The world-wide horseracing industry has been rocked by 27 federal indictments in New York state against well-known trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors.
Among those charged are Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis, the trainer of Maximum Security whose win at last year’s Kentucky Derby was revoked after judges reviewed the tape and disqualified him for running into another horse.
Maximum Security won $10 million at the Saudi Cup less than two weeks ago.
The indictment claims that “virtually all” of Servis’s horses in more than 1,000 races over the past two years were drugged.
The indictments describe a scheme of misbranding and distributing various drugs to defraud state regulators, horseracing fans, and the betting public by secretly doping horses.
One of the approaches was to boost the red cell blood content, an approach that could, if taken too far, result in death. The $100-billion world-wide horseracing industry has been plagued by rising death rates, including young prospects.
Among them was XY Jet, which won $1.5 million in a race in Dubai and then died of a heart attack. Boosting red cell content can prompt over-exertion which can result in a heart attack.
“Today’s unsealing of four indictments for widespread doping of racehorses is the largest ever of its kind from the Department of Justice,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman.
“These defendants engaged in this conduct not for the love of the sport, and certainly not out of concern for the horses, but for money. And it was the racehorses that paid the price for the defendants’ greed.
“The care and respect due to the animals competing, as well as the integrity of racing, are matters of deep concern to the people of this District and to this Office.”
The indictments were greeted with praise from members of Canada’s horse-racing industry, among them Canadian Horseracing Hall of Famer Mark Casse and Jim Lawson, chief executive officer for Woodbine Entertainment.
“This is overdue in racing,” said Lawson, adding “it’s a good thing to clean the industry up.”
Casse recently wrote an opinion article for Thoroughbred Daily News calling for a ban on Clenbuterol in horse racing.
