California trainer

Eddie Truman, a trainer as renowned for his patience with the Thoroughbred as for a perennially genial disposition, has passed at the age of 77. "A great horseman and an even greater individual," said veteran trainer Gary Stute. "I never heard him say a bad word about anybody--anybody--and on the racetrack, that's few and far," Stute added. "Once you met him, you stayed friends with him. The ultimate honest good person." Over a career spanning nearly 50 years, Truman trained 763 winners and collected $15.7 million in earnings. He had...

Defending itself in a constitutionality lawsuit initiated by the trainer Jonathan Wong, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority on Friday told a federal judge in Louisiana that the court should either toss out Wong's case entirely or hold off on letting the litigation proceed while the Supreme Court of the United States decides whether it will take on one of three active requests stemming from different cases whose parties all want the nation's highest court to weigh in on similar constitutional issues Wong raises in his lower-court lawsuit. In a...

Trainer Jeff Mullins has been suspended 30 days and fined $1,500 as the result of a "settlement agreement and mutual release" with the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) to adjudicate a clenbuterol positive triggered by one of his winning trainees at Del Mar last summer. The conditions of the agreement call for Mullins to serve 15 days of the suspension, with the remaining 15 days conditionally stayed. The stewards' ruling, dated Jan. 7, stated that Mullins is "placed on probation for ONE YEAR from the date of this ruling and...

Statistically speaking, Northern Rose (Northern Causeway), a 6-year-old chestnut mare with a 4-for-32 claiming-level record, was hardly the star of the stable for trainer Duane Offield, who died Sept. 29 after a long fight with cancer. But the 82-year-old conditioner took an outsized shine to her anyway. A homebred for one of his most dedicated clients, Northern Rose had been in Offield's care since she began her career 3 1/2 years ago, and she enjoyed a prime stall under Offield's Golden Gate Fields shedrow, not far from his office so...

Longtime Northern California trainer Duane Offield passed away on Thursday after a lengthy illness. He was 82-years-old. Offield began his training career in 1976 and saddled 721 winners from 8,038 starters, with lifetime purse earnings of $10,009,202. His most significant win came in the 1990 GI Haskell Invitational S. at Monmouth Park with Restless Con. Services are pending. "Our racing community here at Golden Gate will greatly miss Duane Offield," said Golden Gate Fields Vice President and General Manager David Duggan. "Duane was a soft-spoken man who simply loved coming...