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Navarro Starts Prison Sentence

The Juice Man has a new home.

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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Churchill Downs to Host 20th Annual Race for Grace Banquet

The Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy will celebrate 50 years of racetrack ministry May 2 at the Louisville-based track with its annual Race for Grace banquet. It is the primary fundraiser for the organization and the money generated allows the Chaplaincy to continue their mission to minister to the fundamental and spiritual needs of the horsemen and women working at the racetracks and training centers in Kentucky and Southern Ohio. With over 7,000 licensees and three chaplains across five tracks, the group serves the stable workers, jockeys, starting gate crew, and track staff, ensuring a family church and a home away from home as well as providing critical basic needs like clothing and a food bank. There are also women and children's ministries, transportation to off-track appointments and moral support provided where needed.

“I had many wonderful experiences during my 32 years as a thoroughbred jockey but my work with the chaplaincy is decidedly more rewarding and fulfilling,” said Hall of Famer and Kentucky Derby winner Pat Day, who will also serve as the Master of Ceremonies. “Thank you sponsors, partners, and supporters from every corner of this ministry. God bless!”

The event will run from 6:00-9:00 p.m. and will include a live auction featuring Keeneland's Director of Auctioneers Ryan Mahan. Items will include six seat boxes for the 2023 Kentucky Derby and Oaks, leather halters from 2022 Kentucky Derby entries, and a silent auction with horse racing art and memorabilia. The keynote speaker will be nationally recognized Pastor Bob Russell.

For more information and event tickets, please go to: https://kychaplaincy.org. Race For Grace sponsorships are still available.

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Sports Betting Bill Advances in Kentucky

House Bill 606, which would legalize sports betting in Kentucky, passed by a margin of 58 to 30 Friday in the Kentucky House and will now be sent to the Senate.

The bill will also legalize fantasy sports and on-line poker. The revenue will be used to support the state pension fund.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger), a longtime supporter of sports betting in the Blue Grass State. Koening estimates that sports betting will generate at least $22.5 million in new state tax revenue each year. It marks a third year that a sports wagering bill has come out of committee, but it has stalled each time. But with the 58-30 vote along bipartisan lines in the House, there are renewed hopes that sports betting will be legalized this time around.

Koenig said Friday that the bill would bring “activities that go on in every corner of this state out of the darkness and into the light.”

“The fact is, we've been betting on sports in America since they invented sports,” he added.

So far as its chances of passing the Senate, the Majority Floor Leader, Senator Damon Thayer, is on record supporting sports betting.

“With the passage of HB 606 in the House of Representatives, the sports betting issue moves to the Senate,” Thayer told the TDN in a text. “We will be reviewing the bill and assessing its chances in our chamber. I am a firm supporter of sports betting and hope enough of my fellow members join me in supporting the measure so that we can join most of America in allowing it to occur.”

The main opposition to the bill comes from religious organizations and their supporters among Kentucky lawmakers.

David Walls, the executive director of the Family Foundation, told wdrb.com that sports betting was an example of “bad government and bad policy.”

“This type of predatory gambling is designed to prey on human weakness, with the government colluding with the gambling industry to exploit our fellow Kentuckians,” Walls said.

The 2022 session of the Kentucky General Assembly ends Apr. 14, meaning the Senate will have to act quickly. If the bill passes the senate and is signed by Governor Andy Beshear, it is estimated that sports betting could be up and running in the state by mid-summer. Beshear has come out in support of sports betting.

The bill allows the state's racetracks to partner with mobile sports betting operators like DraftKings and FanDuel. Online betting will be available throughout the state. The tracks will also be allowed offer sports wagering as their main location, simulcasting facilities and at their venues hosting Historical Horse Racing machines. Those will be the only brick-and-mortar facilities permitted to conduct sports betting. Patrons will have to go the tracks or their affiliated locations to sign up for an account.

Horse racing purses will not get a cut from sports betting, but its legalization and the fact that it will take place out of the state's racetracks could help introduce sports bettors to racing.

Sports betting will regulated by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

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Fan-Favorite Whitmore to be Honored on Oaklawn’s Whitmore Day

A familiar face will be leading the post parade Saturday for the GIII Whitmore S.–the race's namesake. Oaklawn announced in early September that Mar. 19 would be christened as 'Whitmore Day,' renamed the Hot Springs S. after the gelding, and even renamed his longtime home at the track, formerly the Count Fleet barn, after him.

Saturday's script calls for Whitmore to follow the field from the barn area to the track, then head into the horseshoe-shaped hedge infield winner's circle, traditionally used for stakes contests, as the horses are being saddled in the paddock. Whitmore, ridden by Laura Moquett, will then lead the post parade for the Whitmore S.

“I'm running horses that day and none of them are Whitmore, but at least I get to lead him over and all that,” said trainer Ron Moquett. “That's the thing. That's what this sport is about. I don't care if anybody knows me, but I'm so humbled that they know him.”

Fans attending Saturday will receive commemorative Whitmore baseball cards as they enter, and free Whitmore T-shirts, all while supplies last, can be redeemed on the north end of the first floor following the second race.

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