

—Andy Aaron, owner

I disagree with applying restitution if the prosecution is not required to prove the medication given changed the order of the races involved. For example, the federal charges are things like “misbranding conspiracy, obstruction, smuggling, and unlawful distribution of prescription drugs.” These have a far lower standard for proving guilt than proving a drug is both performance enhancing and forbidden. As a result, the punishment should be far less as well.

In Navarro's case he admitted to using a blood booster, which I assume is Erythropoietin (EPO). It is a Class 1 drug with a Class A penalty that would result in a loss of purse. However, other trainers like Servis are accused of using clenbuterol, which is permitted under certain circumstances, and SGF-100, which both the Australian and Hong Kong racing authorities have stated their belief that it is useless.

The key problem with Navarro is the concept of an estoppel. My understanding is that the racing commission's failure to assert its right to enforce the rules in a timely manner makes the rules unenforceable. Navarro's juice man shoes illustrate that he was making little effort to disguise his behavior and that the commission made even less effort to punish it. The commission's complacency may have encouraged other trainers to join the “dark side.” I assume I am in the minority with my opinion.

—Richard Neil Braithwaite, horseplayer

Although it didn't make it into a Paulick Report story, Ray tweeted last week questioning the choice of trainer by NYTHA president Joe Appelbaum, who was running a horse with Juan Vazquez via his Off The Hook stable. Those questions prompted this response from writer Tom Noonan:

“In his statement to me, Joe Appelbaum accepted responsibility for retaining Vazquez. He also responded to my query promptly (within hours on a Friday afternoon) and exhibited the transparency that is so rare in racing. Would that New York's State Gaming Commission had the same level of accountability. After all, they granted Vazquez a license after denying him with no meaningful explanation in early 2018.

Racing has plenty of room for examining the accountability of owners as I argued in this post about owners much more prominent than Joe Appelbaum. And it must be done with transparency.”

–Read Noonan's complete op/ed on his blog here.

2021 has been a busy news year for horse racing, and we know there will be more stories that spark discussion and reaction from our readership. As always, you can send your letters to the editor, tips, comments, and rants to our publisher and editor here.

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Feds Want Those Navarro Cheated to Collect $25M Restitution

Federal prosecutors recommended Friday that the barred trainer Jorge Navarro be sentenced to the five-year maximum prison sentence for his admitted role in a years-long horse doping conspiracy, and they want the judge to make him pay $25.8 million in restitution to victims who were cheated out of purse money.

“Navarro's aggressive pursuit of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)–and his eagerness to use racehorses under his care to test the potency of novel PEDs–displayed a particularly callous disregard for the well-being of the horses under his care and control,” government attorneys wrote in a Dec. 10 sentencing submission filed in United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

“[T]he defendant considered his prolific doping a badge of honor,” prosecutors alleged. Navarro, 46, is to be sentenced Dec. 17. Although the recommendation for the maximum prison sentence for one of the highest-profile defendants in the alleged international doping scandal is not a shock, the fact that entities “from whom purse winnings were obtained through the immediate effect of Navarro's fraud” were described as victims is a significant turn of events.

But there could be three looming roadblocks to the collection of that $25.8 million in restitution that aren't made any clearer by Friday's submission. The first is that prosecutors filed the schedule of victims under seal, so exact names of who is eligible to collect weren't made public.

The second is which entities (owners, trainers, jockeys, etc…) have been determined to be eligible for payback, and in exactly which races? Theoretically, the list spans nearly a decade of Navarro's racing across multiple jurisdictions. The third is that the judge doesn't have to approve the recommendation. But all of those points could end up being trumped by practicality: Even if the judge holds him to it, whether or not Navarro will ever be able to pay such a daunting amount of restitution is the obvious question. It is common in multi-million dollar fraud convictions for victims never to see even a penny of restitution decisions that get hammered out in a plea agreement, like Navarro's did. And if Navarro ends up getting deported back to his native Panama as the result of his pleading guilty to one felony drug conspiracy count, the prospect of him ever paying up could vanish entirely the moment he's banished from America.

(Separately, Navarro's deal also includes a fine of $70,000 payable to the government that is due at the time of his sentencing. It is not counted as part of the restitution.)

“Throughout Navarro's years-long conspiracy, Navarro was the critical component in a network of fraud–the individual who amplified the corruption of horse owners and encouraged the corruption of his underlings,” the Dec. 10 filing stated.

“Navarro earned tens of millions of dollars in purse winnings by training and racing Thoroughbred horses that Navarro had 'doped' using a plethora of adulterated and misbranded PEDs, including (among others) blood builders, vasodilators, SGF-1000, baking soda 'drenches,' 'bleeder' pills, and other drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration…

“There was no question that, throughout the charged conspiracy, Navarro understood what he was doing was wrong. Navarro often warned, and was warned by, trainers to ensure that no one would be caught 'doping' their horses,” the filing stated. Back in August, Navarro admitted to administering illicit substances to horses under his care, including to many of the stakes stars of his stable during the 2010s decade. He specifically cited War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca and X Y Jet as examples. That latter horse–an elite-level international stakes sprinter–died suddenly in January 2020, within months of having been repeatedly drugged by Navarro.

On Dec. 3, in a presentencing report in his own defense, Navarro had asked the federal judge for a variance to bring the most time he would spend behind bars down to about 3 1/2 years. Navarro–plus friends and family members who wrote numerous character-reference letters to the judge begging for leniency of his behalf–also professed to have “loved” the very horses he injected and force-fed with purported PEDs. The feds took umbrage at both of those assertions in Friday's filing.

“Notwithstanding his hypocritical and self-serving claim to have 'loved' the horse, Navarro's course of conduct with X Y Jet merely exemplifies his aggressive pursuit of new drugs with which to dope his horses,” the court document stated.

“Navarro's frantic efforts to dope X Y Jet in advance of a Feb. 13, 2019, precursor race to the $2.5 million Golden Shaheen race were emblematic of his approach to racing, and indicative of the nature of Navarro's discussions when speaking with complicit third parties, in contrast to how Navarro apparently comported himself around others.”

The filing continued: “In his sentencing submission, Navarro blatantly breaches the plain terms of the parties' plea agreement. Despite agreeing to the [five-year max] calculation…and despite further agreeing that 'neither party will seek any departure or adjustment'…Navarro asks the Court to depart and adjust the stipulated Guidelines sentence on the basis of out-of-circuit precedent never adopted in this Circuit, and contrary to the Guidelines calculations in the plea agreement and pre-sentencing report.”

Prosecutors cited three specific reasons why the five-year imprisonment as per federal sentencing guidelines is appropriate in Navarro's case.

“First, the nature and scope of Navarro's offense conduct merits a Guidelines sentence. Navarro participated in the conspiracy for years, and in the course of the conspiracy, pursued many different PEDs from multiple different suppliers–both veterinarians and laypeople–in efforts to gain a competitive advantage. Navarro's criminality was motivated by his cynical efforts to boost his own profile and profits.

“Second, a Guidelines sentence is necessary to provide just punishment and reflect the nature and seriousness of the offense given Navarro's casual attitude regarding his years-long 'doping' conspiracy.

“It is not the case that Navarro's crime was the result of a single lapse in judgment, confined in time and scope,” the filing continued. “To the contrary, Navarro engaged in repeated and persistent efforts to cheat over the course of years, cycling through various sources of supply, and pursuing aggressively new means to illegally dope horses. Yet Navarro never acknowledged the seriousness of his crimes. Navarro's flippancy towards his dangerous and illegal conduct is exemplified by calls, text messages, and other evidence…”

The government's third point has to do with deterring other trainers from committing the same crimes.

“Racehorse trainers, who are entrusted with the care and custody of racehorses, have unfettered access to these animals, and by extension are entrusted to ensure those horses' care and health,” the filing stated. “Like veterinarians, trainers are afforded a certain latitude under the assumption that they are acting in good faith as competitors and as custodians of racehorses. Navarro exploited that good faith.

“He, like many actors in the racehorse industry, had grown indifferent to, and dismissive of, the notion of obtaining illegal drugs to dope racehorses for profit. Racehorse trainers, in particular, assume that even if caught doping, they will have the means and wherewithal to obfuscate, litigate, and intimidate others into overlooking or justifying a violation, and thus continue their doping practices unencumbered.”

The filing continued: “A Guidelines sentence of 60 months' imprisonment will send a strong signal to racehorse trainers and others in the industry that there will be serious consequences if they abuse their position of trust by engaging in the callous and dangerous practice of doping racehorses for profit.

“A significant sentence will counter the pervasive view in the racehorse industry that selling and administering adulterated and misbranded drugs is inconsequential and that the consequences of criminal activity will never amount to significant criminal penalties.”

In conclusion, prosecutors wrote that, “Jorge Navarro's case reflects failings, greed, and corruption at virtually every level of the world of professional horse racing.

“For money and fame, corrupt trainers went to increasing extremes to dope horses under their care. Unscrupulous owners, who stood to profit directly, encouraged and pressured trainers to win at any cost. Veterinarians sworn to the care and protection of their patients routinely violated their oaths in service of corrupt trainers and to line their own pockets.

Assistants and grooms all witnessed animal abuse in the service of greed, but did little to stop such conduct, and engaged in myriad ways to support notoriously corrupt trainers.

“Structures designed for the protection of the horses abused in this case failed repeatedly; fixtures of the industry–owners, veterinarians, and trainers–flouted rules and disregarded their animals' health while hypocritically incanting a love for the horses under their control and ostensible protection.

“Standing as the keystone for this structure of abuse, corruption, and duplicity was Jorge Navarro, a trainer who treated his animals as expendable commodities in the service of

his 'sport,'” the filing summed up.

The post Feds Want Those Navarro Cheated to Collect $25M Restitution appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Think You’re a Navarro Victim? Get In Line

Now that the barred Thoroughbred trainer Jorge Navarro has admitted in open court that he doped racehorses and procured performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs] for others between 2016 and 2020, the industry has a $25,860,514 question to kick around between now and when “The Juice Man” gets sentenced Dec. 17.

Beyond Navarro's potential five-year prison term and possible deportation back to his native Panama, the 46-year-old conditioner also must pay restitution to victims in that astronomical amount as per the stipulations of his plea bargain.

Although it is unclear exactly how federal prosecutors arrived at that precise figure, a press release from the United States Attorney's Office (Southern District of New York) states that it reflects “winnings obtained through his fraudulent doping scheme.”

Most likely, the calculation is based on the purse earnings of Navarro's trainees in races that prosecutors deemed he ran doped horses.

As part of the deal he cut with the feds (Navarro pled guilty to one felony count of conspiring to administer misbranded and adulterated drugs in exchange for having a similar second count dropped), Navarro had to affirm to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil that the government was citing a proper amount of restitution.

For perspective, that massive dollar figure equates to nearly 75% of all the purse winnings Navarro's horses amassed during his 15-year training career.

Whether or not Navarro will ever be able to pay such a daunting amount of restitution based on gross purse winnings (and not the actual net profits from his crimes) is the obvious question.

Equally important–but perhaps more of an exercise in theoretical justice–is who exactly qualifies as a victim of Navarro's crimes to be eligible for restitution?

Let's tackle the “ability to pay” aspect first.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) explanation of the restitution process, “In federal cases, restitution in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is not unusual. While defendants may make partial payments toward the full restitution owed, it is rare that defendants are able to fully pay the entire restitution amount owed. If and when the defendant pays, you most likely will receive a number of small payments over a long period of time…”

“Realistically…the chance of full recovery is very low. Many defendants will not have sufficient assets to repay their victims. Many defendants owe very large amounts of restitution to a large number of victims.”

A separate 2019 explanation from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) states that “Federal prosecutors collect roughly $1 billion a year for the victims of federal crimes. Yet prosecutors will likely never secure more than $1 out every $10 owed.”

As for who qualifies for restitution, that CRS publication offers only broad clues: “As a general rule, a victim is a person [or a business or some other entity] who is physically injured, or who suffers a property loss, as the proximate result of a qualifying offense. A victim may also be someone named as a beneficiary in a plea bargain.”

The logical leap for many racing industry participants is that the people who suffered purse losses by getting beaten by Navarro's hopped-up horses should be at the top of the list for qualifying as victims.

But just think of what a formidable task it would be for federal officials to try and account for each and every racing entity (owners, trainers, jockeys) who is owed some sort of payback for their losses. The effort would span years of races across multiple jurisdictions, and would take on an additional layer of difficulty because some horse ownerships are comprised of multiple individual partners.

And what about bettors who otherwise would have hit winning tickets if Navarro's doped runners didn't taint the outcomes of potentially thousands of races? (This also presumes that they could properly document any pari-mutuel losses to Navarro's juiced horses.)

The good news is that according to the DOJ, there is actually a provision for large numbers of unknown victims to come forward and ask to be included in restitution when authorities don't know the names of each and every individual.

Instead of listing specific victims, the restitution order could say something broad like, “Anyone who owned, trained or rode a horse that finished behind a Navarro trainee in the following list of races.” It would then be the victims' responsibility to come forward and make themselves known.

But the bad news for potential claimants is that federal prosecutors–and the judge–could decide that trying to process such a humongous volume of claims is just too cumbersome a task at a time when the legal system is already overburdened.

In that instance, the DOJ states that, “A court may decline to order restitution if it finds that determining restitution in a case is too complex.”

TDN attempted to contact the U.S. Attorney's office in New York several times last week to try and get a general idea of who might be identified as victims in Navarro's case and what the restitution process might look like.

We're still waiting for a call back from the feds.

It's important to note that Navarro's nearly $26 million in restitution is different and separate from the $70,000 forfeiture that he must pay the government before his sentencing date. That amount represents the value of adulterated drugs that prosecutors deemed Navarro transacted via interstate commerce.

Since the actual drugs themselves cannot be located to be forfeited–presumably, those PEDs long ago coursed through the systems of X Y Jet, War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca, and numerous other Thoroughbreds that Navarro has admitted to drugging–he must forfeit the monetary value of those drugs to the government instead.

Back on Aug. 3, Kristian Rhein, a now-suspended veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park, changed his plea to guilty on one felony count of drug adulteration and misbranding for use in the covert doping of racehorses. At that hearing it was revealed that the working number the feds are alleging co-defendant Jason Servis won illegally with his purportedly doped trainees is also roughly $26 million.

That's half the $52 million in purses that Servis's trainees bankrolled during his entire two-decade training career between 2001 and 2020.

If Servis ends up getting convicted at a trial (or changes his “not guilty” plea like six other defendants have already done), it's expected that he will be on the hook for that amount in restitution.

Let's assume that Servis, like Navarro, will be unlikely to meet that obligation.

What then, is the purpose of mandating such a large financial penalty if the DOJ is well aware most victims only end up collecting 10 cents on the dollar?

Part of the answer has to do with federal sentencing guidelines.

All sorts of aspects of a crime affect sentencing levels. For example, if a defendant is deemed to have abused a position of public trust, or used a special skill in a manner that facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense (which both Navarro and Rhein admitted to as part of their plea bargains), the penalties increase by two sentencing levels.

But another part of the guidelines states that if a conspiracy causes a financial loss to victims in the range of $25 million to $65 million, the severity of the crime gets bumped up by a much more serious factor of 22 levels.

So even if victims never see any of the money that is due to them via restitution, the fact that both Navarro and Rhein affirmed in their plea bargains that roughly $26 million was the amount of the losses they caused others to incur, it can have significant bearing on how long they'll be sentenced to prison. Hitting that lofty $25-million-loss mark is a key component to stricter sentencing.

If it's any solace to potential victims, remember that federal restitution orders are enforceable for 20 years. So even if Navarro serves his maximum sentence of five years and walks out of jail a free man, victims can still hound him for money 15 years beyond that by securing liens against any property he might have or by suing him in civil court based on his criminal conduct that led to the conviction and issuance of the restitution order.

And here's one last thought: Although it's unlikely to happen, wouldn't it be amazing if Judge Vyskocil declared in the restitution order that the true victims in this case are not people, but all of the Thoroughbreds known to be doped by Navarro?

And in lieu of awarding payments to those individual equine victims, how about if the court instead assigned the restitution benefits to accredited Thoroughbred aftercare and welfare organizations?

Those organizations would probably never get all $25,860,514. But even if Navarro was made to pay as much as he possibly could over the next two decades to help horses, it would seem like fitting retribution as well as worthwhile restitution.

The post Think You’re a Navarro Victim? Get In Line appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Man Of The Night Leads Second Session Of Tattersalls July Sale

The Tattersalls July Sale continued in robust fashion on the second day with four lots selling for 100,000 guineas or more and a clearance rate above 90 percent for the second consecutive day.

The top lot on the second day of the Tattersalls July Sale was the Richard Hannon-trained Man of the Night who was knocked down to Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hmoud Al-Malek Al-Sabah for 175,000 guineas, the highest price achieved on the Thursday of the July Sale since 2017.

The 4-year-old colt is a winner over 1 1/4 miles since the catalog was published and has a Timeform rating of 101. Showing good form on fast ground, the son of Night of Thunder has also placed fourth twice in listed company and boasts a smart pedigree, being out of a daughter of the three-time Group 1 winning champion French filly Mandesha.

A spokesperson for Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hmoud Al-Malek Al-Sabah revealed; “He might go to Kuwait, but we have horses in training in the U.K. so he may stay here for a time. We were looking for a horse who would stay further than a mile.”

The well-bred Restitution provided another highlight of the session when bought by Mark Richards on behalf of Mark Player's International Thoroughbred Solutions for 150,000 guineas.

Mark Richards, a recent repatriate following 22 years working for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, commented:

“It is nice to be back, I am acting here for Mark Player's International Thoroughbred Solutions. He is well used to purchasing horses here to go to Australia and the mere fact of me being back here is using old contacts and old friends as much as anything else. He likes to have someone on the ground to see the horses, knows the sort of horse I will be looking at and said that if I found anything that might suit to get in touch.

“I thought this is a lovely sort of horse, a lovely looking horse, hopefully he will acclimatize to Australia and he will head straight there now.”

Elaborating on Restitution's particular appeal, Richards added:

“You are just looking for a horse who can operate on good or faster ground and one you think can get a trip. He had already proven that he can stay a mile and a half, and they seem to get more distance when they get down there anyway. It is advantage to have been able to have performed on a quicker track rather than a slower track.”

The Jamie Railton consigned Restitution is by Frankel out of Restiana, a listed winning full-sister to the Group 2 winner and Group 1 placed Restiadargent. It is the second six-figure sale in two days for the pedigree as Tianadargent, another full-sister to Restiana and Restiadargent, was sold to Alex Elliott yesterday for 100,000 guineas.

The Tattersalls July Sale continues at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, July 9.

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