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‘Let’s Talk’ Delves Into Jockeys’ Mental Health

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The TDN's 'Let's Talk'–a podcast series featuring TDN's Christina Bossinakis and TVG's on-air analyst Gabby Gaudet, offers candid discussion on personal, and sometimes difficult, topics that are often uncomfortable for many to speak about in an open forum.

The latest edition presents a trio of successful jockeys–Journeyman John Velazquez and retired Ramon Dominguez–both in the Hall of Fame–in addition to retired rider Richie Migliore, currently serving as a NYRA and FOX Sports on-air analyst.

Few will dispute the fact that jockeys are the iron warriors of horse racing. Physical danger is a very real part of the every day existence of a rider, as is the continual adversity they are forced to endure and adapt (and react) to.

“You really don't know what is going to happen,” admitted Dominguez. “It's different, perhaps for a jockey or it is magnified compared to other athletes, mostly because the athletes prepare and train for a specific game or perhaps for a season. Jockeys have a never-ending season–year-round racing. Even if you have a great business, doing well and had an amazing day, you have to turn the page. Because tomorrow, you can fall into a slump and things change. That [concern] is always in the back of your mind.”

Having faced more than his share of adversity, Migliore retired from the saddle in 2010, and Dominguez followed suit three years later after also facing a career-ending injury. Velazquez, who continues to compete at the highest level at age 51, also faced serious injury at several junctures in his career, however found himself among those fortunate to return to the saddle, time and again.

“For every jockey, for every athlete, there's a last ride, there's a last at bat, there's a last play,” said Migliore. “And if you're fortunate, you get to choose when that last ride is like Chris McCarron, Jerry Bailey and Pat Day. They accomplished amazing things and they made a decision that it was time to step away. The vast majority of riders don't get that opportunity. So, I tell young riders there will be a last ride and, hopefully, you get to choose last. But that's why you owe it to yourself to make the most out of the time you are able to ride.”

While the physical stress and adversity that riders face are well documented, the emotional difficulties that jockeys often face can be as prevalent, although not as easily observed by the masses.

“Unlike Ramon who was in the midst of his prime, I was in the back nine, the twilight of my career,” added Migliore. “Physically, I wasn't what I once was. Mentally, I could still see a race well, still had a great judge and feel of horses, but I certainly wasn't in what I would call my prime. Even though it was, admittedly, towards the end, I was 44 when the accident happened, and it still sent me into a deep, dark place. I went into a deep depression. Not originally when I first got out of the hospital, but when I was home. I didn't feel good, and I didn't care. I didn't care about horse racing or riding. Three or four months later when I started to feel better, and the reality was 'you're never going to do that again,' I really got depressed.”

It is widely understood that the challenges facing riders can be great, however, unity in racing can be equally strong, a bond reinforced by the necessity of taking care of one's own.

“It's funny because I always felt I had support,” said Velazquez. “And you always have the doubters, though. But I always focus on the people who want to give me the opportunity and forget about those, those people who doubted me from the get-go.”

And that support extends to the next generation of riders, which Velazquez admits is an important factor in keeping the playing field safe and equitable for the entire jockey colony.

“The more you teach those kids, the safer it is for you to ride,” he said. “You want to ride with the more knowledgeable rider rather than the kids that are more reckless. The ones who don't want to listen or to learn are the ones that make it scary to ride with. They want to learn the hard way. So, you have to show them the right way.”

To listen to the audio only version of 'Let's Talk,' click here. For the video version, click here.

The post ‘Let’s Talk’ Delves Into Jockeys’ Mental Health appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Potts Must Sit Out First 30 Days of Monmouth

On Aug. 6, 2021, conditioner Wayne Potts allegedly told his assistant, Bonnie Lucas, not to permit one of his trainees to be vanned off the track after a race at Monmouth Park despite an order to do so from the New Jersey Racing Commission (NJRC) veterinarian.

Both Potts and Lucas—who in addition to being an assistant trainer, was also the owner of Chispita, the filly in question—were fined $1,000 and suspended 30 days for their actions in a September ruling.

On Jan. 21, 2022, the NJRC issued a separate ruling defining the exact dates of their suspensions. They are now set to coincide with the start of the coming Monmouth meet, from May 7 through June 5.

Chispita finished second in that race, a $7,500 NW2L claimer. The Equibase chart noted that she “dug in and held on.”

The chart also stated that a claim for Chispita was voided, with “vet” listed as the reason.

Chispita hasn't raced since.

It was unclear at deadline for this story if Potts or Lucas have appealed or plan to appeal.

That first week in August last year was an eventful one for Potts.

On Aug. 4 at Saratoga Race Course, Potts had ownership clients wanting to claim a horse, Mach One, but Potts allegedly told them he couldn't because he had already made a commitment to another owner who wanted to claim a different horse out of the same race.

So another trainer, Amira Chichakly, claimed Mach One for $20,000 on behalf of owners Frank Catapano and Nicholas Primpas.

Three days later, Mach One was transferred from Chichakly to Potts.

When the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) found out, Potts was suspended 30 days and fined $2,000 for violating the “restricted transfer” rule that prohibits he claim and subsequent transfer of a horse within the prohibited 30-day time frame.

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Full Day of Testimony in Fishman Trial

A New York jury heard a full day of testimony Jan. 21 in the horse doping trial of Dr. Seth Fishman and Lisa Giannelli. The entire morning and most of the afternoon featured a second day of testimony from a woman who worked for Fishman at his Florida business Equestology for five years.

Courtney Adams, 34, testifying from Florida via video conference, told jurors that Fishman and Equestology were all about “testability.” That meant creating “product” that couldn't be detected in post-race testing by horse racing authorities, she said.

During her testimony in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors showed an email in which a veterinarian who was a client of Equestology asked about one of the products, equine growth hormone, and whether it was testable.

“That was our biggest selling point, that he specialized in making product that wasn't testable,” Adams testified, referring to Fishman.

The witness, who had been an Equestology office manager and then a sales rep, said that Fishman told her there was a risk of regulators coming up with a test to detect the substance. If that happened, Fishman said he would have to create another product that would be undetectable, she said.

“That was the whole point of that product to be not testable,” Adams testified.

Fishman and Giannelli face conspiracy charges in a wide-ranging scheme to dope horses with performance-enhancing drugs to boost the treated horses' chances of winning races. Those charged include prominent trainer Jason Servis, who has maintained a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial. Others, such as trainer Jorge Navarro, have pled guilty and been sentenced.

Prosecutors say the accused were motivated by greed to win races and acted without regard to the welfare and safety of horses.

While on the stand, Adams admitted helping to mislabel products that Fishman created for clients around the country and in the United Arab Emirates. She said she also shipped vials of product without any labels.

Under questioning by prosecutor Andrew Adams, the witness said that she knew “in general terms” that some of those who purchased Fishman's drugs were horse trainers.

“He would discuss why they wanted them and why they were being used by them,” she testified.

“And did he say why they were being used by trainers?” the prosecutor asked.

“He said they were being used because they were untestable,” Adams replied.

The jury also heard the witness cite the names of some of the drugs Equestology sold.

Those products included Endurance, Bleeder, Hormone Therapy Pack, HP Bleeder Plus, and PSDS.

Adams testified that PSDS stood for Pain Shot Double Strength, describing it as a “double strength product for pain.”

She indicated she didn't know what the other substances were for.

Adams said she stopped working for Equestology in 2017.

“I was over it to be honest,” Adams testified. “I didn't want to do it anymore.”

As she left, Fishman asked her not to discuss their business with anyone, Adams noted.

“I said okay,” she said.

She said in 2018 investigators with the Food and Drug Administration approached her to ask about Fishman. She said she wasn't comfortable talking to them without a lawyer.

After Fishman, Giannelli, Servis, and about two dozen others connected to horse racing were indicted in March 2020 in the doping case, Adams said a friend sent her a link with a story about the arrests.

She said after reading it she contacted law enforcement.

“I read the story, and I realized they didn't have the whole story, and I felt obliged to give it to them,” Adams told the jury.

She said as a result of the information she provided, government lawyers offered her a non-prosecution agreement.

During cross-examination, Fishman's attorney Maurice Sercarz sought to suggest that Adams was motivated to contact law enforcement out of personal animosity against Fishman.

She admitted that before she left Equestology, Fishman had accused her of theft and using Equestology funds to purchase personal items.

She told Sercarz she was upset about those accusations “because they were false.”

During his cross-examination, Giannelli's attorney, Louis Fasulo, questioned Adams about whether she would work at a place that put horses in danger.

No was her response.

Adams also said she didn't think she was breaking the law when labeling products she said were mislabeled.

Toward the end of the day, Long Island retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Angela Jett took the stand to read from notes of an interview she conducted with Fishman in 2010.

Jett said she had interviewed Fishman as a potential government witness in a $190 million securities fraud case. That case involved a magnate named David Brooks and a body-armor company he owned on Long Island. Fishman worked for Brooks, an owner of Standardbred racehorses that competed in New York and elsewhere.

According to the notes, Fishman told Jett that he had supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Brooks, who administered them to horses before racing.

Brooks was found guilty in 2010 of charges connected to the fraud and died in prison while serving a 17-year prison sentence.

Under cross-examination by Sercarz, Jett acknowledged that her notes don't say whether Fishman learned of the doping at the time it occurred or “after the fact.”

He also pointed out that Jett's notes show that when Brooks asked Fishman to dope a horse, Fishman refused.

Fishman's admissions to Jett never led to charges.

The trial resumes Jan. 24.

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

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Judge Dismisses Baffert’s Lawsuit Against NYRA

A federal judge on Friday dismissed Bob Baffert's lawsuit against the New York Racing Association (NYRA) that had alleged the Hall of Fame trainer was injured by NYRA's initial attempt to bar him back in May and again in September when it summoned him to a hearing to adjudicate his “detrimental” conduct related to repeated equine drug positives.

Chief among the reasons that United States District Court (Eastern District of New York) Carol Bagley Amon dismissed the amended complaint were that some of Baffert's claims were not yet “ripe” for a federal court to rule upon them because Baffert has yet to have the NYRA exclusionary hearing that is scheduled to begin Monday, Jan. 24.

Amon also wrote that Baffert could not substantiate his claim that NYRA's actions against him amounted to wrongful interference with his business relationships–such as owners who might have moved horses out of his care–because NYRA's actions were directed at Baffert, and not his clients.

“Baffert fails to explain how a state actor's truthful claims reporting a suspension are criminal or independently tortious,” Amon wrote. “Even though the underlying suspension was allegedly unlawfully undertaken, NYRA's statements about that suspension were entirely accurate and do not constitute a crime or tort.”

Asked via email to comment on the Jan. 21 court order on his client's behalf, Baffert's attorney, W. Craig Robertson III, wrote the following:

“The primary purpose of the federal court action was to obtain an injunction prohibiting NYRA [from] suspending Mr. Baffert without due process of law. We were successful in that regard and Judge Amon issued such an injunction [back in July that preliminarily lifted his suspension]–which she has now made permanent.

“As it pertains to our claims related to the renewed efforts by NYRA to suspend Mr. Baffert, Judge Amon has instructed us that we need to go through that [Jan. 24 hearing] process to see if NYRA actually affords the due process it is legally obligated to provide.”

“While we are skeptical NYRA will do as required given its past conduct, we will go through the hearing as instructed by the Judge. Should NYRA not act fairly and in accordance with the law, we will have the right–and we will be prepared–to once again return to Court to seek justice,” Robertson concluded.

Patrick McKenna, NYRA's vice president of communications, countered with the following emailed statement:

“NYRA is gratified by Judge Amon's decision to dismiss Mr. Baffert's lawsuit in its entirety. As we have said throughout this process, NYRA's focus in this matter is protecting the integrity of the sport of Thoroughbred racing in New York. In furtherance of that goal, the NYRA administrative hearing will begin on Monday morning.”

NYRA had banished the seven-time GI Kentucky Derby-winning trainer 16 days after now-deceased Medina Spirit tested positive for an overage of betamethasone while winning the May 1, 2021, Derby. In the 12 months prior to Medina Spirit's positive, four other Baffert trainees also tested positive for medication overages, two of them in Grade I stakes.

On July 14, the court granted Baffert a preliminary injunction that allowed him to race at New York's premier tracks until his lawsuit got adjudicated in full.

In the wake of that decision, NYRA drafted a new set of procedures for holding hearings and issuing determinations designed to suspend licensees who engage in injurious conduct. On Sept. 10, NYRA then summoned Baffert to appear at an exclusion hearing now scheduled for Jan. 24.

Baffert first filed a motion asking the judge to hold NYRA in civil contempt for trying to schedule such a hearing and to stay the hearing itself. When those requests were denied, he amended his original complaint to try and keep the hearing process from moving forward.

That amended complaint was the subject of Amon's order on Friday.

By changing the injunction over Baffert's initial May suspension from “preliminary” to “permanent,” Amon wrote that the civil rights aspect of Baffert's initial complaint is now “fully resolved.”

That left five counts in the amended complaint to be adjudicated. Amon sided with NYRA by dismissing all of them.

NYRA had argued that one of the counts should have been dismissed related to a legal term called the “Younger abstention,” which is a doctrine that mandates federal courts must not hear cases involving federal issues already being decided at the state level.

“Younger abstention is appropriate here,” Amon wrote, noting that NYRA's upcoming administrative proceeding qualifies as a “civil enforcement” proceeding.”

“A Younger-eligible civil enforcement proceeding can be a proceeding or hearing in front of an agency or committee tribunal; it does not need to take place in state court…” Amon wrote.

“NYRA's administrative proceedings resemble criminal prosecutions in the important respects identified in [a precedent],” Amon wrote. “First, the purpose of the proceeding is to determine if Baffert should be sanctioned for alleged wrongdoing…”

“Second, NYRA initiated the proceedings as a state actor. Baffert argues that NYRA cannot call itself a state adjudicative body because it has previously argued that it is not a state actor. Notably, Baffert does not argue that NYRA is not a state actor, since any such argument would be fatal to his [civil rights] claim…”

“Third, NYRA's proceeding was preceded by an investigation that culminated in the filing of formal charges,” Amon wrote. “Baffert does not dispute that the Statement of Charges qualifies as formal charges. Instead, he argues that NYRA failed to conduct a satisfactory, independent investigation before bringing those charges. That argument is not persuasive.”

As for the “ripeness” issue, Amon wrote: “Courts considering prudential ripeness ask first 'whether an issue is fit for judicial decision' and second 'whether and to what extent the parties will endure hardship if decision is withheld.'

“Baffert alleges that proceeding with the hearing violates his due process rights. And as in [a precedent] it is not yet clear that the hearing will deprive Baffert of any property interest. Although Baffert argues that NYRA has targeted Baffert for disparate treatment and that the hearing presents a 'fait accompli' of suspension, the September 10th Letter does not suspend Baffert. Whether NYRA is a biased agency and whether suspension is a 'fait accompli' will certainly be clearer after the hearing has run its course and NYRA has decided whether to suspend Baffert.

Amon also wrote that Baffert did not successfully argue that dismissing his case would cause him significant harm.

“If having to participate in an ongoing administrative hearing counted as per se hardship, courts would routinely find claims ripe while administrative hearings are ongoing,” Amon wrote.

Baffert had argued that even the specter that he might be suspended from racing in New York had caused his business “significant injury.”

But Amon wrote that his amended complaint “does not include allegations that the [letter summoning him to a hearing] has injured his business.”

Amon added that, “Baffert alleges that one client [WinStar Farm] moved its horses because of the May suspension, and that other owners 'have indicated that they may have to move their horses away from Baffert if he cannot race in New York.'

“These allegations do not indicate that Baffert will suffer any business injury from the ongoing hearing now that his original suspension has been lifted. And Baffert has provided no

other evidence indicating an injury accruing from the specter of suspension,” Amon wrote.

Amon wrote that courts can't be expected to be constantly reviewing whether or not the “cloud of official investigation” harms someone's business, because reviewing every such claim of harm would disrupt the administrative process and add to “already overcrowded court dockets.”

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