Department of Justice

A federal judge has denied a motion for a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit designed to keep the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) rules from going into effect. The order, dated June 30 but posted to the court docket on the morning of July 1, the effective date for HISA's implementation, was handed down in the aftermath of a 35-minute Thursday afternoon conference call that was hastily arranged at the urgent request of lead plaintiffs from the states of Louisiana and West Virginia in their suit against HISA...

A federal judge on Thursday opted not to immediately grant the "expedited consideration" restraining order or injunction that opponents of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) alleged was needed to stave off the "irreparable harm" from "illegal rules" that are set to go into effect at midnight Friday. But within several hours of learning June 30 that Judge Terry Doughty of U.S. District Court (Western District of Louisiana) had given HISA and other defendants two weeks to file a response to the restraining order motion, the lead plaintiffs from...

Now that the barred Thoroughbred trainer Jorge Navarro has admitted in open court that he doped racehorses and procured performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs] for others between 2016 and 2020, the industry has a $25,860,514 question to kick around between now and when "The Juice Man" gets sentenced Dec. 17. Beyond Navarro's potential five-year prison term and possible deportation back to his native Panama, the 46-year-old conditioner also must pay restitution to victims in that astronomical amount as per the stipulations of his plea bargain. Although it is unclear exactly how federal...

Harness trainer Richard Banca has become the 28th person identified in the horse doping scandal that yielded indictments against some of the biggest names in Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing. Banca's name was not among those listed when indictments were announced Monday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. He was arrested Monday and released after posting a $200,000 personal recognizance bond. That another name has surfaced fuels speculation that the investigation launched by the FBI and the Department of Justice will yield more names, perhaps...

Trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis have both racked up well-above-norm winning ratios of 29% since 2017, and no Thoroughbred horseman in this day and age can sustain such gaudy numbers without inviting allegations of cheating via illegal horse doping. Monday, those suspicions exploded beyond the boundaries of our sport when four unsealed federal indictments implicated 27 individuals in a "widespread, corrupt scheme" dating to at least 2017 that centers on Navarro, Servis, and a vast network of co-conspirators who allegedly manufactured, mislabeled, rebranded, distributed and administered performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)...

Seven trainers, including two of the biggest names in the sport in Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, are among 27 individuals indicted for doping horses. The scheme involves Eclipse Award winner Maximum Security (New Year's Day), G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen winner X Y Jet (Kantharos), exotic drugs you've never heard of and the killing of horses to hide the evidence. It does not get any uglier. With this, coming on top of the breakdowns and fatalities at Santa Anita, many were left to wonder if the sport can survive another...