Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Leading horse trainers Todd Pletcher and Scott Lake suspended for illegal drug use
Posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007
After decades of rumors about “juiced” thoroughbreds and ineffective attempts at regulation, the horse racing industry has acknowledged that it has a drug problem. Never has the drug issue been more front and center and never before has the sport’s integrity been so widely questioned.
Imagine award-winning and top horse trainers receiving suspensions and fines left and right for violation of horse racing’s drug policy.Hoever, laughable penalties were only handed out to trainers whose horses are caught with positive drug tests.
New York’s dominant trainer, Rick Dutrow, was caught with two drug violations and received a 120-day suspension last 2005; it was reduced to 60 days.
A horse trained by Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel tested positive for morphine in a stakes race in June 2000, and the case was in limbo until the California Horse Racing Board dismissed it — six years later.
Steve Asmussen, the nation’s top race-winning trainer in 2004 and 2005, was recently suspended for six months by Louisiana authorities after one of his horses tested positive for mepivacaine, a local anesthetic that could be used to block pain in an animal’s leg. Asmussen faces another six-month suspension for a violation in New Mexico.
A 45-day suspension and $3,000 fine were meted against leading trainer Todd Pletcher after one of his horses was found with a banned substance following a 2004 race at Saratoga.
Meanwhile, 2006 leading trainer Scot Lake was suspended for 30 days, to be served Dec. 24 through Jan. 22 of 2007, by order of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board.
Lake is already 19 days into the fulfillment of a previous 30-day suspension handed down from the Delaware Park Thoroughbred Racing Commission when one of his horses, Secret Run, tested positive for the drug after winning Delaware’s fifth race on June 7.
"Leading horse trainers Todd Pletcher and Scott Lake suspended for illegal drug use" was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Horse Racing Industry, Horses, Jockeys, Owners & Breeders, Trainers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Friday, January 5th, 2007 5:02 pm By Horses Wild » Horse racing commissions should throw the book at horse-trainers-turned-cheaters » Horse Racing News
[...] Horse racing officials must try to make their rules more consistent, along with the penalties for violating them. They’ll realize how unfair it seems and how downright stupid it appears when Hall-of-Fame and award-winning trainers received race bans left and right for using banned drugs to their horses. [...]