Tag: The Biz

A panel covering the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) has been added to the agenda for Track Superintendent Field Day set for June 12-14 at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

The implementation of HISA, set to take effect on July 1, is of interest to all horsemen and racetracks, as well as to track superintendents and their staff.

“We know that HISA is the most important topic in the industry right now, so we worked to put together a panel to address the specific impact on track superintendents,” said Roy Smith, founder of the event and track superintendent at Horseshoe Indianapolis. “We are keeping registration open for anyone who wants to attend this important meeting.”

The HISA panel will include Jamie Richardson, Track Superintendent at Churchill Downs, and Glen Kozak, NYRA's Senior Vice President, Operations & Capital Projects.

In addition to the HISA panel, the agenda includes record keeping, track equipment, turf course maintenance, track layout and on-track emergency response, as well as panels focusing on jockeys and track supers.

Thanks to a long list of sponsors, including title sponsor Equine Equipment, registration is free for track supers and staff.

One of the event's longtime sponsors, Exmark, has been named as the Official Mower of Track Superintendent Field Day.

“Our sponsors and our host track, Gulfstream Park, are the ones who make this possible and affordable for track supers to attend,” said Steve Andersen, founder of Equine Equipment. “We appreciate Exmark stepping up their support as well as all the other sponsors who have shown a commitment to the racing industry by being a part of this event.”

To register, call 877-905-0004 or email tracksupers@gmail.com.

More information and the agenda are available at www.tracksupers.com.

The post HISA Panel Added To Track Superintendent Field Day appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Rene Allard, a top harness trainer before his arrest and indictment in 2020, has changed his plea to “guilty” on one felony count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, reports the Thoroughbred Daily News. Allard was charged for his role in what prosecutors say was a scheme to “manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated and misbranded performance enhancing-drugs (PEDs) and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses under scheme participants' control.”

Allard was named in indictments early in 2020 as well as a superseding indictment in December, 2020.

The allegations in the Dec. 3 indictment were nearly identical to those in the indictment filed against Louis Grasso, Donato Poliseno, Thomas Guido III, and Richard Banca in February and March of 2020. The timing of the indictments and arrests earlier in the year coincided with a larger case also from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York into alleged doping schemes utilized by Thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis.

The earlier complaint against Allard includes bits of a conversation intercepted by federal agents between Ross Cohen (named in the original indictment alongside Navarro and Servis but absent from a later indictment in that case) and Grasso about Allard's barn. According to the transcript of the phone call from fall 2019, Cohen referred to Allard's operation as “the Allard death camp,” referring to two or three horses that died after receiving what Grasso said was an amino acid supplement from Weatherford, Texas, compounding pharmacy NexGen.

A search of an office at a Middletown, N.Y., training center where Allard kept horses revealed empty syringes, bottles of injectable products labeled “for research purposes only,” and bottles with labels the agent suspected did not match the content.

Due to be sentenced on Sept. 13, 2022, Allard faces as many as five years in prison. His plea deal with the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, also includes a judgement of $628,553.

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The post Harness Trainer Rene Allard Enters Guilty Plea, Faces Up To Five Years In Prison appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Maryland Jockey Club will offer a total of 14 stakes worth $1.3 million in purses, highlighted by the 31st running of the $150,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash July 16, during Laurel Park's 37-day summer meet which opens Friday and runs through Sunday, Aug. 21.

Racing will be conducted Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays during the summer meet, with a post time of 12:40 p.m. There will be a special Independence Day holiday program Monday, July 4.

Stakes action begins at Laurel with a June 19 Father's Day lineup of three races scheduled for its world-class turf course – the $100,000 Stormy Blues for 3-year-old fillies sprinting five furlongs, $75,000 Find for 3-year-olds and up and $75,000 All Brandy for fillies and mares 3 and older, both restricted to Maryland-bred/sired horses and going 1 1/16 miles.

Every other Saturday in July will feature stakes races, starting July 2 with the $100,000 Caesar's Wish for fillies and mares 3 and up at one mile and $100,000 Concern for 3-year-olds sprinting seven furlongs.

The six-furlong De Francis for 3-year-olds and up was moved from its traditional spot on Laurel's fall calendar to mid-July. Named for the late president and chairman of both Laurel and historic Pimlico Race Course, the De Francis' illustrious roster of winners includes Hall of Famer Housebuster, fellow sprint champions Cherokee Run, Smoke Glacken, Thor's Echo and Benny the Bull, and Lite the Fuse, the race's only two-time winner (1995-96).

Joining the De Francis on the July 16 program are the $100,000 Alma North going 6 ½ furlongs and $100,000 Big Dreyfus, scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on the turf, both for fillies and mares 3 and up; and the $100,000 Prince George's County at 1 1/8 miles on grass for 3-year-olds and up. All four races are part of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series.

Laurel wraps up its summer stakes schedule July 30 with five races worth $400,000 led by the $100,000 Deputed Testamony for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/8 miles. It is joined by four $75,000 races restricted to Maryland-bred/sired horses – the Star de Naskra for 3-year-olds and Miss Disco for 3-year-old fillies, each sprinting seven furlongs on dirt, and a pair of 5 ½-furlong turf dashes, the Ben's Cat for 3-year-olds and up and Jameela for fillies and mares 3 and older.

Friday's nine-race opening day card is kicked off by a 4 ½-furlong maiden special weight for 2-year-olds where Pompous Prince, by Palace, is the narrow 5-2 program favorite in a field of seven off a third after setting the pace in a similar spot May 1 at Laurel. California Ghost, a son of two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome, is the only other horse with a prior start, having finished fifth but placed fourth in a two-furlong maiden special weight May 23 at Parx.

The feature comes in Race 8, a 5 ½-furlong allowance event on the main track for fillies and mares that drew a field of seven including Belladora and Wicked Hot. Belladora, a 4-year-old daughter of Shackleford, returns off a 10-month layoff for trainer Michael Trombetta. The 4-year-old Wicked Hot, by Mosler, returns for Graham Motion off a year layoff after winning two of her first three starts. The field also includes Miss Marley, making her second start off a layoff for Michael Matz, and Long Distance Love, going out first off the claim for Claudio Gonzalez.

Four races are scheduled for the turf on Friday drawing a total of 48 entries, an average of 12 starters per race.

Ten races are on tap for Saturday including five races scheduled for the grass that attracted 54 entries, an average of 10.8 per race. Among them are an entry-level allowance for 3-year-olds and up going a mile in Race 6 featuring Consultant, a nine-length maiden winner April 30 at Laurel, and Cosmicality, whose breeder, Angie Moore, also bred 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go; and Race 8, an optional claiming allowance for fillies and mares 3 and up sprinting 5 ½ furlongs led by turf stakes winners Epic Idea, Ellanation and Cavalier Cupid.

Race 7 Saturday is a third-level optional claiming allowance for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/16 miles featuring stakes winner Tappin Cat, second by a neck in the 2021 Maryland Million Classic, and stakes-placed Plot the Dots, Gentleman Joe and Workin On a Dream, the latter fourth in the May 20 Pimlico Special (G3). Race 9 is a one-mile allowance for 3-year-olds and up that includes 2021 Maryland Million Nursery winner Buff Hello and nine-time career winner Krachenwagen.

Jevian Toledo, the state's three-time leading rider including 2021, has won two of the three meets in Maryland this year, taking Laurel's winter stand as well as the recently concluded Preakness Meet at Pimlico. He was second by one win to 18-year-old apprentice Jeiron Barbosa at Laurel's spring meet. Toledo is named in two races Friday and six races Saturday at Laurel.

Trainer Brittany Russell followed Laurel spring, her first career meet championship, by sharing the Preakness Meet crown with Richard Sillaman and becoming the first female to win more than one meet title in Maryland. Karen Patty (1992 Pimlico spring), Mary Eppler (2016 Laurel fall) and Linda Rice (2017 Laurel winter) had previously won or shared leading trainer honors.

Neither Russell nor Sillaman has a horse in Friday at Laurel. Russell is entered in two races and Sillaman one on Saturday.

The post Laurel’s Summer Meet To Offer 14 Stakes Worth $1.3 Million appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The California Horse Racing Board filed a complaint against both Peter Miller and Ruben Alvarado on May 23, 2022, alleging that Miller “engaged in behavior consistent with the duties of a trainer at the San Luis Rey Training Center with horses in the barn of trainer Ruben Alvarado.”

A complaint is an alleged violation that has not been adjudicated. A hearing date for Miller has been set for June 20, 2022; Alvarado's hearing has been set for July 18, 2022.

According to the complaint: “In late November 2021, Trainer Peter Miller stepped down as a trainer and transferred most of his barn to Trainer Ruben Alvarado. Between 12/23/2021 and 03/24/2022, Peter Miller has engaged in behavior consistent with the duties of a trainer at the San Luis Rey Training Center with horses in the barn of Trainer Ruben Alvarado. This has included entering horses, conducting endoscopy exams, giving instruction to riders, examining horses, consulting with veterinarians, controlling and accessing bank accounts purported to belong to Ruben Alvarado Racing Stables, assigning jockeys, and creating training charts.”

The complaint against Alvarado alleges that the longtime assistant to Miller “acknowledged that he is aware Miller has been conducting these duties. In addition, Alvarado did not set up his own stable bank account independent of Miller, which was required per the Steward's direction.”

In November, Miller issued a statement via the media saying he would be going on a “temporary hiatus” and turning his stable over to longtime assistant Ruben Alvarado.

(Read Miller's full statement here.)

Five horses from Miller's stable died in 2021, more than any other California trainer, drawing increased scrutiny. He was also sanctioned three times in 2021 for Class 4 medication violations in California, two of them for phenylbutazone overages after timed workouts. Miller denied in a statement that the break was prompted by actions by or agreements with regulators or racetracks.

Miller added that he planned to act as “an advisor/racing manager to my owners and my assistants, as well as staying involved as an owner myself.”

Miller returned to the entry box with a starter at Churchill Downs on May 29, sending out Respect the Code to finish sixth in an allowance contest. He told the Daily Racing Form last week that he will be gearing up for the meets at Del Mar and Los Alamitos in California and later in the year at Santa Anita.

The post CHRB Files Complaint Alleging Peter Miller ‘Engaged In Behavior Consistent With The Duties Of A Trainer’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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