Trainers Jason Servis (left) and Jorge Navarro pleaded not guilty to federal charges of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy
As some former runners from the barns of indicted trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis prepare to return to the races, officials in New York are taking a look not just at the results of drug testing, but at those horses’ veterinary records.
The New York State Gaming Commission has sought information for 54 Thoroughbreds and ordered hair testing be performed on those horses before they may return to competition. The New York Drug Testing and Research Program at SUNY-Morrisville is performing the majority of the hair testing, while the Kenneth L. Maddy Lab at University of California-Davis is also pitching in.
Preliminary hair testing data has been completed for 43 of those horses. A spokesman declined to reveal preliminary findings “until our full review has been completed.”
During a video conference held last week as part of the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, Dr. Scott Palmer revealed that the results of those hair tests will be compared to the veterinary records that New York trainers and veterinarians are required to maintain.
“We are compiling a large number of test results on these horses and at the same time we are asking — well, we’re actually requiring; we ask, and if they don’t comply we’re subpoenaing them, but to be polite about it, we ask — these owners to provide the medical record of these horses from December 2019 through the day they had their hair test done,” said Palmer, who is the equine medical director for the New York commission.
Panelists agreed that it’s difficult to enforce rules that dictate accuracy of the daily treatment sheets veterinarians may be required to turn in to commissions, or the records trainers are required to keep on a horse’s medication history. Palmer pointed out, however, that if those records are not accurate or not consistently maintained, it can catch up to horsemen and veterinarians — as it could in this case.
“If everything lines up then we have no problems whatsoever, but if we have evidence of a prescription drug in a horse and there is no prescription or there is no medical record the veterinarian even gave the drug then that represents an area of exposure for that trainer for regulatory action,” said Palmer.
Navarro and Servis, alongside more than two dozen other defendants, have pleaded not guilty to charges of drug adulteration and misbranding in connection with what the FBI said was a complex network designed to dope racehorses. All of the individuals on the federal indictments from March 2020 who held parimutuel licenses have had them suspended in at least one jurisdiction.
Federal documents relayed at least one conversation between Servis and veterinarian Dr. Kristian Rhein in which Rhein assured Servis that SGF-1000, which is described as a performance-enhancing drug, will not test in the United States and that if anything, could appear as a false positive for “dex” in drug tests. Servis is subsequently alleged to have asked Rhein to alter veterinary records for top runner Maximum Security to make it appear as though the horse received dex and not SGF-1000.
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