Feds suspend 2 California trainers, declare 19 horses ineligible

Two more California trainers have been suspended by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s testing and enforcement unit after a banned substance was detected in post-race blood tests of horses they conditioned.

Separately, the unit listed 19 horses that received joint injections within seven days of a timed workout in violation of a new rule mandating a 14-day waiting period, making them ineligible to race or breeze or race for 30 days.

Trainers Reed Saldana and Milton Pineda were suspended by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit after horses in their care tested positive for diisopropylamine, a chemical with many uses that is listed as a banned substance by the HIWU as a vasodilator that has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The HIWU website stated that the suspensions, which prevent either trainer from entering horses until their cases are adjudicated, were levied after diisopropylamine were detected in tests of the following horses:

Big Splash, trained by Pineda, who finished third in an allowance-optional claiming race on June 24 at Los Alamitos.

Bella Renella, also trained by Pineda, who won an optional claiming race at Santa Anita on June 18 in her most recent start.

Ice Queen, trained by Saldana, who last raced on June 16 at Santa Anita in a starter allowance race at Santa Anita, finishing third.

The HIWU website provides no additional information, but Paulick Report quoted Jeff Plotkin, an owner with Saldana, as saying that a particular supplement was been identified as a possible source of the diisopropylamine.

It reported that the product did not list diisopropylamine on its label, but did list “Vitamin B-15” – a misleading term for pangamic acid. The latter has no standard chemical identity but may be formulated utilizing diisopropylamine dichloroacetate, it said, citing the rxlist website.

The publication also quoted Plotkin, a lawyer who had a horse entered to run Saturday at Los Alamitos that scratched following the finding, as criticizing the HISA enforcers for suspending trainers without giving them a chance to defend themselves.

“As a 30-year plus attorney, and horse owner, a better way to handle any alleged violation would be to honor the United States Constitution, and the right it affords requiring due process,” it quoted him as saying. “We are dealing with people's livelihoods; without owners and trainers the sport will no longer exist. Maybe that is what HISA is truly about. If that is so, there are going to be trainers and owners exiting the business with these continued witch hunts. It is my strong opinion that if something is uncovered, the horseman in question should be given a period of time to correct whatever has been found. The (product), for example, is something that is sold all over the country and has been assumed to be just fine for years.

“I would suggest the immediate formation of a group that includes horsemen, trainers, and representatives of HISA. A way must be achieved to ensure the safety of horse racing, the equine athletes, but also the people that the industry cannot live without – the trainers and the owners.”

(Editor's note: A spokesperson for the product mentioned cast reasonable doubt about the accuracy of the originally reported quote by Plotkin, so the specific brand was removed from this story July 18 by Horse Racing Nation.)

Early this week, the HIWU provisionally suspended another California-based trainer, Jonathan Wong, after testing detected the banned substance metformin, which is used to treat diabetes in humans. His attorney, Alan Pincus, also blasted the HIWU process under which trainers are suspended without an opportunity to defend themselves and must pay for a costly provisional hearing if they fight the penalty.

In the matter of the horses that received intra-articular injections of joints within the 14-day window mandated by HISA, the HIWU had not previously listed such horses. But according to Thoroughbred Daily News, which first reported on the list, it reversed course on Friday and listed 19 horses that have been declared ineligible to race or breeze for 30 days for violating the rule.

TDN also noted that the list raises new questions, including why some of the horses on the list were able to race subsequent to being declared ineligible and whether the purses would be redistributed. Nine of those horses raced during their period of ineligibility, including at least three winners, it said. The list did not include the names of the horses’ trainers, but TDN reported that the list included horses trained by prominent conditioners Norm Casse, Michael Stidham, Todd Pletcher, Linda Rice and Jack Sisterson. Other trainers whose horses were on the list were Carlos Munoz, Adriel Gonzalez, Betty Ott, Pedro Nazario, Brian Cook, Adrian Farias, David Fawkes, Victor Carrasco, Jr., John Ennis, Joseph Davis and Monica McGoey, it said.

Trainers violating the rule also could have faced 60-day suspensions, but HISA announced last month that penalties against the conditioners would be waived until July 15 because of widespread confusion over the new mandate, TDN said.