The delay in imposing the ban was put in place in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest because many of the trainers are pointing horses to races run at the Meadowlands during November in which they could meet horses owned by Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. The delay will also give owners time to transfer their horses to new barns.

The Meadowlands requested access to evidence presented during the trials of Dr. Seth Fishman and one of his assistants, Lisa Giannelli. Fishman was sentenced to 11 years in prison and Giannelli was given a sentence of 42 months. They were among more than 30 people charged with crimes related to the use of performance-enhancing drugs on horses after a widespread investigation by the FBI and others.

Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural said that he has so far received information only from the Giannelli trial and predicted that when information from the Fishman trial is released far more names could be involved.

According to a press release issued Friday by the Meadowlands, the evidence obtained by the track revealed the identity of persons who had purchased prohibited substances Epogen and Thymosyn.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of EPO are Dylan Davis, Nick Devita, Gareth Dowse, Jeff Gillis, Brian Malone, John Mungillo, Eric Prevost, Richard Silverman, Leroy Slabaugh and Howard Taylor.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of Thymosyn are Ryan Bellamy, Anthony Buttitta, Franck Chick, Jamen Davidovich, Eddie Dennis, Brady Galliers, Rick Howles, Anthony Lake, Betty Jean Davis Lare, Kevin Lare, John Leggio, Gregg McNair, Cynthia Milano, Anthony Napolitano, Howard Savage, Arthur Stafford and Trevor Stafford.

Additionally and according to the Meadowlands press release, the Federal government conducted its own collection of blood and urine samples from racehorses, both post-race and from out of competition testing, during its investigation. Six individuals allegedly had horses test poistive for banned substances and also will be excluded from the Meadowlands. The following is a list of those individuals and the drugs their horses allegeldy tested positive for: Al Annunziata (Propantheline); Jenn Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Bob Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Scott DiDomenico (Ethamsylate); Jeff Gillis (Ethamsylate); Nick Sodano Sr. (Cobalt).

The 33 could face even more penalties as the information uncovered by the Meadowlands will be turned over to the various state racing commissions covering the tracks where the individuals compete.

Asked why there were no thoroughbred horsemen among the names uncovered by the Meadowlands, Gural speculated that Giannelli's clients were primarily Standardbred horsemen and that once names linked to Fishman are released they could involve thoroughbred trainers and owners.

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, was sentenced for what United States Attorney Damian Williams said was due to “his role at the helm of an approximately twenty-year scheme to manufacture, market, and sell to racehorse trainers and others in the racehorse industry 'untestable' performance enhancing drugs for use in professional horseracing.”

While the evidence against Fishman was enough for him to be sentenced to 11 years in prison, the government's case didn't shed much light on who was buying what from Fishman and his company. The one exception was Jorge Navarro, who was directly linked to Fishman. In a Department of Justice press release it was revealed that “Fishman aided Navarro in doping XY Jet, a thoroughbred horse that won the 2019 Golden Shaheen race in Dubai before dying of sudden heart attack in January 2020. As established at trial, Fishman sold tens of thousands of dollars' worth of PEDs to Navarro over the course of several years, and Navarro specifically credited Fishman for XY Jet's performance at the Golden Shaheen.”

“The whole thing is terrible,” Gural said. “It's unfortunate. They lucked out that I kept the Meadowlands open, but their luck ran out because I am honest. We spent $2.5 million of our own money on this investigation. It's sad because there are people who had no choice but to cheat. They felt they had to feed their family and they couldn't win a race. What's really sad is Howard Taylor. He's not a trainer, he's an owner. He had to be giving EPO to his trainers to use and not a single trainer picked up the phone and said I have an owner who wants me to use EPO on his horses.  He has 150 horses and he uses a lot of trainers. You would have thought at least one trainer would have picked up the phone and told us what's going on.”

The post After Document Review, Meadowlands Bans 33 Owners/Trainers appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The decision was handed down by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York before a small audience that included Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. Under the sentencing guidelines, three years was the maximum allowable sentence.

“I believe this offense is serious,” Vyskocil said. “I have taken that into account as well as the characterizations of Mr. Oakes as a human being and a person. But I do not see any compelling reason to go below the sentencing guideline.”

While the case against Oakes involved his pattern of doping his own horses, it also focused on his relationship with Navarro and the doping of Navarro's XY Jet (Kantharos). Oakes supplied Navarro with PEDs that were given to X Y Jet, including a “blocker” PED. On Feb. 13, 2019, the same day X Y Jet won an allowance race at Gulfstream, Navarro instructed Oakes to enter the Gulfstream backstretch to administer PEDs to the sprinter.

“Mr. Oakes shared misbranded and adulterated drugs with others, including, and most particularly Mr. Navarro,” Vyskocil noted. “Specifically, he helped Mr. Navarro dope XY Jet.”

While still in training, XY Jet died in early 2020. Navarro said at the time that the cause of death was a heart attack.

Addressing the court, government lawyer Sarah Mortazavi lashed into Oakes, saying that he had failed to realize the severity of his actions.

“The defendant has not grappled with the seriousness of his crimes,” she said, “Instead of remorse, we have gotten from him self-serving excuses meant to minimize his conduct. He has said that the government can't prove that I killed any horses or did something to improve their performances, so what I did was not detrimental to these horses. But he injected these horses with drugs up to and including the day of their race, putting their health at risk.”

Oakes' attorney Page Pate did not deny that his client used PEDs and broke laws but asked the court to consider that trainer had many good qualities. That, he argued, was justification for leniency.

“The offenses committed, while clearly wrong, are inconsistent with who he was as a person and as a trainer who cared for his horses,” Pate said. “It's true that he tried to win purses by using PEDs he got from Dr. [Seth] Fishman and PEDs he created on his own and that that gave him an unfair competitive advantage in his races. But the narrative became Mr. Oakes abused his horses. Looking back over his 40-year career that is not consistent with what so many people who knew him and worked with him have told the court. The things he has done for his community, his random acts of kindness, they show that he is not a criminal.”

When addressing the court, Oakes, who began to choke up, brought up what he said was a long-running battle with alcoholism.

“I drank when I succeeded and I drank when I failed and I failed a lot,” he said. “I did not ask for help because I thought that would show a sign of weakness.”

Vyskocil said Oakes would have to enter a drug and alcohol treatment program once in prison.

Oakes said he was remorseful and blamed his decisions on stress and the pressure he felt to succeed.

“I was constantly unhappy, irritated and depressed,” he said. “I wanted everything to be perfect and I demanded that of my wife, my kids and my employees. I regret the path that I followed. I allowed stress and the pressure I was under to dictate my decisions. I have no one to blame but myself. I am aware of the crimes that I have committed, and I have learned from them. I humbly ask for leniency.”

Gural, who had banned Oakes at his tracks well before he was indicted, sat quietly and listened to the testimony. Gural was instrumental in putting together the investigation that led to Oakes and more than two dozen others being indicted on charges related to doping.

“I am glad I came, if for no other reason than to see how justice works,” he said. “I thought everybody did a good job and the judge understood the severity of the situation. It is a tragedy. These horses can't talk for themselves. When I started this, I had friends who told me it was a waste of time, that it was impossible to catch these guys. Getting 5 Stones involved and the fact that so many horses died in California, that got the attention of the U.S. Attorney, and they were willing to prosecute. I spent a great deal of time talking to the U.S. Attorney and convincing them that there were people out there using drugs.”

Oakes owned a handful of Thoroughbreds before his arrest and won 14 races. His horses were trained by Navarro. Oakes was a prominent harness trainer with 1,875 career wins and $29,631,843 in career earnings.

The post Chris Oakes Sentenced to Three Years appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

New York U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil met the lawyers for both sides in the robing room, then called the jury into the courtroom and sent them home. She told the jurors to return to court Tuesday.

“There has developed legal issues that need to be dealt with,” Vyskocil told the jury of eight women and four men.

But Fishman's absence in court only deepened the mystery. His wife, Hanna, was in the courtroom in the morning and at one point appeared to be visibly upset. Fishman is free on $100,000 bond and has appeared in court for each of the trial's previous eight sessions.

The only other clue as to what was happening came when Fishman attorney Maurice Sercarz appeared in the courtroom after the jury had been dismissed and told the judge Fishman was on his way to the hospital.

“We are in open court,” Vyskocil said to Sercarz in admonishment.

Sercarz and his co-counsel Marc Fernich and prosecutors declined further comment.

Lawyers showed up in the afternoon for another conference in the robing room. The day ended with Vyskocil never returning to the bench.

Closing arguments in Fishman's trial were set to begin after the prosecution rested its case and the defense rested without calling a single witness, including Fishman. The jury has heard five days of testimony from 11 government witnesses, as well as an FBI wiretap in which convicted trainer Jorge Navarro was recorded speaking to Fishman.

Another prominent name that emerged in court in one of the wiretaps was that of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the owner of the internationally successful Godolphin racing stable.

On the wiretap, Fishman appears to discuss a $2-million “program” with the Sheikh's hospital in Dubai, known as Dubai Equine. On the other end of the line in the 2019 call was Florida harness trainer Adrienne Hall, who testified Thursday that Fishman put her on a program with his PEDs and that she administered the drugs to a horse that won a low-level claiming race. Hall agreed to testify in exchange for a non-prosecution agreement.

A transcript of the wiretap obtained Monday begins with Fishman telling Hall that his program “is not instantaneous.”

“Right, so ok, because they are racing on Sunday–they are going to be in on Monday. I gave the other stuff today anyway,” Hall says.
Fishman then goes on to say that it takes one or two weeks to start things.

“This is a program,” he says. “This is a program that Dubai Equine spent probably $2 million devising for their Thoroughbreds, you know? It is part of a program that uh, you know…there's other stuff too.”

Fishman goes on to say that he was bringing Hall on slowly.

Fishman adds, “This is what they do for all their horses and overall, they are very happy. Sheikh Mohammed Maktoum said the best three years, you know, in the 30 years he has been racing and they are very happy. So, I'm sharing stuff with you. But then again that's for Thoroughbreds so we just have to tweak something out because some of the stuff I design for Standardbreds, they don't work.”

It was unclear if Fishman was simply trying to impress Hall; a Godolphin spokesman said they would have no comment Monday night.

Fishman, 50, is on trial on for conspiring to violate medication adulteration and misbranding laws. He's accused of supplying horse trainers with illegal performance-enhancing drugs designed to evade testing by racing regulators in various states, including Florida, New York, and Kentucky.

Sercarz says the actions his client has been accused of were carried out to protect the health and welfare of horses in keeping with his oath as a licensed veterinarian.

Prosecutors allege that Fishman was part of a sweeping conspiracy to dope racehorses that included top trainers Navarro and Jason Servis and two dozen others. The New York U.S. Attorney's Office announced the charges in March 2020.

Servis is awaiting trial and Navarro has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty. Servis's name hasn't come up in testimony, but Navarro's name has come up numerous times. Prosecutors said Navarro paid Fishman tens of thousands of dollars for PEDs.

The jury also saw a video of Navarro's doped X Y Jet (Kantharos) winning the $2.5-million G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen in 2019. In a text seen by the jury after the race, Navarro thanked Fishman for his help. A tally shows the FBI's aforementioned wiretap was one of 55 recordings the jury heard in the case. Almost all of them involved Fishman.

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

The post Fishman Absent From Court After Wiretaps Reveal Him Bragging About Dubai Sales appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

In a New York courtroom on Wednesday, Jan. 26, Cohen surfaced on the stand as a key government witness against Dr. Seth Fishman – the first of those arrested in the case in March 2020 to go to trial on charges of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws.

As Fishman observed from the defense table, Cohen testified that when he was training horses at Yonkers Raceway years ago, he purchased performance-enhancing drugs from Lisa Giannelli, who worked as a distributor for Fishman and the veterinarian's Florida-based drug manufacturing business Equestology.

Cohen, 50, of upstate New York, testified he discussed with Fishman a product called “Frozen Pain.”

“He said it takes away pain and stops horses from getting tired in race,” he said. “It had a performance-enhancing effect.”

Cohen testified about another conversation with Fishman in which he complained that Frozen Pain worked great for some horses when they were racing in his stable but not so much other horses.

Cohen said the drug's inconsistency upset him.

“He said it was hard to keep it stable and to get good employees to make it,” the witness testified, referring to Fishman. “He said he was going to stop making it.”

During his testimony Cohen said he agreed to flip in June of 2020. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to testify on behalf of the government in exchange for leniency at sentencing. Prosecutors kept the plea deal under wraps until Wednesday. Prosecutors say Fishman produced performance-enhancing drugs that trainers administered to horses to boost their chances of winning races. They said the doping put racehorses at risk of breakdowns and death. They said Fishman sought to create  drugs that couldn't be detected in post-race testing.

As he was questioning Cohen, prosecutor Andrew Adams introduced photos of six of those charged in the case and had the witness identify them. One of the photos was that of former top trainer Jorge Navarro, who has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy. He was sentenced in December to five years in prison.

After Cohen identified Navarro, Adams played for the jury a video of the Navarro-trained sprinter X Y Jet winning the $2.5 million Golden Shaheen (G1) in Dubai in 2019. The video shows an exuberant Navarro celebrating the victory in the paddock.
Adams next had the jury read a text Fishman sent to Navarro and the response he got.

“Congratulation, just saw the race,” Fishman's text read.

“Thank you, boss. You're a big part of it,” Navarro replied.

Cohen admitted to a checkered past when he was a harness trainer. He served suspensions for drugs and had been barred from racing at Monticello raceway and Yonkers. He was eventually allowed to return to Yonkers.

In the plea agreement, Cohen admitted to fixing races.

“I paid drivers for somebody to hold their horses back in races,” he testified.

Maurice Sercarz on cross-examination sought to suggest that Cohen had turned on Fishman to save his own skin.

“Who decides if you're telling the truth?” the lawyer asked.

“I assume the government,” Cohen responded.

The trial's sixth day in U.S. District Court in Manhattan also featured testimony from Dr. Cynthia Cole, director of the racing lab at the University of Florida, where she oversaw drug testing of horses competing at Florida tracks.

Cole was called as expert witness to identify the drugs Fishman was peddling and if they would be performance enhancers if administered to horses when they raced. In her opinion, Fishman's products were PEDs.

During her time on the stand, Cole was asked to comment on a Fishman product called Serenity. She said it appeared to be a sedative.

It was her testimony that it may seem counterintuitive to administer a sedative to a horse before a race but she explained that some horses, especially young horses, can be high-strung.

“The ability to produce a mild sedative that could take the edge off, if you will, could help a horse perform better in a race,” she told the jury.

The trial resumes Jan. 27.

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

The post Indicted Harness Trainer Who ‘Flipped’ Says He Bought PEDs From Fishman Employee appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

“It will be for the government to prove that his intent and purpose was something other than limiting animal suffering.” Fishman's attorney Maurice Sercarz told the jury during opening arguments of Fishman's trial, which also includes his associate Lisa Giannelli.

The government has said otherwise, that he was a relentless horse doper, had close ties to Jorge Navarro and was obsessed with winning races and manufacturing drugs that were undetectable.

From Fishman's team, it's textbook stuff. Our client is misunderstood. There are two sides to every story. It's really horse racing that is dirty and not Seth Fishman.

The problem is, they don't have anything to back it up. The government has done its job and done it well. The original indictment includes a trove of evidence that Fishman was cold and calculating, cared nothing about the animal and would inject a horse with anything he could find if he thought it would help the horse win a race and collect a purse. Their claims are backed by a treasure trove of evidence.

According to the original indictment, after X Y Jet (Kantharos) won the G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, Fishman sent a text congratulating Navarro. Navarro replied: “Thank u boss u are a big part of it.” The reference, allegedly, is to Fishman's role in procuring drugs for Navarro to use on X Y Jet, who later dropped dead.

There's more, and, from the indictment, the government's conclusion is that treating and healing horses were not a part of Fishman's play book, despite his position as a veterinarian. The indictment charges that Fishman “did not perform medical examinations, provide a diagnosis, or otherwise evaluate the medical necessity of providing PEDs in advance of selling PEDs. Indeed, the administration of those PEDs was not intended to be therapeutic, but rather to increase the chances of winning horse races.”

Sunday, we learned that the government is requesting to enter into evidence charges that Fishman was investigated in Delaware more than a decade ago after a standardbred died after being injected with one of his products.

Yet, it appears that Fishman is intent on portraying himself as a heroic figure. In a Washington Post story that ran Wednesday, the reporter writes that Fishman depicts himself as “a sort of racetrack St. Francis of Assisi.” He also told the Post that the reason he continued to fight the charges was because “I'm going to take one for the team of veterinarians.”

According to the Post, Fishman defied his lawyer's wishes when granting an interview to the paper. No doubt, his legal team can't be pleased with what was a rambling, strange interview in which he did himself no favors and didn't present any credible evidence that has been wrongly accused. Rather, he stuck to the “I'm really an animal lover, please believe me” defense.

He goes on to claim that what this is really all about is the sport trying to make itself more attractive to bettors by offering a cleaner product…as if that is a bad thing.

From the Post story: “Fishman claimed that the real motive of those seeking regulatory reform was to make the sport more palatable for bettors by eradicating any foreign substances–at the expense of the animals. “I don't think the veterinary world should have to answer to a gambling product that seems to be getting more and more corrupt, not less corrupt,” Fishman said. “The animals' needs need to be put before the gamblers' needs.”

In another weird exchange with the Post, Fishman said that in another case, the feds had asked him to wear a wire in an attempt to catch racetrack cheats. He refused to do so, telling the paper that “to make them happy I would have had to violate two of the Ten Commandments. Just say for biblical reasons I couldn't do it.”

The trial will continue Monday, and unless his attorney has some sort of unforeseen trick up his sleeve, it appears that the defense strategy will be more of the same. Their defense is weak, but that's likely because it's all that they have.

It means they are hoping the jury will ignore the evidence presented by the government and buy into Fishman's claims that he's, well, not such a bad guy. According to Pew Research, fewer than 1% of all federal criminal cases result in the defendant taking their case to trial and winning. The most likely scenario is that the self-described animal lover will come out on the losing end here and his future includes a stint in a federal prison.

In Doping Trial, Are New Names About to Surface?

The opening day of testimony in the Fishman-Gianelli trial included what may turn out to be a bombshell, courtesy of the government lawyers. Prosecutor Anden Chow told jurors that the government's case would include the testimony of trainers who bought Fishman's drugs.
It was unclear what exactly that means, but what if it means that trainers who were not included in the original indictment are about to step forward and admit they bought PEDs from Fishman? Surely, Fishman sold his goods to many others not included in the indictment. If any new trainers do come forward, it's likely they worked out a deal with the government to avoid prosecution. But if anyone comes forward and admits using illegal PEDs, they would surely face sanctions from tracks and racing commissions, which, very well, could mean a lifetime ban.
Stay tuned.

The post The Week in Review: Fishman’s Defense is Hard to Swallow appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

The owners of those runners earned $24,360,514 in purse money.

That's 741 wins and millions of dollars in first-place money that, in my opinion, rightfully belongs to someone else. The judge who sentenced Navarro to five years in prison agrees. She has ordered Navarro to pay restitution of $25,860,514, an amount he surely doesn't have unless the owners who benefited from his cheating are willing to fork it over.

Here's just a few examples.

There's the $180,000 that Lael Stable should have received for a win by the stable's Divining Rod in the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap at Belmont Park in 2017. The Arnaud Delacour runner had to settle for $60,000 after finishing second behind what we can only assume was a juiced Sharp Azteca, who raced for the Gelfenstein Farm of Ivan Rodriguez. Divining Rod, a son of Tapit, was deprived of a G2 win, something that also would have had ripple effects on the catalogue page of his family female.

Another horse cheated out of a graded stakes win by Sharp Azteca was Brittlyn Stable's Forevamo, trained at the time by Al Stall. The Uncle Mo gelding finished second in the G3 Pat Day Mile Stakes at Churchill Downs in 2016. He would have earned $141,050 for first place but instead received just $45,500. His owner didn't get the glory of standing in the Churchill Downs winner's circle with the Hall of Fame jockey for whom the race is named or get new hardware for their trophy case.

It is about the money, but it isn't JUST about the money.

I learned that from Josie Martino, who with husband Salvatore Delfino raced Wildcat Red in the colors of their Honors Stable Corp. The son of D'Wildcat won six of 22 starts for trainer Jose Garoffalo, including the G2 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park in 2014.

Two years later, Wildcat Red finished second in the Sunshine Millions Sprint Stakes at the South Florida track, earning $29,100. The winner of the $90,210 first-place prize was X Y Jet, who at the time was racing for Gelfenstein Farm and trained by Navarro. The trainer would later admit to injecting the horse with illegal performance enhancing drugs.

X Y Jet dropped dead two months before Navarro was taken into custody as part of the sweeping FBI investigation that led to indictments against more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians and drug suppliers.

No owners have been charged, though those who gave horses to Navarro to train may have benefited the most from his cheating.

Martino and Delfino hit it big with Wildcat Red, a $30,000 OBS 2-year-old purchase who earned $1.1 million in 22 starts. He was one of the first horses campaigned by their small stable. Yet even with the horse's success, Martino said in a phone call to the Paulick Report, she and her husband feel cheated by having to compete against a juiced Navarro runner in the Sunshine Millions. “We are speaking out in Red's honor,” said Martino, an admitted animal lover who was stunned by Navarro's callous treatment of horses. “Red can't talk, but he deserves to be heard. What happened wasn't right and it wasn't fair to the horse.”

In virtually every one of the 741 races won by Navarro from 2016-'20, there are similar stories of horses, owners, trainers and jockeys being deprived of a victory and higher purse money. It might be a claiming race or a stakes, on dirt or turf, in New York, New Jersey or Florida. Cheating is cheating at any level.

The owners of horses trained by Navarro who gained financially by his serial doping might benefit  from some serious soul searching. If it's only about winning, if that's why they sent horses to someone so brazen that he had a customized pair of shoes with #juiceman printed on them in big letters, this game would be better off without them. It will survive.

In the now-famous video filmed at Monmouth Park in the summer of 2017, when Navarro and one of his owners, Randal Gindi of Monster Racing Stables, joked about Navarro being the “juiceman,” the trainer had a brief moment of candor.

“We f – – k everyone,” Navarro said.

He wasn't kidding.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From The Eighth Pole: Soul Searching, Restitution In Order For Owners Who Supported Jorge Navarro’s Stable appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

The government lawyers did their job and they did it well, and they want no mercy for the Juice Man. Read the sentencing letter and the first conclusion you will come to is probably the same one I had–that five years is not nearly enough.

We already knew what Navarro was doing. He was pumping every toxic chemical he could find into every horse he had, all in an effort to win more races and collect more purse money, never once concerned about the welfare of the animal.

“Jorge Navarro's case reflects failings, greed, and corruption at virtually every level of the world of professional horse racing. For money and fame, corrupt trainers went to increasing extremes to dope horses under their care,” the filing begins.

It continues: “Navarro's aggressive pursuit of PEDs–and his eagerness to use racehorses under his care to test the potency of novel PEDs–displayed a particularly callous disregard for the well-being of the horses under his care and control.”

What we didn't know until the latest court filing was released was just how brazen and unrepentant he was. It may not seem possible, but Navarro's core was even more rotten than we had thought.

The government maintains that Navarro “considered his prolific doping campaign a badge of honor.” How else do you explain why he owned a pair of shoes emblazoned across the front with the words “#JUICE MAN.”? Or that in 2018 he sent a text to trainer Marcos Zulueta that included pictures of monkeys, rockets, syringes, horses and pills, apparently a reference to a drug he was using called “monkey.” The pictures were proceeded by the words “Te encanta,” Spanish for “You love it.” Or that he received via text a GIF from an unnamed associate that showed a syringe loaded with money?

“The intensity of Navarro's doping was matched by his apparent glee in this illicit conduct,” the government writes.

The government also wants Navarro to pay $25.8 million in restitution to those he cheated out of purse money. It's not clear how they came up with that number or who exactly is entitled to the money. It's also highly unlikely that Navarro has $25.8 million, or anywhere close to that. So this part of his punishment may not go anywhere, but it's good to see that the government is also going after whatever money he has.

Then there was the prediction from Navarro's lawyer in a filing that the trainer will most likely be deported to his native Panama after serving his sentence. Good riddance.

Earlier this month, in a pre-sentencing report of their own, Navarro's defense team asked the judge to limit his sentence to 3 1/2 years. In doing so, they painted a much different picture of their client. They say he loved his horses and that his insatiable desire to win tainted his judgment.

Their filing included statement from several individuals who vouched for his character. One came from veterinarian Joel Lugo, who recalled Navarro's reaction to the death of star sprinter XY Jet (Kantharos). The horse died in January, 2020 from what Navarro said was a heart attack.

“I remember the day when XY Jet passed away,” Lugo wrote. “Jorge called me crying to tell me directly the news. I know Navarro was devastated because he truly loved XY Jet.”

Jockey Jose Ferrer wrote of Navarro that he “admired his hard work ethic and love for both the sport and the animal.”

Such sentiments are laughable. Anyone who can do to these animals what Navarro did does not love their horses. Navarro abused his horses.

“These are among some of the factors that put the lie to Navarro's submission and his multiple letters of support quoted in and appended to Navarro's sentencing submission, in which third parties claim that Navarro made decisions for the health and well-being of his horses,” the government wrote. “That notion simply does not comport with the hundreds of conversations wherein Navarro sought PEDs to use on his horses, discussed administering novel PEDs on his horses, pushed horses in poor physical shape to compete, and displayed indifference at the physical ramifications of administering PEDs to horses.”

One can only hope that Vyskocil agrees. Send him to prison for five years. Deport him. Take away his money. It's time for the Juice Man to get what he deserves.

And What About Navarro's Owners?

The government's sentencing letter includes a recapping of a conversation with the owner of a horse named Nanoosh (Paytner). The unnamed owner and Navarro discuss the horse's recent poor form and the owner asks him if he was “giving them [Nanoosh] all the shit?” The owner also asked Navarro, “Is this horse jacked out? Is he on fucking pills or what or are we just fucking -,” Navarro responded, “Everything…he gets everything.”

The same exchange was also referred to 21 months ago when Navarro was originally indicted. According to Equibase, the horse was owned by the partnership of Rockingham Ranch, Zayat Stables LL and David A. Bernsen LLC. Rockingham Ranch and Bernsen are still active owners. Zayat, due to problems unrelated to Nanoosh, is not active in the sport.

Doesn't anyone in the sport want to get to the bottom of this? It can't be that hard to find out who the owner was that had the discussion with Navarro. Once the name is revealed, that person should be barred from the sport immediately and permanently.

The Remsen Fiasco

Protests seeking to overrule stewards' decisions usually don't get very far, but the case of this year's GII Remsen S. is one where the New York Gaming Commission should absolutely reverse the order of finish. The Aqueduct stewards got this one wrong.

The race came down to Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) and Zandon (Upstart), who were noses apart as they headed toward the wire. Aboard race winner Mo Donegal, jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. appeared to go out of his way to intimidate his rival. The two bumped near the wire with, according to the Equibase chart, Ortiz throwing “repeated exaggerated crosses with the left rein near the face of the runner-up…”It got so bad that Ortiz appeared to strike Zandon with his elbow.

Mo Donegal won by a nose.

Zandon's owner Jeff Drown filed his protest last week and maintained that his horse would have won if not for Ortiz's antics. He's not wrong.

It's not just that the stewards blew this decision. That it involved Ortiz was not a surprise. A day earlier, riding a horse named Gran Casique (Algorithms), he dropped another rider when, down the backstretch, he came over several paths on his way to trying to maintain a position on the rail. For that ride, he was hit with a 30-day careless riding suspension.

For months, Ortiz's critics have been calling him out for his overly aggressive riding style and, in particular, his penchant for herding other horses and riders. Yet, until the Gran Casique race, the NYRA stewards had more or less looked the other way. That appeared to embolden Ortiz.

Yes, the stewards did the right thing when they gave Ortiz the 30-day suspension. But they reverted to form in the Remsen. They didn't take Mo Donegal down and they didn't suspend or fine Ortiz for his ride. Once again, when it came to Ortiz, the wrong message was sent.

The post The Week in Review: Time to Bring the Hammer Down on The Juice Man appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

“Jorge Navarro's case reflects failings, greed, and corruption at virtually every level of the world of professional horse racing,” the document, filed Dec. 10, began. “For money and fame, corrupt trainers went to increasing extremes to dope horses under their care. Unscrupulous owners, who stood to profit directly, encouraged and pressured trainers to win at any cost. Veterinarians sworn to the care and protection of their patients routinely violated their oaths in service of corrupt trainers and to line their own pockdets. Assistants and grooms all witnessed animal abuse in the service of greed, but did little to stop such conduct, and engaged in myriad ways to support notoriously corrupt trainers. Structures designed for the protection of the horses abused in this case failed repeatedly; fixtures of the industry — owners, veterinarians, and trainers — flouted rules and disregarded their animals' health while hypocritically incanting a love for the horses under their control and ostensible protection. Standing as the keystone for this structure of abuse, corruption, and duplicity was Jorge Navarro, a trainer who treated his animals as expendable commodities in the service of his 'sport.'”

Navarro is due to be sentenced Dec. 17 after entering a guilty plea to one count of drug and adulteration misbranding conspiracy. He was charged with two counts in a November 2020 superseding indictment. Last week, his defense team filed its recommendations to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, including 100 pages of character testimony from family, friends, former employees, and former owners, many of whom claimed Navarro cared deeply for his horses.

The prosecution takes issue with that characterization, laying out new details about Navarro's doping program and his attitude about his ongoing use of medications he seemed to know were illegal.

Friday's sentencing documents say that Navarro's program, which stretched back to at least 2016, included blood builders allegedly made by co-defendants Gregory Skelton and Dr. Seth Fishman, vasodilators, baking soda drenches, bleeder pills from Fishman, SGF-1000, “an imported, misbranded bronchodilator” and other substances.

Navarro was also on the lookout for new substances, the filing reveals, making inquiries about a new, pink-colored pain medication as well as “an experimental topical cream on a horse that was anticipated to have the same effects of a baking soda drench.”

Horses subjected to the program included X Y Jet, War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca, and Nanoosh, according to the documents.

Prosecutors focused particularly on the medications given to X Y Jet, which were detailed somewhat in the federal indictments. Friday's document provided a few more details on what the horse experienced in early 2019.

A few days before a Feb. 13, 2019, allowance optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park, Navarro contacted co-defendant Marco Zulueta and said, 'I have a problem and you need to get me out of it,” asking for a bottle of a pain blocker to use on X Y Jet because the other 20 bottles he had ordered had not arrived. Zulueta promised to overnight the drug so it would be available to Navarro in time for the horse's race. Navarro then allegedly called fellow trainer and co-defendant Christopher Oakes, saying the horse had tied up for the first time that day. The pair discussed administering a baking soda “drench” to the horse immediately and another on race day. Zulueta tried to convince Navarro not to race the horse after his tying-up incident, but Navarro dismissed his concerns, saying he had treated the horse right away.

The prosecution's account continued:

“The next day, on February 12, 2019, the day before the race, Navarro reached out to yet another individual and solicited items that could be used to drench X Y Jet: 'I need the tube, the pump and the bucket.' When Navarro was asked if someone else would be 'tubing' the horse, Navarro responded: 'Yes. No, you cannot — cannot tube him because you will go to jail, man. My friend is going to tube him. My friend is going to prepare a milk shake for him,' later adding, 'This is between you and I.' On a separate call with a representative of one of X Y Jet's owners, Navarro confirmed that he planned to milkshake the horse, and when asked whether the horse would then test positive, Navarro responded, 'Don't worry about it. I use something that covers the baking soda, the bicarb.'”

On race day, in correspondence with Zulueta, Navarro said he wanted to learn how to “tube” horses because “I would tube all my horses.” Zulueta warned Navarro that “You have to be [expletive] careful. I tried — I tried to do that and I almost killed the horse — the horse, man. It went to the lungs.” Navarro responded simply, “Yes.”

X Y Jet won his race that day, and in his next start won the Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, which had a US$2.5 million purse. For that race, Navarro said he did not tube the horse, but gave him “50 injections” which were “through the mouth” to avoid detection — apparently a reference to what prosecutors say was Navarro's strategy of giving certain drugs orally if he had reason to suspect a racing official may detect a needle mark on a horse's neck.

X Y Jet, who had had three knee surgeries by the time of the allowance race in question, suffered a sudden death following a workout in Florida in January 2020, two months before Navarro's arrest. The horse's connections ordered a necropsy, not the state's Department of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, so the report has not previously been subject to public records request. Friday's documents revealed the “necropsy could not determine a cause for the heart attack; notably, Navarro's communications in the first quarter of 2019 indicated that, even one year prior, X Y Jet … was struggling, but was then medicated so he could race competitively.”

It is not uncommon for necropsy reports in the cases of “sudden” or “apparent cardiac” deaths to be inconclusive as to the horse's cause of death, particularly in absence of any physical abnormalities in the heart or other organs.

The document also references an anonymous individual who adopted a former Navarro trainee and said that after leaving the trainer's barn the horse was “disfigured and unable not only to race competitively, but to do very much at all” and that it “suffers from recurrent and painful physical problems.” In the horse's last race with Navarro in September 2019 the unidentified horse ended the race with a serious injury that required him to be vanned off.

Although he was constantly on the lookout for new substances and techniques to get a performance edge, the documents state, Navarro apparently spent some time worrying about whether his communications might be monitored, urging contacts to be careful in their discussions of the medications, and discussing steps he took — like having products shipped to people other than himself — to make it harder for regulators to catch him.

At the same time though, Navarro appeared to have no qualms about bragging about his activities to close friends. A search of his barn revealed a pair of customized shoes with the phrase #Juice Man across the toes.

In 2017, Navarro and owner Randal Gindi were fined $5,000 by Monmouth Park stewards for a video captured of the pair cheering on a horse trained by Navarro's brother, Marcial Navarro winning a race at Gulfstream Park.

“Adios, amigos. Adios, amigos,” Gindi was heard saying in the video. “The juice man!”

Navarro responded: “Is that a Navarro? Is that a Navarro? Is that a Navarro at 2-1? That's the way we do it.”

“That's the juice. That's the vegetable juice,” replied Gindi.

“We f – – k everyone,” said Navarro.

“We f – – k everyone, and I line my pockets with the bookie with another twenty thousand,” said Gindi. “Oh, yeah! Life is great.”

At the time, Navarro complained to the Paulick Report that the statements overheard in the video were a type of strange congratulation.

“Everyone wants to pick on Navarro when I win a race,” Jorge Navarro told the Paulick Report at the time. “They call me the 'juice man,' even when my kids are around. My son is 10, my daughter is 7. How many fingers do you have to count the number of times I hear that stuff? But I'm going to keep winning races.”

Navarro himself texted the following image to Zulueta in July 2018, apparently partly in reference to a misbranded substance the two referred to simply as “monkey.”

On January 26, 2019, the day two Navarro horses ran at Gulfstream and Tampa Bay Downs, an unnamed Navarro associate sent the trainer a gif depicting a syringe's plunger pulling back and loading the syringe with dollar bills.

It also seems clear that prosecutors believe Navarro was well aware of the risks associated with the adulterated and misbranded substances he was using – some of which were injectables so far removed from a Food and Drug Administration-approved manufacturing facility that they were simply in plain plastic bottles with instructions written on them in permanent marker.

In one case, Navarro was overheard on wire taps referring to a pain medicine Navarro had been offered that was so powerful “the guy [offering Navarro the drug] says he has killed about four horses already … he is saying the horses can't take it, and die.”

In another conversation, Navarro compared notes with Zulueta on the physical side effects to one intravenous performance enhancer, asking whether the horses “start sweating, get warm.” Zulueta relayed his horses were soaked wet with sweat after receiving injections, to which Navarro asked whether the drug was working.

In reference to his administration of steroids to horses, Navarro declared he is “a man who destroys” and who “is racing against the best horses in the United States.”

Prosecutors are requesting the maximum prison sentence outlined in an agreement with Navarro's attorneys at the time of his plea change – five years in federal prison – and are also requesting a three-year supervised release condition that would require him to relinquish his racing license for that period of time.

Navarro's attorneys said in their filing last week that it's very likely the Panama native will be deported at the conclusion of his sentence.

Additionally, Navarro has already agreed to forfeit a total of $70,000, which represents the value of drugs he allegedly obtained and gave to racehorses. He has also agreed to pay restitution of $25,860,514 – representative of the amount of purse earnings he got during the illegal doping conspiracy. For the first time, Friday's documents revealed this restitution would be paid to “those entities from whom purse winnings were obtained through the immediate effect of Navarro's fraud.” A list of those entities and a schedule for payment was filed under seal.

Navarro's sentence will be determined on Dec. 17. The judge is not bound by the agreements between the prosecution and defense, and will take both sides' reports under advisement.

Read the full document filed by the prosecution here.

The post ‘Animal Abuse In The Service Of Greed’: Prosecutors Reveal More About Navarro’s Doping Program, Boastful Text Messages appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

“Navarro's aggressive pursuit of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)–and his eagerness to use racehorses under his care to test the potency of novel PEDs–displayed a particularly callous disregard for the well-being of the horses under his care and control,” government attorneys wrote in a Dec. 10 sentencing submission filed in United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

“[T]he defendant considered his prolific doping a badge of honor,” prosecutors alleged. Navarro, 46, is to be sentenced Dec. 17. Although the recommendation for the maximum prison sentence for one of the highest-profile defendants in the alleged international doping scandal is not a shock, the fact that entities “from whom purse winnings were obtained through the immediate effect of Navarro's fraud” were described as victims is a significant turn of events.

But there could be three looming roadblocks to the collection of that $25.8 million in restitution that aren't made any clearer by Friday's submission. The first is that prosecutors filed the schedule of victims under seal, so exact names of who is eligible to collect weren't made public.

The second is which entities (owners, trainers, jockeys, etc…) have been determined to be eligible for payback, and in exactly which races? Theoretically, the list spans nearly a decade of Navarro's racing across multiple jurisdictions. The third is that the judge doesn't have to approve the recommendation. But all of those points could end up being trumped by practicality: Even if the judge holds him to it, whether or not Navarro will ever be able to pay such a daunting amount of restitution is the obvious question. It is common in multi-million dollar fraud convictions for victims never to see even a penny of restitution decisions that get hammered out in a plea agreement, like Navarro's did. And if Navarro ends up getting deported back to his native Panama as the result of his pleading guilty to one felony drug conspiracy count, the prospect of him ever paying up could vanish entirely the moment he's banished from America.

(Separately, Navarro's deal also includes a fine of $70,000 payable to the government that is due at the time of his sentencing. It is not counted as part of the restitution.)

“Throughout Navarro's years-long conspiracy, Navarro was the critical component in a network of fraud–the individual who amplified the corruption of horse owners and encouraged the corruption of his underlings,” the Dec. 10 filing stated.

“Navarro earned tens of millions of dollars in purse winnings by training and racing Thoroughbred horses that Navarro had 'doped' using a plethora of adulterated and misbranded PEDs, including (among others) blood builders, vasodilators, SGF-1000, baking soda 'drenches,' 'bleeder' pills, and other drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration…

“There was no question that, throughout the charged conspiracy, Navarro understood what he was doing was wrong. Navarro often warned, and was warned by, trainers to ensure that no one would be caught 'doping' their horses,” the filing stated. Back in August, Navarro admitted to administering illicit substances to horses under his care, including to many of the stakes stars of his stable during the 2010s decade. He specifically cited War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca and X Y Jet as examples. That latter horse–an elite-level international stakes sprinter–died suddenly in January 2020, within months of having been repeatedly drugged by Navarro.

On Dec. 3, in a presentencing report in his own defense, Navarro had asked the federal judge for a variance to bring the most time he would spend behind bars down to about 3 1/2 years. Navarro–plus friends and family members who wrote numerous character-reference letters to the judge begging for leniency of his behalf–also professed to have “loved” the very horses he injected and force-fed with purported PEDs. The feds took umbrage at both of those assertions in Friday's filing.

“Notwithstanding his hypocritical and self-serving claim to have 'loved' the horse, Navarro's course of conduct with X Y Jet merely exemplifies his aggressive pursuit of new drugs with which to dope his horses,” the court document stated.

“Navarro's frantic efforts to dope X Y Jet in advance of a Feb. 13, 2019, precursor race to the $2.5 million Golden Shaheen race were emblematic of his approach to racing, and indicative of the nature of Navarro's discussions when speaking with complicit third parties, in contrast to how Navarro apparently comported himself around others.”

The filing continued: “In his sentencing submission, Navarro blatantly breaches the plain terms of the parties' plea agreement. Despite agreeing to the [five-year max] calculation…and despite further agreeing that 'neither party will seek any departure or adjustment'…Navarro asks the Court to depart and adjust the stipulated Guidelines sentence on the basis of out-of-circuit precedent never adopted in this Circuit, and contrary to the Guidelines calculations in the plea agreement and pre-sentencing report.”

Prosecutors cited three specific reasons why the five-year imprisonment as per federal sentencing guidelines is appropriate in Navarro's case.

“First, the nature and scope of Navarro's offense conduct merits a Guidelines sentence. Navarro participated in the conspiracy for years, and in the course of the conspiracy, pursued many different PEDs from multiple different suppliers–both veterinarians and laypeople–in efforts to gain a competitive advantage. Navarro's criminality was motivated by his cynical efforts to boost his own profile and profits.

“Second, a Guidelines sentence is necessary to provide just punishment and reflect the nature and seriousness of the offense given Navarro's casual attitude regarding his years-long 'doping' conspiracy.

“It is not the case that Navarro's crime was the result of a single lapse in judgment, confined in time and scope,” the filing continued. “To the contrary, Navarro engaged in repeated and persistent efforts to cheat over the course of years, cycling through various sources of supply, and pursuing aggressively new means to illegally dope horses. Yet Navarro never acknowledged the seriousness of his crimes. Navarro's flippancy towards his dangerous and illegal conduct is exemplified by calls, text messages, and other evidence…”

The government's third point has to do with deterring other trainers from committing the same crimes.

“Racehorse trainers, who are entrusted with the care and custody of racehorses, have unfettered access to these animals, and by extension are entrusted to ensure those horses' care and health,” the filing stated. “Like veterinarians, trainers are afforded a certain latitude under the assumption that they are acting in good faith as competitors and as custodians of racehorses. Navarro exploited that good faith.

“He, like many actors in the racehorse industry, had grown indifferent to, and dismissive of, the notion of obtaining illegal drugs to dope racehorses for profit. Racehorse trainers, in particular, assume that even if caught doping, they will have the means and wherewithal to obfuscate, litigate, and intimidate others into overlooking or justifying a violation, and thus continue their doping practices unencumbered.”

The filing continued: “A Guidelines sentence of 60 months' imprisonment will send a strong signal to racehorse trainers and others in the industry that there will be serious consequences if they abuse their position of trust by engaging in the callous and dangerous practice of doping racehorses for profit.

“A significant sentence will counter the pervasive view in the racehorse industry that selling and administering adulterated and misbranded drugs is inconsequential and that the consequences of criminal activity will never amount to significant criminal penalties.”

In conclusion, prosecutors wrote that, “Jorge Navarro's case reflects failings, greed, and corruption at virtually every level of the world of professional horse racing.

“For money and fame, corrupt trainers went to increasing extremes to dope horses under their care. Unscrupulous owners, who stood to profit directly, encouraged and pressured trainers to win at any cost. Veterinarians sworn to the care and protection of their patients routinely violated their oaths in service of corrupt trainers and to line their own pockets.

Assistants and grooms all witnessed animal abuse in the service of greed, but did little to stop such conduct, and engaged in myriad ways to support notoriously corrupt trainers.

“Structures designed for the protection of the horses abused in this case failed repeatedly; fixtures of the industry–owners, veterinarians, and trainers–flouted rules and disregarded their animals' health while hypocritically incanting a love for the horses under their control and ostensible protection.

“Standing as the keystone for this structure of abuse, corruption, and duplicity was Jorge Navarro, a trainer who treated his animals as expendable commodities in the service of

his 'sport,'” the filing summed up.

The post Feds Want Those Navarro Cheated to Collect $25M Restitution appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Navarro, through a sentencing submission report filed by his legal team Dec. 3 in United States District Court (Southern District of New York), is claiming that he executed a plea agreement July 29 with prosecutors that should reduce his adjusted offense level under federal sentencing guidelines by three levels based on his “complete and timely acceptance of responsibility.”

However, because of the way Navarro's pre-sentence investigation report (PSR) and the authorized statutory maximum guidelines have been calculated, Navarro “does not benefit from this adjustment.”

Navarro's lawyers put it this way: He pled guilty to one felony count of conspiring with others to administer non-Food and Drug Administration (FDA))-approved misbranded and adulterated drugs, including performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) that Navarro believed would be untestable and undetectable by racing authorities.

The PSR pegged his total offense level to 35, with a criminal history of category I, which yields a guideline imprisonment range of 168 to 210 months.

However, the authorized statutory maximum sentence in his case is only 60 months, which is “less than the minimum of the applicable guideline range.” This means that regardless of what the felony offense level directs, it is trumped by the five-year maximum stated in the applicable law, the court filing states.

But here's where Navarro's defense team thinks the adjustment needs to be tweaked further: “Although the PSR correctly calculates the advisory guideline range as 60 months, it fails to provide a three-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility,” the request for a variance states.

“In actuality, Jorge Navarro was assured a sentence of no more than five years regardless of whether he affirmatively accepted responsibility in this case…. Navarro satisfied the criteria…and he timely notified the government of his intention to enter a plea, thereby permitting the government to avoid preparing for trial and allowing the Court and the government to allocate their resources more efficiently.

“Because this guideline range exceeds the statutory maximum,…this Court is asked to adopt the rationale [in a precedent] and apply the three-level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility beginning at level 25, (57 to 71 months),” the filing continues. “This application would afford Mr. Navarro the full three-level reduction as agreed to in the written plea agreement, producing a total offense level of 22, and yielding an advisory guideline range of 41 to 51 months…

“Furthermore, while on pretrial release for over 21 months, Jorge Navarro has abided by all the terms and conditions of his bond without issue,” the filing states. “Additionally, the stipulated forfeiture of $70,000 will be satisfied prior to sentencing.”

Additionally, Navarro on Aug. 11 agreed to pay $25,860,514 in restitution to a list of victims whose identities won't be divulged until the government's final prosecutorial paperwork is due next week. It is unclear if he will have the resources to ever start paying down that amount.

Navarro had admitted in court when he pled guilty that restitution is correctly based on ill-gotten gains from the purse winnings of his trainees. That massive dollar amount equates to nearly 75% of all the purse winnings Navarro's horses amassed during his 15-year training career.

Navarro, 46, already admitted in open court that between 2016 and his arrest on Mar. 9, 2020, “I administered, and, at times, directed [others] working under my direction to administer non-Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, misbranded, adulterated drugs to increase performance of racehorses under my custody and care…

“[Drugs] were administered to horses without a valid prescription,” Navarro said when he entered his plea four months ago. “The drugs [were] blood-building substances, vasodilators, and imported, misbranded bronchodilators, 'bleeder' pills, and SGF-1000,” which is purported to be a customized PED intended to promote tissue repair and increase a horse's endurance.

Navarro also was the second guilty-pleading conspirator to specifically implicate fellow defendant and ruled-off trainer Jason Servis, for whom Navarro said he procured an “imported, misbranded bronchodilator” intended be used as a PED to help horses run faster.

Also back in August, Navarro admitted to administering illicit substances to the stakes stars of his stable during the 2010s decade, specifically citing X Y Jet, War Story, Shancelot and Sharp Azteca as examples.

MGSW Sharp Azteca ran huge Beyer Speed Figures of 112 and 115 in 2017. In 2019, Shancelot unleashed a 121 Beyer in a 12 1/2-length romp in a Saratoga Race Course Grade II stakes–a speed figure that represented the highest Beyer by any 3-year-old sprinter in the three-decade published history of those numbers.

Among the wiretapped interceptions the feds said they could have used as evidence against Navarro had his case gone to trial, one conversation allegedly involved Navarro admitting to dosing elite-level sprinter X Y Jet “with 50 injections [and] through the mouth” before a win in the Mar. 30, 2019, G1 Golden Shaheen in Dubai.

Ten months later, in January 2020, X Y Jet died suddenly, allegedly from cardiac distress that has never been fully documented or explained.

In Friday's sentencing submission by the defense team, Joel Lugo, a surgeon at Ocala Equine Hospital, was among the list of friends and family members who vouched for Navarro's character by providing a letter of reference on the admitted doper's behalf.

“I consulted in many cases as well as treated many of his horses including the famous horses X Y Jet and Sharp Azteca,” Lugo wrote. “When we discussed the health of his horses, he always considered the health and well-being of his horses. Decisions and treatments were made as animal lovers and not for any financial considerations or personal ambitions.

Lugo wrote that he had been in “constant communication” with Navarro about X Y Jet, although he did not shed any light about the exact circumstances of the sprinter's sudden death.

“I remember the day when XY Jet passed away. Jorge called me crying to tell me directly the news,” Lugo wrote. “I know Navarro was devastated because he truly loved X Y Jet.”

Jockey Jose Ferrer also wrote to the judge on the ruled-off trainer's behalf, stating that he “admired his hard work ethic and love for both the sport and animals.”

Rene Douglas, a former jockey who formed an ownership partnership for the MGISW Private Zone, said he chose Navarro to train the horse based on the conditioner's “knowledge and care as a horseman and character as a person.”

Yet even the sentencing submission by Navarro's own legal team acknowledges that  Navarro's horsemanship wasn't ideal.

“Jorge recognizes that his conduct in this case calls into question his care for his horses,” the court filing states.

The strain of maintaining a far-above-average winning percentage that hovered around 28% in tandem with his reputation as a conditioner who could get horses to improve dramatically was also indirectly cited in the court filing as a circumstance related to Navarro's pending imprisonment.

“Unfortunately, the pressure associated with professional horse racing and managing a 140-racehorse stable coupled with his insatiable desire to win tainted his judgment and led to his downfall, for which he takes full and complete responsibility,” the filing states. “Rather than stepping back and reevaluating, Jorge made life-altering choices that will haunt him forever.”

Navarro's lawyers noted in the filing that he is facing “an almost certain deportation” back to Panama, where he was born but currently has no family ties.

“In addition to a potential lengthy prison sentence, Jorge Navarro faces permanent separation from his family and an end to life as he has known it in the United States, despite the fact that he has been lawfully residing here for the last 35 years,” the filing states.

“Jorge's immigration status will also not allow him to benefit from an early release to a community corrections facility. He may even serve a longer incarceration term than ordered by the Court as a result of the collateral consequences of separate Department of Homeland Security deportation proceedings….

“Moreover, the conditions of confinement at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation facility are known to be extremely poor in comparison to those at a Bureau of Prison's minimum security camp facility which Jorge would otherwise be designated to,” the filing states.

The post Navarro Wants Variance to Cut Five-Year Max Sentence By 30% appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post