View From the Eighth Pole | Horse Racing Free Tips

View From The Eighth Pole: Keeping HISA Out Of Racing’s Alphabet Soup

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HiSA) got off to a solid start last month when Maryland attorney Charles Scheeler was elected by fellow directors to chair the nine-person board that will act as an independent oversight body on medication and safety issues for Thoroughbred racing in the United States.

The board includes some names that should be familiar to horse racing people (i.e., former Breeders' Cup and National Thoroughbred Racing Association executive D.G. Van Clief Jr., retired Keeneland president Bill Thomason, former New York Racing Association chief financial officer and president Ellen McClain, and Joseph De Francis, whose family previously owned Maryland tracks Laurel and Pimlico).

But there are others who bring major league sports experience to the Authority. Adolpho Birch spent 23 years at the National Football League's headquarters focusing on enforcement of integrity and drug issues, while Leonard Coleman served as president of Major League Baseball's National League (and is a former member of the Churchill Downs Inc. board of directors).

From the world of politics comes board member Steve Beshear, who served as Kentucky's attorney general, lieutenant governor and governor (his son Andy is Kentucky's current governor). Dr. Susan Stover from the University of California at Davis has blazed a trail of ground-breaking research on equine injuries and prevention. Scheeler played a significant role in Major League Baseball's Mitchell Report, which investigated the use of performance-enhancing drugs in that sport.

It is an outstanding group with a variety of skill sets that should work well together as the industry moves into uncharted waters with the development of national rules on medication and safety issues that will require the approval of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C.

The Authority's second step from the gate was a stumble – temporarily it is hoped – with the appointment of industry organization veteran Hank Zeitlin as interim executive director. Zeitlin is like that retread football coach with a mediocre record who keeps finding new teams to give him a chance. He's gone from management positions at The Jockey Club, to Equibase, to the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America in an undistinguished manner.

I'm going to take Scheeler's word for it that Zeitlin is being hired on an interim basis only – that Zeitlin's institutional knowledge will be somewhat useful as Scheeler and other board members get up to speed. He is not the person for the job long-term if the Authority is looking for a dynamic executive as its leader.

I'd almost forgotten that there still is a Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America and that Zeitlin was collecting an industry paycheck from them. The TRA is not to be confused with the NTRA – the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. They are two distinct groups in racing's alphabet soup of organizations.

I'm not even sure what the TRA does any more, except to count and pass through the money its racetrack members earn for their ownership share of Equibase, the industry's official database that the TRA tracks co-own with The Jockey Club (TJC). Long ago, including during Zeitlin's tenure there as president, the Equibase board decided the company's primary role was to be profitable rather than to serve as a marketing and growth tool for Thoroughbred racing as almost all other sports use their historical data.

Does the industry still need the TRA? Does it really need the NTRA? Can it get by without the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, or the Association of Racing Commissioners International?

This might be a good time for a downsized industry to look at consolidating some of these organizations and their responsibilities. TRA could probably outsource Zeitlin's current job as its executive vice president to an accountant. The Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, a subsidiary of TRA that once served as an important integrity and security division for horse racing, may fulfill some role in connection with the Authority, particularly when it comes to wagering security, the primary area in which the TRPB is now involved.

The NTRA is a ghost of what it was originally designed to be when it was established nearly 25 years ago. Having long ago given up on being a “league office” for horse racing, the NTRA in recent years has focused on lobbying in Washington, D.C., running a profitable handicapping tournament, and presenting the Eclipse Awards. With NTRA president Alex Waldrop announcing that he will retire at year's end, this might be an opportune time to divvy up those responsibilities to existing groups like The Jockey Club or Equibase and save some money on salaries.

Same goes for the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA), whose only real purpose is the grading of North American stakes. Since The Jockey Club prepares the statistical data at TOBA's behest for the annual grading process, that responsibility could easily be transferred. TOBA has been operating in the red in recent years, with its chief executive taking home roughly 30% of the organization's annual revenue.

And what about the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI)? Its primary function seems to be the development of model rules for a variety of activities in racing, including medication and safety policies. With those two categories falling under the Authority's umbrella, there will be a lot less meat on the bone for ARCI president Ed Martin to chew on.

Nothing will change, of course. Some of these organizations with uninspired leadership have evolved into nothing more than jobs programs, and they're not going away. Racing cannot afford to let the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) be steered toward mediocrity and become just another ingredient in racing's bland alphabet soup. Its success is too important.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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View From The Eighth Pole: Lasix-Free Triple Crown A Step In Right Direction

With so much attention focused on the drug test that could lead to the disqualification of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit, there's been barely a peep about how American racing managed to get through a Triple Crown season with all of its participants competing free of race-day furosemide, the anti-bleeding medication better known as Lasix.

It wasn't just the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes that were run Lasix-free. Official qualifying points races for the Derby also were run with a Lasix ban (or, in some cases, if owners and trainers chose to have the diuretic given to their horses, those horses would not qualify for points).

Grindstone was the last horse to win the Kentucky Derby without being administered Lasix four hours prior to the race. That was in 1996, when five of the 19 Derby starters raced Lasix-free. Since then, an increasing number of Derbies has been run with 100% of the starters competing on Lasix, the only recent exceptions being foreign-based runners.

The move toward Lasix-free racing of 2-year-olds in 2020 and stakes races in 2021 came about two years ago when a coalition of racetracks and industry organizations issued a statement saying they were committed to more closely aligning U.S. medication policies with international standards. Lasix is not permitted on race day in Europe, Asia, or Australia/New Zealand and is being phased out in some Latin American countries.

There was opposition to the change, led by the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, which sued the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, Churchill Downs and Keeneland. The horsemen's organization claimed its members would suffer “irreparable injury” if their horses were required to race without Lasix. A judge ruled against the HBPA.

Horses will experience exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage, whether they are treated on race-day with Lasix or not. A scientific study from South Africa published in 2009 showed that race-day administration of the drug reduced the incidence and severity of EIPH. But 57% of the horses in that study still experienced EIPH after being treated with Lasix (compared to 79% given a saline solution as a placebo).

There were warnings from some Lasix advocates that it would be inhumane to not treat a horse with the drug, that we would start seeing more horses bleeding from the nose when they come back to be unsaddled after a race.

For the most part, the protests against the change have been much ado about nothing. Horses have bled, just as before, the majority of incidents detected through a post-race endoscopic examination. Visible bleeding from the nose has not occurred with the frequency many predicted would happen. Trainers have adjusted and racing goes on. Some have said their horses bounce back more quickly after a race without Lasix because they haven't sustained the loss of fluids that result from administration of the diuretic.

This isn't a game changer. Prohibiting Lasix will not get rid of horse racing's drug problems. But it's a step in the right direction and a further sign that the liberal medication policies of the past involving anti-inflammatories, anabolic steroids, bronchodilators and other so-called therapeutic drugs were misguided and a disservice to the sport.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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View From the Eighth Pole: Truth Or Consequences

I've been observing the “lads” at Coolmore Stud in Ireland and at their Kentucky farm, Ashford, for more than 30 years. They have revolutionized the bloodstock world, maximized stallion revenue, and elevated customer service and marketing.

Through early identification and acquisition of promising stud prospects, embracing large books for their stallions (including no small number of their own mares), and shuttling them to Australia or South America for dual hemisphere breeding seasons, Coolmore and Ashford can “get out” financially on many of these horses before their first foals hit the racetrack.

In a business where nine out of 10 new stallions will fail to sustain or increase their initial value, it's highly advantageous for a stud farm to break even or show a modest profit before the marketplace has a chance to see whether or not a horse's offspring can run.

Yet the lads aren't perfect. No one is.

I was reminded of that when I saw their recent advertisement for first-year stallion Maximum Security. It was, without a doubt, the most unconventional stallion ad I've ever seen.

Under the banner, “MAXIMUM SECURITY – the facts,” the ad began normally enough, citing races won, achievements, and awards.

Then it gets weird. Bullet point No. 12 in the ad states: “NEVER TESTED POSITIVE for an illegal or prohibited substance during his career despite comprehensive testing at the world's best laboratories.”

That statement is true (though I might disagree that post-race testing for all of his races was done at “the world's best laboratories.”). But let's remember how many times cheating cyclist Lance Armstrong said he'd never failed a drug test: “Twenty-plus-year career, 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case,” he said in May 2011, a little more than a year before he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping.

But wait, there's more.

In addition to a complimentary quote from Bob Baffert, who trained Maximum Security for the second half of his 4-year-old campaign in 2020, there is this closing argument: “MAXIMUM SECURITY is a bona fine CHAMPION that raced on water, hay, oats & fresh air!”

Everyone knows what this is about.

Less than three months after the announcement that Coolmore had purchased a significant share in the racing and breeding interests of Maximum Security – who was voted an Eclipse Award winner as outstanding 3-year-old male of 2019 – the colt's trainer, Jason Servis was among those rounded up and arrested by the FBI as part of a broad multi-year investigation into doping of racehorses in the United States.

The indictment states that Servis and co-conspirators “concealed the administration of PEDs from federal and state government agencies, racing officials, and the betting public by, among other things, concealing and covertly transporting PEDs between barns where Servis' racehorses were stabled, falsifying veterinary bills to conceal the administration of SGF-1000, and using fake prescriptions.”

Even worse, there were specific references to Maximum Security in the March charging document and the superseding indictment filed Nov. 5.

“Jason Servis, the defendant, was the trainer for a particularly successful racehorse, 'Maximum Security,' that briefly placed first at the Kentucky Derby on May 4, 2019, before racing officials disqualified the horse for interference,” the superseding indictment states.

“Following the Kentucky Derby,” it continues, “Maximum Security continued to compete in high-profile races, including in Oceanport, New Jersey. Servis worked with (veterinarians) Kristian Rhein and Alexander Chan, the defendants, among others, to procure and administer adulterated and misbranded PEDs, including the adulterated and misbranded PED SGF-1000 and invalidly administered Clenbuterol, for the purpose of doping several racehorses under Servis' control, including Maximum Security.”

The FBI intercepted a March 5, 2019, phone call between Servis and co-defendant Jorge Navarro in which Servis is heard recommending SGF-1000 to Navarro, adding, “I've been using it on everything almost.” Navarro allegedly admitted also giving SGF-1000 to some of his horses, then ended the call, saying: “I don't want to talk about this shit on the phone, OK.”

The indictment states that SGF-1000 is a “customized PED purportedly containing 'growth factors,' including fibroblast growth factor and heptocyte growth factor, which are intended to promote tissue repair and increase a racehorse's stamina and endurance beyond its natural capability.”

So it appears, based on the indictment, that Maximum Security was getting a little something more than the “water, hay, oats, and fresh air” claim in the ad.

No one is suggesting original owners Gary and Mary West or the Coolmore partners who bought into the horse had any knowledge of what is documented in the indictment.

The Maximum Security ad also includes an excerpt from a story in the Thoroughbred Daily News stating Servis may have been buying “some fake PEDs” from Chan and Rhein, based on comments from prosecutors at a pre-trial hearing.

The arrest of Servis came just over a week after Maximum Security had won the inaugural running of the $20-million Saudi Cup. The Saudis have yet to pay the purse money, pending the outcome of what they said is their own investigation into Servis. More likely, they're waiting to see what happens in court.

That could take a while. There is another pre-trial conference scheduled on May 14, 2021.

Maximum Security did win two of his four post-Servis starts while trained by Baffert, including the G1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar. He was retired following a fifth-place performance in the G1 Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland, finishing behind two Baffert barnmates – winner Authentic and runner-up Improbable – Global Campaign, and Tacitus. He beat race favorite Tiz the Law.

I'm not going to knock Maximum Security, who could turn out to be a great success at stud. As the late Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham is often quoted as saying, “Never say anything bad about a horse until he's been dead at least 10 years.”

But we know from other sports that suspected cheating has consequences. Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball's all-time leading home run hitter and single-season record holder, has been shut out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. So, too, have Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, all with Hall of Fame qualifications but accused of using steroids. None failed a drug test.

Servis (and by way of extension Maximum Security) is innocent until proven guilty, but the charges against him and the others named in the case are serious. If Servis is found guilty, no amount of spin is going to chase the dark clouds away from his most accomplished horse.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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View From The Eighth Pole: Veering Off Into La-La Land

I seriously doubt if trainer Bob Baffert or anyone in his stable knowingly gave scopolamine to Justify prior to his victory in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 7, 2018. But the drug showed up above the threshold limit in post-race testing for both the eventual Triple Crown winner and for Hoppertunity, another Baffert runner, who won the G3 Tokyo City Cup the following day at the Arcadia, Calif., track.

Scopolamine has found its way into California hay supplies via jimson weed, so it's not unreasonable to conclude the positive test was a result of environmental contamination. It's also unlikely that the drug's presence at a low yet impermissible level had any impact on performance.

But rules are rules.

According to California Horse Racing Board rule 1859.5 (Disqualification Upon Positive Test Finding), a positive test of drugs in classes 1, 2 or 3 (as defined by the CHRB) “shall require disqualification of the horse from the race in which it participated and forfeiture of any purse … regardless of culpability for the condition of the horse.”

In April 2018, scopolamine was a Class 3 drug under CHRB rules.

CHRB members, meeting in executive session on Aug. 23, 2018, circumvented those rules by voting to not pursue the matter, acceding to the recommendations of the CHRB's equine medical director, Dr. Rick Arthur, and the board's then-executive director, Rick Baedeker.

There is an old expression that “we don't know what we don't know.” In this case, we don't know how many previous times the board took such actions, stopping an alleged medication violation before it reached the stewards for a hearing. We do know the CHRB has prosecuted numerous cases of positive drug tests that any rational person would assume resulted from environmental contamination.

So what was different about this case?

For starters, by the time this came before the CHRB in August 2018, Justify had a) won the Triple Crown, b) had his breeding rights sold for a record $75 million, and c) been retired from racing. He was also trained by a Hall of Famer who had become the “face” of the sport.

Additionally, there was a can of worms labeled “Derby Points” that some might try to open if Justify was disqualified from the Santa Anita Derby, a race that gave the son of Scat Daddy the points needed to qualify for the Kentucky Derby field.

So the CHRB voted behind closed doors to end the investigation and successfully tamped down what could have been an embarrassing situation – until a September 2019 report by Joe Drape in the New York Times exposed what had happened.

There's another old expression that “it's not the crime, it's the coverup.” Scopolamine positives have been called before in California. Trainers were not sanctioned but their horses disqualified. No one likes when that happens, but it's a matter of following the rules. Maybe the rules need to be changed to accommodate environmental contaminations, but until that happens it isn't right for regulators to circumvent the rules they don't like.

The New York Times article hit as California racing was trying to recover from the high-profile equine fatality spike at Santa Anita earlier in the year that thrust the sport in the national spotlight in a most unflattering way. The handling of the Justify case only poured gasoline onto the regulatory fire.

The controversies riled the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom and dominoes started falling at the CHRB. Chuck Winner had already stepped down as board chairman when the Justify story broke. Vice chair Madeline Auerbach resigned from the board when she was passed over to chair the organization. Executive director Baedeker announced that he was retiring and other staff positions changed. New appointees came from outside the industry and without direct investment in racing or conflicts of interest.

Mick Ruis, who owned Santa Anita Derby runner-up Bolt d'Oro, sued the CHRB in January 2020, claiming he was entitled to the $600,000 first-place money from the race. In July, Ruis reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit when the CHRB said it would file a complaint to conduct a purse disqualification hearing on Justify. That hearing, which also included a complaint filed on Hoppertunity's positive test, was conducted on Oct. 29.

Here's where things start veering off into La-La Land.

The three stewards, John Herbuveaux, Kim Sawyer and Ron Church, did their due diligence sifting through the evidence and testimony. They put together a lengthy findings of fact and timeline, including making note that scopolamine changed from a Class 3 drug to Class 4 months after the Santa Anita Derby and Tokyo City Cup were run. The stewards did all the things you would expect them to do when conducting a hearing of this type and then making a determination.

Then they took the ultimate copout. No matter what the evidence was, no matter what the rules stated, they dismissed the complaint “because the CHRB has already ruled on this matter, in executive session, at the Aug. 23, 2018, meeting.”

Are you kidding me?

Unless this was some kind of carefully orchestrated kabuki theater involving CHRB members, staff and stewards to go through the motions of a hearing in order to satisfy the terms of the settlement agreement with Ruis – which seems highly unlikely – the final order by the stewards is mind-boggling.

If the stewards felt as though the matter was dismissed in August 2018, why did they go to the trouble of conducting a hearing? Couldn't they have sought clarification from legal counsel at the CHRB as to whether or not the matter was settled?

The order by the stewards may not be the final word. Attorney Darrell Vienna, representing Ruis, pointed out that California's Business and Professions Code, section 19517, states the CHRB “may overrule any steward's decision other than a decision to disqualify a horse due to a foul or a riding or driving infraction in a race, if a preponderance of the evidence indicates any of the following:

“1) The steward mistakenly interpreted the law.

“2) New evidence of a convincing nature is produced

“3) The best interests of racing and the state may be better served.

“…Furthermore, any decision pertaining to the distribution of purses may be changed only if a claim is made in writing to the board by one of the involved owners or trainers, and a preponderance of the evidence clearly indicates to the board that one or more of the grounds for protest, as outlined in regulations adopted by the board, has been substantiated.”

Within hours of the decision by the stewards to dismiss the complaint, Vienna filed a claim with the board on behalf of Ruis, asking for the CHRB to overrule the stewards.

The ball is back in the CHRB's court, but these are not the same CHRB members who opted to bury this matter in August 2018.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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