drugs

The Anti-Doping and Medication Control Standing Committee (ADMC) of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority ("HISA") has re-considered the Intra-Articular injection rule and has issued new guidance regarding its enforcement. HISA ADMC Rule 4222 prohibits Intra-Articular injections on Race Day, within 14 days prior to Post-Time and within seven days prior to any Timed and Reported Workout. Effective July 16, 2023, the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) will sanction the Responsible Person of any Covered Horse that violates the prohibition on Intra-Articular injections within 7 days prior to a...

Federal prosecutors told a judge Friday that convicted veterinarian Seth Fishman's recent claim of illegality regarding the $13.5 million forfeiture imposed upon him "is predicated on a number of unfounded and easily disprovable presumptions." Fishman, who is currently imprisoned in Florida but appealing his 11-year sentence for two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, had stated in a Sept. 12 filing that the forfeiture order signed by the judge back on July 11 "is not authorized by statute and is therefore unlawful in its entirety." A...

Trainer Penny Pearce has been issued a suspension of 1,950 days and fined $23,500 by the Pennsylvania Racing Commission after six horses under her care tested positive for clenbuterol during out-of-competition tests. The penalties were announced after her barn at Parx was inspected June 22. During the inspection, investigators also found hypodermic needles, syringes and injectable substances. The suspension is scheduled to run from Sept. 11, 2022 through Jan. 12, 2028. The Paulick Report was first with the story and has also reported that Pearce has filed an appeal. Pearce...

Dr. Seth Fishman was not present in a Manhattan court in the final days of his trial involving his role in manufacturing and distributing performance-enhancing drugs, an absence that had gone unexplained for months. But a motion issued Friday by his attorney Maurice H. Sercarz seeking an adjournment of his sentencing answered the question. On February 2, 2022, when the jury returned its verdict convicting Fishman, he was an inpatient in the psychiatric wing at Mt. Sinai Hospital West. Fishman is scheduled to be sentenced Monday. Fishman was originally scheduled...

It may seem like yesterday, but the bombshell that was the announcement that more than two dozen people had been indicted for their alleged role in a horse doping scheme was made exactly two years and two days ago. What has happened to the 29 individuals since the day that shook horse racing to its core? Here's a rundown: Jorge Navarro: Navarro pled guilty to one count of drug alteration and misbranding and was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum allowable sentence. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil was not...

Even up until the final tense moments before a federal judge handed down Scott Mangini's sentence Friday for his role as a licensed pharmacist who created custom drugs for racehorses in an alleged international doping conspiracy, the defense and prosecution sparred over two main issues: 1) How many of those drugs were actually "performance-enhancing," and 2) What should Mangini's sentencing be relative to that of Scott Robinson, who got 18 months in prison for marketing and selling those same pharmaceuticals? Saying that he wanted to "send a message" that would...

Trainer Richard Vega has been hit with a two-year suspension by the Pennsylvania Racing Commission after a May 25 backstretch raid at Parx allegedly turned up a number of needles and syringes in his tack room. Paulick Report was the first to report on Vega's suspension, which was handed down June 29 and does not expire until June 28, 2023. According to a ruling posted on the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission's website, during the search of Vega's tack room investigators found 21 loaded syringes, 18 needles, one intravenous filled bag...

When racing returns to Santa Anita Dec. 26, it does so in a blitzkrieg of high-octane firepower, with races like the GI Malibu S., GI La Brea S. and GI American Oaks luring headline grabbers from across the country. As things go, race three on the card--a $16,000 claimer--is a far less exulted companion to its starrier cousins. But the race contains its own prodigal return...that of Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux after a hiatus from the saddle. Still, it's just the sort of low-key call to arms the...