The signs are that HISA will be a truly powerful force in U.S. racing

Charles Scheeler: The new HISA board chairman during his address to the Round Table on August 15

I have been living here in our home in Saratoga Springs since late March 2020. The highlight of my 19 months was opening day at Saratoga Race Course just a few weeks ago - on Thursday, July 15. I had not been to a racetrack since early in January 2020 (at Aqueduct) and, even though I have walked over to the track from my house on numerous occasions this summer, it was a real thrill to be at Saratoga with 20,000-plus racing enthusiasts.

The next date circled on my calendar was Sunday, August 15 - for the 69th Annual Jockey Club Round Table Conference - which for the second year was to be virtually presented on Zoom. 

However, it was preempted four days earlier (on August 11) by the court appearance by Jorge Navarro, one of the two major horse trainers indicted along with 26 other racing participants on March 9, 2020, and awaiting trial. “As he admitted today, Navarro, a licensed trainer and the purported ‘winner’ of races around the world, was in fact a reckless fraudster whose veneer of success relied on the systematic abuse of animals under his control,” the U.S. Attorney said in a statement.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil stated, “Count 1 of the indictment charges the defendant with participation in a conspiracy to commit drug adulteration and misbranding of drugs in violation of federal law. In particular, the government alleges that Mr Navarro administered and directed others, including others working at his direction, to administer non-FDA-approved, misbranded and adulterated drugs, including drugs intended to increase the performance of Thoroughbred racehorses under his custody and care.”

After more than an hour of detailed legal discussions, Vyskocil accepted Navarro’s guilty plea. She said sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of up to five years, with a requirement that at least 85 percent of the eventual sentence be served, followed by three years of probation. 

Speaking with Vyskocil, Navarro confirmed that he was guilty of illegal actions. Navarro further stated that drugs he used on his horses included blood-building substances, vasodilators, ‘bleeder’ pills, and other substances.

This presumably would appear to have complicated the situation for another defendant, trainer Jason Servis. 

Cause for optimism

During the previous two weeks, Servis’s attorneys had asked the court to suppress a number of wiretaps that the FBI had undertaken, including a number of conversations with Navarro. I am not a lawyer, but given Navarro’s change to a guilty plea and acceptance of the penalty, it would seem that Servis’s request to suppress some of the tapes might be in jeopardy.

This illustrates how important will be the activities of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) Board and its two standing committees, the Racetrack Safety Standing Committee and the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Standing Committee, and the good news is that there is cause for optimism in that direction, judging by the messages from two speakers in particular at the Round Table.

Charles Scheeler, who has been selected as Chairman of the HISA Board of Directors, and Dr Tessa Muir, Director of the Equine Program at USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency), delivered brilliant addresses.

I won’t go into details here - instead I implore you to watch both their speeches in the YouTube video below. Dr Muir starts at 1:21.53; Schuyler starts at 1:31.06.

Scheeler is a retired partner at DLA Piper. His impressive background includes serving as lead counsel to former U.S. Senator George Mitchell in connection with his independent investigation of performance-enhancing substances in Major League Baseball (the Mitchell Report). He also served as the monitor of the Pennsylvania State University investigation relating to compliance with its obligations under the Athletic Integrity Agreement with the NCAA and the Big Ten. 

In addition, Scheeler led an investigation by an independent commission examining health and safety practices within the University of Maryland football program.

Dr Muir joined USADA in April 2021. Her role as head of the equine program will see her as part of the team responsible for establishing and implementing a national equine anti-doping program in the United States under HISA, which comes into effect from July 1, 2022.

Dr Muir has an impressive resume and has worked in veterinary management positions in both Britain and Australia. She spent six years in a solely veterinary role and then as an anti-doping manager. 

She is perfect for this new USADA role as I do not believe there has been any executive at a racetrack or in a state regulatory role here in the U.S. with the title of anti-doping manager. No executive in the U.S. wants to acknowledge that there is any doping going on in U.S. racing.

Most recently, Muir worked as a regulatory veterinarian at Racing Victoria in Australia, responsible for inputting into the equine anti-doping program and development of the paperless sampling system.

Despite the jail sentences and fines received by the first six of the 28 indicted in March 2020, I do believe there is serious doping still going on at every level of U.S. racing today.

Next, here is a review of the top 25 leading U.S. trainers by wins for 2019 and 2020 (ranked by total earnings).

2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly, the two trainers with the highest win percentages in 2019 were Jason Servis (29%) and Jorge Navarro (28%)

In that year, of the top 25 purse-earners, 14 of the 25 trainers had better than a 19% win percentage. In 2020, 15 of the top 25 were better than 19%.

In the modern era, since full trainer stats have been compiled, 31 trainers have been voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Of those, only seven had a lifetime winning percentage above 20 at the time they were inducted.

They were, in descending order:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few random names of Hall of Famers that jump out at me with career winning percentage include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of thoughts:

  • It appears to be relatively easy to maintain a 20-plus win percentage with the current high purse structure, which tends to result in fewer starts per year.

  • Despite the indictments of Servis, Navarro et al, there may be a continuing use of clenbuterol, as well as continued EPO use - the drug is a performance-enhancer and cannot be detected in a post-race test.

  • Micro-dosing of certain drugs can also enhance performance without detection in a post-race test.

In a 2013 article in the Horsemen’s Journal entitled Out-of-competition testing: Coming to a barn or training center near you, Peter Sacapoulous wrote, 

“Out-of-competition testing aims to detect prohibited substances, primarily blood-doping agents, that are not detectable in post-race tests and that are specifically identified and prohibited by regulation and/or rules. Many of the substances targeted by out-of-competition testing are detectable for only a short period of time after being administered to the horse. 

“In short, a horse administered a blood-doping agent prior to raceday may test negative in a regular post-race test but may have received the potentially positive race performance effect of the prohibited substance.”

Brilliantly structured

On a related topic, the United States has one of the lowest out-of-competition testing rates of any Thoroughbred racing country - currently less than two percent of its testing is out of competition. 

With USADA coming on board to run the U.S. medication testing and penalty management, hopefully the whole testing process will become far more effective, and the tens of thousands of dollars most states spend on testing without any real success in catching cheaters will reduce considerably.

HISA has been brilliantly structured with an effective board with a proven, experienced chairman, two strong standing committees on Medication and Testing and Racetrack Safety and USADA to run its medication testing and enforcement. 

It will be a challenging ten-month test for U.S. racing before HISA and USADA take over the management of the critical elements in Thoroughbred racing.

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