Eric Hamelback

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60 Minutes – the NHBPA doesn’t get it

Posted by noonante on November 26, 2023
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

For those who watched CBS’ 60 Minutes November 12, there was little that close followers of the sport did not already know. That caused me initially to be disappointed, but I am not in the program’s target audience. In Bill Finley’s article in Thoroughbred Daily News he notes that the show has an audience of some 9 million viewers. It is intended for the vast majority of viewers who know next to nothing about horse racing or whose knowledge is limited to watching the occasional Triple Crown race.

But if I did not “get it” initially, the head of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent Protective Association is completely clueless. Eric Hamelback, CEO of the NHBPA, issued a response to 60 Minutes on November 13 complaining that the program was “not fair to the industry.” What he meant, however, is that it was not fair to Hamelback’s views. I do not know if he was interviewed, but his tiresome rants about the “elites” trying to “shrink horse racing” through such nefarious scenes as regulating the conduct of the sport did not address any of the issues raised by the program. Hamelback’s primary agenda is to criticize HISA, the acronym for the landmark federal legislation to bring uniformity to racing as well as the agency administering it.

Unsurprisingly, CBS focused on racing fatalities, including videos of horses breaking down in the stretch, and the drug convictions of major players including (of course) Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Hamelbach’s complaints – even if they had any merit – are not going to cut it when one of the leading trainers in the mid-Atlantic had Crocs with the words “Juice Man” painted on them.

While Hamelbach complains about the inaccuracies in the CBS narrative, his own statement is replete with false statements and inaccuracies. He thanks the “New Jersey Racing Commission, the FBI and others” for bringing down Navarro and Servis. But that is the racing commission that silently watched as those same trainers and their veterinarians drug horses while they rose to the top of the standings. The FBI obviously played a major role in investigating, but “the others” referenced by Hamelback would mean The Jockey Club, an organization that Hamelback and his supporters seek to remove from influence because they are the “elites” out to destroy the sport to further their own interests. But it is The Jockey Club – not the NHBPA nor any state racing commissions – that brought the sport’s problems to the attention of the FBI.

Although Hamelback asserts that The Jockey Club “by no means has the power or authority to speak on behalf of the industry,” the organization he heads claims to have such a mandate. Although stating that “the vast majority of horsemen nationwide … strongly oppose HISA in its current form,” the NHBPA has no basis for saying that. It is not an organization composed of horsemen and horsewomen, but one comprised of “affiliate organizations.” One such member is “New England,” the six-state region that no longer has thoroughbred racing. The tracks of California, New Jersey, Maryland, NYRA and Gulfstream Park are not members, meaning that the vast majority of actual horse people are not represented by the Hamelback group.

Hamelback points out that one Circuit Court of Appeals found that HISA was unconstitutional, but neglects to mention that after the U.S. Congress amended that law, that Court removed its finding of unconstitutionality.

Perhaps his most ingenuous statement is the assertion that drugs have not been shown to cause any of the recent fatalities that were referenced in the 60 Minutes piece. While that may be technically true, it ignores the accepted reality that many legitimate therapeutic medications may also mask symptoms of soreness that can then be a factor in a fatality. One of the significant benefits of a uniform national program of anti-doping and medication control is that the inconsistent state regulations can be harmonized to curb such abuses.

Yes it is true that the 60 Minutes broadcast did not highlight all of the improvements to reform racing in recent years or the efforts of the many honest and hard-working individuals who love horses. But I stopped watching 60 Minutes many years ago when it became apparent that they were not interested in nuanced reporting on what might be mildly complicated events. It is not truly a “news” agenda so much as a “ratings” (i.e., revenue) one.

But our industry is not helped when someone purporting to speak for the sport misstates and misrepresents facts to further his personal agenda. By creating the impression that everything is OK and nothing need be done, it is a grave disservice to all those doing the right thing. It does more harm than good. It may also eventually doom the very industry that he professes to care about.

“With friends like these….”

Posted by noonante on May 1, 2023
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The long-awaited national program addressing drugs in horse racing with uniform rules and enforcement was implemented on Monday, March 27. Because of legal action filed by opponents of the new law, an injunction was issued and the federal agency overseeing it suspended it until May 22. While in effect for five days, the world did not come to an end in spite of the fear-mongering and apocalyptic rhetoric of those denying the evident need for reform in racing.

Leading the opposition over the years have been organizations such as the National Horsemen’s Benevolent Protective Association, some individual state HBPA’s and the Association of Racing Commissioners International. While their legal objections focus on the purported unconstitutionality of the Congressional legislation — the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act — the quarterly publication of the NHBPA I received recently presents different concerns.

An article by Tom Law and Jennie Rees in something called The Horsemen’s Journal has the sub-heading “Overreach of [HISA] permeates the horsemen’s gathering” of the first-ever (!!!) national meeting of the NHBPA and ARCI. It provides a wealth of comments by those opposing the law and none from anyone thinking reform is long overdue. Their opening sentence summarizes the tone of the sessions succinctly, referring to “discussions offering critiques and alternatives to costly federal regulations wreaking havoc throughout the Thoroughbred industry.”

Their so-called “alternatives” are both fanciful and delusional. They do not propose alternatives to the detailed regulations of HISA concerning either track safety or medication protocols, but rather — brace yourself — voluntary interstate compacts. The NHBPA’s General Counsel said such compacts allow for “responsive and quick resolution.”

There was no explanation for why their perceived obvious and meritorious solution had not been achieved in the more than two years since HISA became law, let alone since the NHBPA establishment in 1940 nor ARCI’s creation in 1934. There are, however, two possibilities. One is that neither organization sees the need for change. The other is that neither group truly represents the racing community beyond their own parochial interests.

While the NHBPA has the word “national” in its title, it consists only of “affiliate” organizations throughout the country, but not necessarily representative groups. Among the major racetracks not included are those in California, New Jersey, Maryland, the NYRA tracks and Gulfstream Park. They make no effort to solicit input from individual horse people. Indeed, this publication neither solicits opinion nor publishes views that detract from their party line.

The ARCI consists of racing commissions. While one panelist observed: “The bedrock concept of what curbs regulators is the fact that there’s transparency, there’s accountability. And HISA lacks that.” While that comment is from an attorney, he is not stating “facts,” but rather opinion. He obviously has never witnessed a session of the New York State Gaming Commission whose actions and “public” meetings are neither transparent nor accountable.

The only other state commission I am familiar with is that of California. Their public meetings are indeed public and sometimes lengthy (one lasted seven hours). Following a raft of breakdowns in 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom overhauled the Horse Racing Board that then came up with a number of positive changes improving the safety conditions for horses and humans. They have fully embraced the HISA reforms.

Other comments from the panelists were almost completely devoid of substance. One, from a “pro bono” law firm was almost Zen-like: “Uniformity should exist across jurisdictions, but uniformity should also exist across time.”

And despite all the fake concern about Constitutional standards, the bulk of the criticisms of HISA and the law were based mostly on personal grievances or imaginary issues. When they complain about horse people not being consulted, they mean they were not. The NHBPA CEO Eric Hamelback expressed it: “[W]e want to make sure the right participants are helping to make the decisions. I see it as the right participants are in this room.” In the decades I have been among the horse people they purport to speak for, I have never had my views solicited. Nor can I vote for officers, even though that is something I do in New York’s (unaffiliated) horse persons’ group NYTHA.

The hollowness, indeed, absurdity of the objections of the group were never better highlighted than in an issue of The Paulick Report where the Attorney General of Louisiana opined in an op-ed that “Louisiana horse racing has effectively policed itself for over 200 years” and did not need intervention.

While that comment undoubtedly raised many an eyebrow among horseplayers and observers of Louisiana politics, it ran alongside a report that State Police searching a trainer’s tack room at Delta Downs (in said state of Louisiana) had discovered “59 bottles of injectable medications, 352 hypodermic needles, 256 syringes and 75 packs of Albuterol Sulfate inhalation solution.” These items are considered “contraband,” yet a six-month suspension was stayed by the Louisiana Racing Commission pending appeals.

While AG Greg Landry, the state’s chief law enforcement officer, may cite this as an example of his state’s oversight of racing, we do not know how he would respond to the information that the trainer in question, James Tracy, was licensed by the Racing Commission even though he was under an indefinite suspension by Pennsylvania. As Paulick observed in a subsequent report:  “so much for reciprocity from one racing state to another” — as required under existing requirements. Landry’s piece was featured prominently in this issue of The Horsemen’s Journal.

Landry and another opponent of the new law, Kentucky’s HBPA President Rick Hiles, prefer to raise imaginary problems rather than address substantive ones. A common object of their attacks are the “billionaires” supporting HISA who as Hines stated, are the “powerful and well-financed minority backing HISA [who] opted for class warfare.” Yet Hines cannot even keep straight what his complaint is. While complaining that the NHBPA and ARCI were not “invited to the table” discussing reforms, he boasts that the efforts of those groups have forced HISA “to make substantial improvements.”

Are there issues with HISA? Of course there are. They are attempting to implement a federal law intended to overhaul the conduct of a sport that many of its participants believe is in drastic need to not just improve but survive. The drivel that emanated from this joint conference of self-appointed representatives not only did nothing to move that ball forward, but their distorted view of “success” would jeopardize racing’s future.

Racing’s latest crisis raises questions about its survival

Posted by noonante on April 25, 2019
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Thoroughbred racing is facing its latest crisis as a result of a large number of fatalities at Santa Anita Park.  Since its current meet began on December 26, 23 horses have been fatally injured while racing or training.  The Stronach Group that owns and operates Santa Anita responded with measures that are revolutionary in a business that typically moves with the speed of a slow-moving glacier.  They are adopting “house rules” that will prohibit the use of the whip except when needed as a safety measure, and also gradually ban the race-day medication Lasix.  Other medications that are permissible will be subject to stricter standards.

As significant as these changes are, the real story is whether this crisis is the one that will ultimately end the sport.  It is more than a public relations crisis, and is increasingly being viewed as an existential one.

Some people  –  OK, most people  –  undoubtedly view the prohibition on whipping an animal and administering drugs to that animal so that it can race as no-brainers.  That is, if they are not shocked that both practices are currently allowed in all racing jurisdictions in the United States.

California’s racing leaders are seriously concerned that a ballot initiative could ban racing in the state.  One statistic I saw is that placing a measure on the state-wide ballot requires 600,000 signatures and that PETA, a leader in protests over the fatalities, has 700,000 members in California.  Senator Diane Feinstein and Congressperson Judy Chu (who represents the district including Santa Anita) have both expressed serious reservations about the state of racing.  According to Bill Finley in Thoroughbred Daily News, the Los Angeles Times has called for racing to be suspended until the track determines the causes of the fatalities.

Unfortunately, that same sense of urgency  –  and, I would suggest, reality  –  does not apply to other influential voices in the racing industry.

There are the national and local organizations representing trainers and owners.  When these modern-day Rip Van Winkles finally wake up, there may no longer be a sport of horse racing.  The National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) held its national convention in mid-March as the crisis at Santa Anita was coming to a head.  If you listened to them, you would think the key to bringing in new fans and increasing handle was not in changing a broad-based negative perception, but in providing free past performance data.  I did not see a single media account of any discussion of the situation in California.

It’s not surprising that this group did not want to discuss the reality of what is going on at Santa Anita.  They are in the forefront of the denialism that racing has a significant perception problem caused by the use of drugs.  In written testimony for a Congressional hearing on proposed federal legislation last June, Eric Hamelback, CEO of the National HBPA, stated:

“The support for [the federal legislation] comes from a well-financed vocal minority of owners and trainers … who claim ‘the fragmented system of medication regulation is not working.’  The implication here is that the result is widespread illegal drug use or ‘cheating.’  However, those who make that claim offer no evidence to support the notion of rampant illegal drug use.  That is no surprise because there is none that I know of….

Any asserted problem is one of misperception caused by recurrent sensationalism in the public media….

Horse racing in the United States has the most comprehensive testing program of any sport in the world and employs the most sophisticated and sensitive equipment found anywhere….

… 99.5% of over 354,000 tests of biological samples taken from thoroughbred race horses were negative for drug use….  these results should be the envy of every other sport that tests athletes for drugs….”

There’s a lot to unpack in that brief excerpt.  For starters, the notion that horse racing has the most sophisticated testing that “should be the envy of every other sport” is downright ludicrous.  When a horse of the stature of a Lance Armstrong, Ben Johnson, Robinson Cano or Julian Edelman is sanctioned for illegal drug use we might give some credence to Hamelback’s hyperbole.

The “99.5 per cent” figure is regularly used by the denialists to prove the sport is clean.  I do not dispute that is an accurate number, but it is so high because there are a number of drugs that cannot be detected by the supposedly “sophisticated” testing of Hamelback’s imagination.

The racing media has been filled recently with articles about bisphosphonate.  I had not heard of this one until a couple of weeks ago when the mid-Atlantic tracks and sales companies started restricting its usage.  According to Dr. Rick Arthur, California’s Equine Medical Director, it does not have a legitimate therapeutic use at a track.  The concern, however, is that it can be used on younger horses going through a sale to hide radiographic evidence of a bone issue.  Nice, right, for an industry seeking to convince folks there is nothing to see here?  While sales companies say a horse testing positive for  bisphosphonates can be returned, there is not yet a reliable test when the drug is administered sufficiently far in advance of the sale.  So I guess there would be a 100% rate of sales horses testing negative for bisphosphonates.

Then there is Hamelback’s argument that the “well-financed” proponents of federal legislation are implying that there is “widespread” and “rampant” cheating.  I am not aware of any responsible person associated with racing saying there is “rampant” cheating.  But I have also never met an owner, trainer, track worker, race track employee or fan who does not believe there is cheating.  The widespread perception that cheating is a regular feature of racing, even if limited, is devastating.

Finally, there are the well-worn tropes that “the media” is responsible for the negative perceptions and that “we need to do a better job of educating the public.”  Ed Martin, President of the Association of Racing Commissioners International laments that all the money spent on, among others, “bloggers” could be better devoted to research.  (I take particular umbrage at that one since I have not seen the largesse.)  The difficulty, however, lies in convincing the public that whipping a horse or giving it drugs so it can race are actions inspired by a love for the animal.

We do not know if the causes of any of the Santa Anita fatalities are related to drugs.  From what I know of Lasix, it would be astonishing if the diuretic was the direct cause of any fatalities, let alone 23 of them.  But The Stronach Group’s announcement of a ban had less to do with a possible cause for the fatalities, and more to do with a perception that race-day medications are harming the sport, if not the horse.

The use of drugs in horse racing is more complicated than whether race-day medications should be permitted.  I think there are three categories into which drugs can be grouped.

The first  –  and easiest to deal with  –  are drugs that have no therapeutic value and are only used because of performance-enhancing aspects or to mask pain in the horse.  Out-of-Competition Testing is intended to identify these substances.  But if a state such as New York doesn’t take it seriously, abuse is likely to be more widespread.  New York doesn’t even track the results of whatever testing it does, and in response to a public records request covering periods of several years, could not identify a single thoroughbred testing positive.  Charles Hayward, who just wrote an excellent piece on the medication issue for Thoroughbred Racing Commentary pointed out that California has no penalties for violations.

The second group consists of Lasix.  It is the only medication approved in every racing jurisdiction in the United States for use on the day of a race, but is illegal in every other country with racing.  Its stated purpose is to prevent Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhaging  –  more commonly referred to as “bleeding.”  Regulations typically require that a veterinarian must establish that a horse bled in order for it to be given the medication.  The reality is that it is a rule observed more in its breach than its observance.  I have had a vet recommend Lasix even though there was no indication the horse bled.  And the reality is that approximately 95 per cent of the horses on a given race card are being given the drug.

The other reality is that it is a performance-enhancing drug. It causes a horse to lose some 20 pounds in weight because of its diuretic effect.  If weight is not an important factor in racing, we would not give a weight break to apprentice jockeys, nor have “handicap” races in which horses are assigned different weights based on expected performance.  Even those owners and trainers expressing public opposition to Lasix continue to administer it to their own horses so as not to lose what is widely acknowledged as an “advantage.”

The third category is the one that I think would be much more troubling than the use of Lasix but for the fact there is no data on usage.  These are legal and permissible therapeutic medications.  Racing deals with this category by specifying withdrawal times before a race and levels of concentration during a post-race test below which there is no violation.  Thus, New York prohibits the administration of butorphanol  within 96 hours of a race, and a concentration level below 300 ng/ml in a post-race test carries no penalty.

A horse, of course, can experience any number of ailments for which a medication may be an essential treatment.  Standards of veterinary care require that the ailment be diagnosed and treatment recommended by a vet who has examined the animal.  The problem arises when the “legal” drug continues to be administered even after the need for it no longer exists.  There are two examples in recent years in which this has been abundantly clear.

The New York Gaming Commission publishes three days of veterinary records immediately before Grade I races having a purse of $1 million or more.  In the first year of the Commission making these results available, there was a remarkable situation.  One high-profile trainer who had numerous horses entered in such races administered the same drug, with the same dosage, for every one of his horses every day.  It of course defies common sense that this was the result of a vet examining the horse, finding that each had the same condition, and then prescribing the same medication.  I must not have been the only person noticing this seeming anomaly because in subsequent years the practice stopped.

In the other example, a high-profile trainer’s horse was “featured” in a New York Times article because he was one of the fatalities at Aqueduct in 2011-12 that was their own crisis of equine deaths.  The accompanying article stated the gelding experienced pain and cartilage damage from a degenerative joint disease, and had been injected 13 times in the month before the race to treat that condition, including an injection into a joint five days before the race. Again, this was a “legal” drug administered within “legal” restrictions.  It is, however, a medication that if administered in the described manner meant the horse had no business on a race track.  (New York has since tightened its regulations on joint injections.)

Are there other examples today of similarly horrifying stories?  Of course there are, unless you are a hopeless naïf or the head of an organization such as the National HBPA or ARCI.  Is racing taking steps to improve the situation?  They are.  In the examples just cited, New York required reports that resulted in identifying one problem and took corrective actions following the other.  Is the progress sufficient?  Not if you are a horse or a jockey  –  or a member of the general public.

And there are those whose awareness of racing’s current environment are as clueless as that of Rip Van Winkle upon awakening.  Veterinarian Jeff Blea commented that Santa Anita field sizes have been down in recent weeks because of the crisis:

“Trainers are doing their jobs.  Veterinarians are doing their jobs.  People aren’t wanting to push these horses and take those risks like they did before.”

Blea is Chair of the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Racing Committee, quoted in Thoroughbred Daily News on April 20.

While one might expect that veterinarians would be in the forefront of safety initiatives, his approach is not dissimilar to that of New York’s Equine Medical Director Scott Palmer, DVM, who recently convinced New York’s Gaming Commission to weaken a safety regulation enacted after New York experienced its own crisis of track fatalities in 2011-12.  Palmer acknowledged the increased risk to the horse (and jockey) but thought it could be offset by other measures.

Fortunately, there are industry figures who do not believe there is an acceptable level of horse deaths that will be acceptable to the public.  The first, of course, is Belinda Stronach taking radical steps to address the negative perceptions heightened by the Santa Anita fatalities.

The reforms announced by The Stronach Group go well beyond the banning of race-day medications.  But the Lasix ban prompted a coalition of other tracks to adopt their own restrictions on the diuretic, banning its use on two-year-olds in 2020 and in many stakes races starting in 2021.  While many have praised this as a good first step, it sends an awkward message for a policy intended to address one of racing’s biggest perception problems:  if race-day medication is not acceptable for stakes horses and babies, why is it permissible on the lesser horses who make up the vast majority of racehorses?

The Jockey Club is the “breed registry” for the U.S. and Canada, and also keeps valuable data bases on what is going on in the sport, as well as funding important health-related research.  In the past month, they published their vision for comprehensive reform, available here, and must-reading for anyone concerned about the future of the sport.

The Jockey Club also supports the Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019, H.R. 1754, the current version of legislation that has been introduced in the last two Congresses.  The bill would create a private and independent anti-doping authority for horse racing that would establish uniform national standards, overseen by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).  The same industry entities leading the fight to keep Lasix also oppose national legislation to establish uniformity on medication policies within the states.

I think that anyone who wants to see racing survive and thrive should make their views known to their U.S. Senators and Members of Congress.  Even if Santa Anita weathers this current crisis, there will be another, either there or elsewhere.  It is foolhardy to think racing is guaranteed to go on indefinitely.  Either racing can present a unified front on reform, or abolition efforts will take over.  An institution that arrogantly thinks it can escape change is doomed to failure.

 

 

 

 

Racing leaders continue to ignore drug problems

Posted by noonante on March 13, 2018
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

The aversion of racing’s leaders to meaningful uniform anti-doping initiatives continues.  Most recently, the CEO of the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Agency, Eric Hamelback, once again opposed federal legislation that would place racing under the authority of a national agency.  Unfortunately, Hamelback’s opposition was premised on a false statement of the content of the bill pending in Congress.

Writing in the Thoroughbred Daily News, Hamelback stated that the legislation “does not seek to place our industry into the hands of anti-doping experts with the ability to make common-sense distinctions between performance-enhancing drugs and those that aren’t.”  That is because, he says, the appointed members of the oversight Board “have nothing to do with our industry.”

The Horseracing Integrity Act of 2017 would create a national board to establish and enforce uniform anti-drugging policies.  It is, of course, highly controversial.  One of the foremost arguments against it by opponents has been that the United States Anti-Drugging Agency (USADA) is not equipped to expand its jurisdiction from human athletes to equine ones.

Hamelback continues to perpetrate this myth, but the actual language from the Congressional bill contradicts his assertion.  The bill creates a governing Board consisting of the USADA CEO, six additional members of the USADA board and the following members:

  • at least one with “expertise in equine anti-doping and medication control regulation;”
  • at least one with “significant experience as an owner” or with “expertise in the breeding of race horses;”
  • at least one “formerly employed as an executive with a racetrack;”
  • at least one vet with “expertise in equine veterinary practice with regard to race horses or expertise in veterinary research in matters affecting race horses;”
  • at least one with “expertise in training;” and,
  • at least one jockey.

The proposed law further requires USADA to solicit candidates from a “cross-section of equine industry representatives.”  Simply put, the proposed Board would have plenty of representation of experienced and knowledgeable racing professionals.

Hamelback cites what he views as the injustices perpetrated recently on trainers he believes to be above approach such as Rusty Arnold, Joe Sharp and Bill Mott, claiming that a federal oversight agency would not prevent the abuses.  The irony, however, is that he favors leaving in place the morass of some three dozen regulatory agencies that are the perpetrators of the injustices he cites.

Instead he advocates those who are outraged by inappropriate and unfair decisions to “get involved”  –  go to meetings, write letters, etc.  Of course, in order to make informed arguments, one needs facts.  I have no reason to question the integrity or innocence of any of the trainers cited in Hamelback’s piece.  But saying “Rusty Arnold is a good guy” is not a sufficient reason  –  nor should it be  –  to overturn a drug positive.  (The lab making the initial determination later discovered an error.)

The case with which I have the most familiarity is that of Bill Mott.  He was penalized for a positive, but New York, unlike many jurisdictions, not only does not require a split sample but apparently routinely destroys them.  Mott reportedly is now into six figures in legal fees and has taken his case to court after not getting redress before the Gaming Commission, the state’s regulatory body  –  the entity Hamelback seeks to retain.

I find the Mott case as I understand it to be an outrageous injustice because of New York’s continuing failure to remediate it.  But Hamelback’s inaccurate assessment that a new federal agency would lack knowledgeable representatives of the industry actually does apply to New York’s Gaming Commission.  I attended a public seminar conducted by the Commission on Lasix a couple of summers ago.  It was abundantly clear that the commissioners who bothered to attend had no familiarity with the issue.  That’s understandable given that the Commission has a broader jurisdiction than racing.  But there are also none of the experience requirements that Hamelback thinks are so essential  –  and that are contained in the Horseracing Integrity Act.

The lackadaisical attitude of Hamelback’s organization, the NHBPA, for meaningful medication reform could not be better exemplified than the agenda for their national convention now underway in New Orleans. Although it is a five-day conference, only two agenda items can be considered to be remotely connected to addressing racing drug issues.

On Thursday, there is a 25-minute (sic) session on the “Trainer All Insurer Rule.”  The next day, a two-hour session is entitled “Environmental Transfer, Cause for Concern in Racehorses:  Inadvertent Exposure to Recreational and Prescription Medications.”

I doubt that I am going too far out on the ledge to predict that both sessions will again repeat the tiresome nonsense that racing is overwhelmingly drug free as shown by the low rate of post-race positives.  Leaders such as Hamelback are among the few people involved with racing I have encountered who believe there is no problem worth a serious discussion.

 

 

Yet more black eyes for racing

Posted by noonante on September 16, 2017
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

The Sport of Kings took a couple of more hits this summer in publicized incidents that involved  —  wait for it  — illegal drug use on horses.

The most recent resulted from a YouTube video of trainer Jorge Navarro and owner Randal Gindi celebrating a win in Florida by Navarro’s brother, also a trainer.  As the horse neared the finish line, the pair were yelling “the Juice Man” and “that’s how we do it, we fuck everyone” and claiming to have pocketed $20,000 from a wager with a bookie.  (For those not conversant with common track parlance, “juice” refers to illegal drugs.)

The incident took place at a Monmouth Park bar.  The track’s stewards fined Gindi and Navarro $5,000 each for conduct “extremely detrimental to racing,” and recommended that the New Jersy’s regulatory body increase the penalty, since the stewards levied the maximum they could.

Navarro was Monmouth’s leading trainer this year with a record-breaking 65 wins, shattering the record he set last year with 59.  This year’s winning percentage was a remarkable 41%.  According to Frank Angst of BloodHorse.com, he has a history of drug positives, serving a 60-day suspension in 2011-12 in Florida, and now faces a hearing in Florida after one of his horses tested positive for cocaine.

As disturbing as this is, it was easily matched earlier this summer by a federal criminal trial in which Murray Rojas, twice the leading trainer at Penn National, was convicted of 14 felony counts for drug violations.  In trial testimony, another trainer, Stephanie Beattie, stated that she and between “95 and 98%” of other horsemen treated horses with illegal race-day medications, according to reporting by T.D. Thornton in TDN.com.

If you need more disturbing info on this, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, representing their opinion of the interests of trainers and owners, provided legal support for Rojas.  According to CEO Eric Hamelback, the NHBPA did so because of their view that the United States “Department of Justice overreached on what is clearly a state regulatory issue.”

While I suppose Hamelback can be praised for supporting the sovereignty clause of the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, it seems to be a strange case on which to plant the flag.  Although in his statement he said the “court correctly found Ms. Rojas not guilty of charges related to this attempt to set a new legal precedent” on some charges, the allegations in the case, as well as the number of other individuals pleading guilty to related charges, belie his efforts to make her a sympathetic defendant.

According to the Paulick Report, Rojas was convicted on 14 of 21 felony counts covering a 12-year period.  Four veterinarians pled guilty after being confronted with allegations of backdated records and falsified records.  To overstate the obvious, we are not talking about an arguably innocent drug overage for one horse in one race.  The testimony of trainer Beattie, who became an FBI informant, was a particularly damning indictment of the racing at Penn National.

Rojas was twice the leading trainer at Penn.  Monmouth Park’s Jorge Navarro won five Monmouth training titles and twice broke the record for most wins during a meet.  His astonishing win percentage of 41% this year is one that naturally raises quite a few eyebrows.  As fellow trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. said to T.D. Thornton of TDN.com, Navarro “has a tremendous win percentage … you would have to look far and deep for anyone to say he’s that much superior to the rest of the trainers….”

That someone who’s winning percentage automatically draws suspicion of illegal drugging, and then yells in a track’s bar about juicing and “that’s how we do it” says little about either his intelligence or his commitment to the sport.  Perhaps NHBPA CEO Hamelback will determine that Navarro’s First Amendment rights warrant the expenditures of his organization’s financial resources.

As disturbing as these two instances are, even more troubling is the protective attitude of some of the industry’s top figures in dismissing allegations that the sport has a serious problem, both in reality and in perception.  A common refrain from these “leaders” is that there is no problem other than people speaking out about their perspective that there is a problem.  If they would be silent, there would no longer be an issue.

Unfortunately, there are few in the sport who, if speaking honestly, would deny that illegal drugging is a major problem.  And now we have two leading trainers who have brought that problem to the forefront  —  once again  — through a federal prosecution and shooting off one’s mouth in a public setting.