Juan Vazquez Sees Training License Suspended Until 2025; Stewards Call Him ‘Cruel And Abusive’

Stewards in Pennsylvania have suspended the license of owner/trainer Juan Carlos Vazquez through Jan. 26, 2025 after the death of 5-year-old mare Shining Colors.

According to a ruling published July 7, Vazquez shipped Shining Colors from Belmont Park to Parx on Jan. 6 of this year. On Jan. 9, Shining Colors was euthanized with a severe case of laminitis. Stewards held a hearing into the matter on June 23.

“The evidence presented by veterinarian witnesses and the necropsy report clearly revealed that the horse Shining Colors was suffering from this severe chronic condition and should never have been shipped to Parx racing by owner/trainer Juan C. Vazquez,” the ruling read.

According to Equibase, Shining Colors made her last start on Oct. 17, 2021 at Belmont, where she finished seventh of eight. Vazquez conditioned the daughter of Paynter for Just In Time Racing. She ran 11 times and had one win on her record.

“After considering all testimony presented and the information and evidence submitted to the board of stewards by investigators of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission, the board of stewards determine that owner/trainer Juan C. Vazquez was grossly negligent, cruel, and abusive in the shipping of the horse Shining Colors from Belmont Park to Parx Racing,” read the ruling.

Vazquez was also fined $5,000, which is due July 17. His suspension is set to begin July 18. The suspension is scheduled to last for the remainder of his Pennsylvania license. Racing officials will often choose the expiration date of a license as the finish of the suspension so that in future the person is required to apply as a new licensee. Some officials have more legal latitude in denying a new license application than in revoking a current one.

Earlier this year, Vazquez was handed a month-long suspension for two levamisole positives in fall 2021 at Parx, one of which resulted in the disqualification of Hollywood Talent from the Grade 3 Turf Monster Stakes. According to his record on Equibase, he has not yet served that suspension.

In November 2021, Vazquez trainee Ekhtibaar shipped in to run at Belmont Park and was discovered dead in the van at Gate 6. According to the New York State Gaming Commission's database, the cause of death remains unknown. After numerous inquiries to the commission, the Paulick Report was informed in March of this year that the investigation was ongoing.

“Because this horse was shipped to Belmont Park on 11/17/21 from another racing jurisdiction and due to the need for multi-jurisdiction collaboration in this case, we expect this investigation to take some time,” said NYSGC spokesman Brad Maione via email March 3.

Vazquez has a lengthy violation history, with 125 records relating to violations in the database ThoroughbredRulings.com dating back to 2006, although it is important to note that some violations generate multiple records in this database if stewards issue subsequent rulings rescinding or modifying previous ones. Track management at Delaware Park and Laurel Park banned Vazquez from those properties in 2015.

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Fishman Case: Prosecutors Request 10 To 20 Years In Prison, Point To Emirati Involvement In Case

Ahead of his sentencing in federal court on July 11, prosecutors say veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman has a lot more going against him than just his high-profile conviction on charges of drug adulteration and misbranding.

Attorneys for the Southern District of New York are seeking a prison sentence between 10 and 20 years for Fishman, who was convicted of federal drug misbranding charges earlier this year. The report also suggests Fishman, like several of his co-defendants, could be hit with serious financial penalties. The government requested Fishman be ordered to pay restitution of $25,860,514 to be shared jointly with co-defendant Jorge Navarro and others convicted on the same drug adulteration charge. In terms of restitution to victims, the report indicated prosecutors are aware of which “specific horses that the Government can demonstrably identify were doped, or specific trainers that the Government can demonstrate were recurrent purchasers of Fishman's inarguably prohibited PEDs, as reflected in the proposed restitution order provided to the Court and defense counsel amounting to a total of $11,268,177.”

In the case of previous defendants who have entered guilty pleas, court proceedings have indicated restitution payments would be distributed to connections of horses who lost to competitors doped by the defendants. Documents detailing proposed disbursement amounts have been filed under seal and have not been accessible by the public.

There are several aggravating factors the government detailed in its pre-sentencing report. Perhaps most notably, the prosecutors pointed to what they characterized as continued attempts by Fishman to keep selling illegal products even after he had been arrested and had his offices searched by the FBI. When investigators discovered that Fishman was still making and selling a couple of popular products after his arrest, Fishman's attorneys argued he was not in breach of any federal regulations or court orders because the substances were created only for export and were not for sale in the United States. In November 2020, a federal grand jury entered a superseding indictment that included a sentencing enhancement on “the basis of the defendant's continued commission of crimes while on pretrial release.” That enhancement could subject him to an additional consecutive prison term of up to ten years.

Throughout the case, both sides have acknowledged Fishman had clients outside the United States. One 2019 phone call between Fishman and harness trainer Adrienne Hall played during Fishman's trial included boasting by Fishman that his clients included Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum's racing operations. At one stage after his arrest, Fishman requested that Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil give him permission to travel to Dubai to treat camels. (As is standard, all defendants in the case have been subject to travel restrictions which have confined their movement to pre-approved jurisdictions based on the location of their residences. Any travel outside of those areas would require special permission.) Vyskocil denied that request.

What hadn't come out in court before were Fishman's attempts to regain control of the products seized by the FBI with the help of the Emirati government. Prosecutors say that after his arrest and subsequent searches of his property in October 2019, Fishman emailed one of his clients suggesting they file an action in U.S. Court seeking the return of drugs seized by the FBI. In March 2020, the Presidential Affairs Department, Sector of Scientific Centers and Presidential Camel Department, Dubai Equine, and Dubai Camel filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, claiming they had purchased the drugs the FBI had taken and as a result, American authorities had no right to hold them. Those filings also claimed the seized drugs were only to be used for the camel and equine breeding seasons in Dubai and were not intended for performance animals, a claim prosecutors in the Fishman misbranding case say was false.

One of the non-FDA approved drugs prosecutors say came from Seth Fishman's Equestology

Court documents released this week included a series of December 2019 email exchanges between Fishman and a person identified only as Adel. In them, Adel suggests Fishman “better send me a draft for what you want from me to prepare on the letter head and signed with stamp to send it back to you.”

In April 2020, a letter appeared in the case from Dubai Equine and the Presidential Camel Department on “United Arab Emirates Presidential letterhead, executed and with a Presidential seal detailing petitioners' relationship with Dr. Fishman,” apparently in an attempt to establish the Emirati government's business relationship with Fishman.

“Please remember that products were also requested by certain vets working for private stables owned by HH … It's NOT limited to DEH, because the products themselves may not be the actual issue, but how they were used,” Fishman wrote to Adel in December 2019. “Lina will eventually have to speak to the Palace either way because there are likely implications that go far beyond any importer or hospital. The necessary steps moving forward might require more than a newly positioned staff of Al Meydan.

“My fears are that a few young and inexperienced US officials eager to make major headlines without understanding the politics will loose[sic] site[sic] of their objective quickly. In respect to the crown I think being overly proactive would be far more appreciated than reactive.”

The attempts by government officials in Dubai to have the products released to them were ultimately denied, and afterwards, Fishman filed a similar motion of his own, which prosecutors say parroted some of the same statements previously made by the unsuccessful Emirati petitioners.

The phrase “Presidential Affairs” comes up again in the Fishman case file. In text messages intercepted by the FBI, Fishman complained about a time when he was under investigation in Delaware. In 2011, Dr. Brittany Faison of Coastal Veterinary Services was called to examine a Standardbred racehorse named Louisville in the barn of Les Givens who died after receiving an injection of pentosan made illegally by Fishman. Faison voiced concerns about whether Fishman was actually examining patients before prescribing treatments, and noted she had seen Lisa Giannelli, Fishman's co-defendant and former employee, at “farms in Harrington, Dovington Training Center, Gateway Farms, and now Seaford.”

Giannelli and Fishman denied allegations that Giannelli was practicing veterinary medicine without a license or that Fishman was not maintaining an appropriate relationship with patients.

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In a phone call intercepted by the FBI, Fishman would later say that “Presidential Affairs” “cleaned up” veterinary board's investigation into Fishman.

It may not have been the only form of help he was hoping to get from the government in the UAE. In a June 2019 phone call with an unidentified female, Fishman said he “can't do business with anyone overseas because I get accused of laundering money. Which now, Sheikh Mohammed, not Mohammed Maktoum, Mohammad Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, he is going to make me a temporary resident and give me proper UAE banking and then everything I do will be under presidential endorsement. So when the IRS or somebody accuses me of money laundering they speak to presidential affairs.”

Besides his alleged use of international connections in this and other cases, this week's court filing also revealed a few more identities of active clients of Fishman. One wire tapped phone call between Fishman and Giannelli mentions the use of “bleeding paste” and “pills” by “Richey Silverman.” Another conversation via text with Giannelli mentions trainer and law enforcement officer Silvio Martin. In February 2020, Pennsylvania investigators reached out to Giannelli, hoping to ask Fishman about Martin, though the conversation doesn't specify why. Another document, which has been heavily redacted, lists several patient names of Standardbreds for whom Fishman prescribed BB3, a blood building product.

Interestingly, the same document includes line items which read, “potentially compromised product .. good customer gift,” and “Potentially compromised product … free.”

Prosecutors in the Fishman case further allege he hid assets from them when he was asked to detail his financial holdings, omitting two Panamanian bank accounts which had six figures in them. They also accuse Fishman of trying to intimidate trainer Jamen Davidovich ahead of his testimony in court. Fishman texted Davidovich saying he was copying “my investigator and wondering if we could have a call together.”

Fishman's attorneys have filed their own pre-sentencing report, but that report has been kept under seal and is inaccessible to the public or the media. A letter from the prosecution to the court indicated defense counsel had approved the unsealing of parts of the letter and supporting documentation, but wanted to keep some attachments under wraps because they include medical information. Fishman was not in court for the final verdict in February, and his attorneys indicated at that time he had been hospitalized.

Judge Vyskocil is expected to sentence Fishman next week.

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The Change Ahead: HISA May Be The Beginning Of The End For Pin Firing

This is the final piece in our series entitled The Change Ahead, which was designed to capture some of the regulatory changes on the horizon under the new Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. The first racetrack safety rules went into effect on July 2 of this year.

Find Part 1 in this series, on hair testing out-of-competition, here; Part 2 on void claim rules here; Part 3 on jockey safety protocols here; and Part 4 on pre-race veterinary exams here.

Like it or not, when the calendar ticked over to July 2, the first regulations promulgated by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority went into effect. While the start of the Authority's regulation marked the beginning of new regulations, it also signaled the beginning of the end of an old practice – pin firing.

Rule 2271 outlining Prohibited Practices includes “thermocautery, including but not limited to pin firing and freeze firing, or application of any substance to cause vesiculation or blistering of the skin, or a counter-irritant effect.”

The rule will first apply to foals born in 2022.

Discussions of pin firing have flared tempers in the veterinary community in recent years as practitioners have debated its usefulness and ethical implications in a changing culture.

Pin firing or thermocautery involves the application of a tool with metal points to a horse's leg, typically the shins. The points are heated and the tool burns through the skin and touches the periosteum, which is the thin membrane that covers the bone. An iodine-based paint is then applied daily to the site to ease skin discomfort for 10 or 11 days before the horse begins returning to training. Horses are also rested prior to firing to calm down some of the acute inflammation. The overall process has the horse out of training for several weeks.

The practice of thermocautery was actually adapted from a technique that was once used in human medicine. The principle was that the irritation from the hot iron would increase circulation and bone remodeling, with the goal of speeding the body's natural repair process. In racehorses, it has been used on soft tissues, but much more commonly on bone, and is classically associated with bucked shins. Young horses may develop shin soreness (similar to shin splints in human runners) when the pace of their training program progresses more quickly than their cannon bones can adapt to it. For many decades, the irritation left behind by pin firing was believed to cause a surge in bone repair at the point of application.

“The old timers, the people in this industry for a long time, have said you can do that and put the horse back in training and those horses tend not to have a problem with [shins] again,” said Dr. Kevin Dunlavy, racetrack veterinarian in Kentucky. “You wouldn't have to look very far in a literature search to find out there's not a lot of science that supports this.

“Therein lies the problem. I don't think it's taught in a vet school anywhere. They look at it, for lack of a better term, as witchcraft.”

In more recent years, however, some practitioners have questioned whether the practice is actually effective. Many veterinarians believe the amount of time a horse is out of training – from the “cooling out” period prior to firing to the down time after – is probably what makes the difference because it allows the bone to catch up to itself.

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For top orthopedic surgeon and Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital partner Dr. Larry Bramlage, the other issue with pin firing is appearances. In reality, he's not sure a horse suffers discomfort much greater or much longer after pin firing than they do after certain types of orthopedic surgery. But try telling that to someone who's not familiar with the practice.

“In our current era, where we're dealing with the social license to conduct racing, it's a thing that would probably hurt our case in the public forum,” said Bramlage, who is a member of the Authority's advisory council. “Weighing all things in risk versus benefit, I think giving it up is safer than trying to defend it.”

Bramlage said pin firing formerly was used to address splints and curbs, but he's not convinced it's effective for either of those problems, either.

Dunlavy said the practice has fallen out of favor with many veterinarians, especially younger vets – so much so, it has gotten harder to purchase the equipment needed to do the firing. While he has pin fired horses himself, Dunlavy also believes he has other treatment options for shins that are equally or more effective. Also, trainers are getting better at recognizing when a horse is developing bucked shins and may be able to pause training before an issue actually develops.

Freeze firing, however, is a little bit of a different animal for Bramlage. First of all, he said, the practice is terribly named. It sounds as though it should be similar to pin firing, but it doesn't involve any kind of burn. Instead, it bears resemblance to the freezing of warts or skin conditions in humans. Liquid nitrogen is used to apply extremely cold temperatures to a targeted area, which creates a mild numbing effect. While some horsemen may turn to freezing in search of a similar counterirritant effect to the one they get from pin firing, Bramlage thinks its usefulness is probably more in localized pain relief than directly changing bone development. He doesn't consider it to be a helpful therapy for shins, but does think it's useful for splints.

Bramlage broke down the most common splint bone injuries in young racehorse into two different groups: Lumps and bumps that occur up high on the cannon bone, just below the knee, and those that are about halfway down the length of the cannon bone.

Splint bones sit on either side of the cannon bone and are somewhat triangular in shape. They're thicker at the top, where they come away from the knee, and thinner toward the bottom approaching the fetlock joint. They're attached to the horse's cannon bones by a ligament and gradually fuse to the cannon bone as horses age. When a horse gets a splint injury up high, it's usually an overload injury, resulting from conformation and/or training stress. As bone remodeling activity increases around that wider portion of the splint bone, that part of the splint tends to fuse to the cannon bone as new bone is laid down to repair the inflammation. That stabilizes the splint bone and usually prevents the same injury from recurring.

For popped splints farther down the leg though, there's a bit of a leverage problem. In young horses, the attachment of the splint to the cannon is tighter at the bottom, where the splint bone is thinner, than it is at the top. If the smaller, pointy end of the splint bone is attached to the cannon but the wider part above still moves, the bone suffers micro-fractures at the junction of the differential stiffness.  This causes the lump and the pain and will fuse the bone to the cannon bone like the more proximal splint occurrences if the horse rests.  But when the horse returns to work there will still be motion at the top of the splint and not at the bottom of the splint where the lump further fused the splint to the cannon bone.  The same differential stiffness occurs between the mobile splint above and the immobile part below. That differential motion repeats the process and prompts a new splint injury.

When a horse has a popped splint lower down in the leg like this, Bramlage wants to keep stimulating the bone until its healing and fusing process continues up the length of the splint, so that everything will be stable. Since bone forms and adapts in response to use and concussion, the way to do this is to allow the horse to remain in light work, which will continue to stimulate the bone. Freezing can be helpful because it can desensitize the area that's inflamed, allowing the horse to keep using the leg in reduced training while the healing process continues until the reaction fully fuses the splint to the cannon bone similar to the splints that occur up high.

“I think freezing of splints is easy to defend,” he said. “Freezing is not offensive because people get freezing. It's not painful, it's actually slightly numbing, and it doesn't really cause any long-term effect except it turns the hair white where you do it.”

An update sent out by the Authority on June 22 clarified that the prohibition on pin firing and freeze firing would only apply to shins, while other areas of application would not be prohibited. The characteristic dot patterns of white hair left behind by pin firing or freezing typically remain the same after the treatment, so it would be hard for a regulator to look at a pin fired horse and know whether the firing had occurred before or after the July 1 implementation.

As for why the pin firing issue is such an emotional one for veterinarians and trainers, Dunlavy and Bramlage said they usually see the debate fall along age-related lines. Those in support of the continued use of pin firing tend to be older and those in favor of phasing it out tend to be younger. For some people, Dunlavy said, it feels like the last straw, like one more tool that's being taken away from them by people who don't walk in their shoes every day. But he's not sure that's the right approach.

“If you don't have science that can back up your stance on it … in racing, we have enough things where we need to show we're acting in the best interest of the horse,” he said. “This isn't the hill I want to die on.”

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Trainer Marvin Johnson, Veterinarian Loomis Issued Summary Suspensions In Indiana

The licenses of owner/trainer/authorized agent Marvin A. Johnson and veterinarian Dr. Cynthia Loomis have been summarily suspended by the stewards of the Indiana Horse Racing Commission, according to rulings dated July 4, the same day as the alleged violations.

Neither ruling details what the licensees are alleged to have done. Both include language indicating the summary suspensions are “for actions not in the best interests of racing and which compromise the integrity of operations at a racetrack.”

Johnson told Thoroughbred Daily News that Loomis, his regular veterinarian throughout the Horseshoe Indianapolis meet, was “observed treating a horse that was in that day, which is obviously against the rules.” Johnson said recent surgery on his pelvis limited his involvement at the stable.

“All I do is hire my vet to be responsible for me. I trusted her fully with the horses and the times that my horses get treated,” he told Thoroughbred Daily News, adding that “this is not a cheating matter” and that he was cooperating fully with the commission.

Typically, summary suspensions are put in place when a licensee is believed to have committed serious regulatory offenses and run until such time as a stewards' hearing can be held. Licensees under summary suspension are entitled to a hearing to determine whether summary suspension should continue until a disciplinary hearing may be conducted.

Horses in the Johnson stable are unable to race for 60 days from the time of the infraction, even after being transferred to another trainer, according to one owner who spoke to the Paulick Report on the condition of anonymity.

It remains unclear whether the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) would have any involvement in the case, depending on the nature of the rule violations.

Johnson is currently leading trainer at Horseshoe Indianapolis by money won and is second by wins, with 18 victories from 94 starts and earnings of $724,707. A member of the Nebraska Horse Racing Hall of Fame, Johnson won a pair of $100,000 stakes on the June 29 card at Horseshoe Indianapolis, taking a division of the Checkered Flag Stakes with Hungarian Princess and winning the Brickyard Stakes with Nobody Listens. Since taking out his trainer's license in 1974, he has won 2,133 races from 13,999 starts.

Loomis is a practitioner with Kentucky Equine Medical Associates. According to the company's website, she has practiced at Canterbury, Oaklawn, and Delaware Park.

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