racehorse doping

A staff report from the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) was issued today providing "data and a programmatic analysis HISA Programs after its first year," with the conclusion that HISA has done little to deter the doping of racehorses or effect the catastrophic breakdown rate, according to a press release from the ARCI. HISA responded to the report, saying it was "riddled with factual inaccuracies and mischaracterizations." ARCI claims that after one year of being responsible for equine and racetrack safety in thoroughbred racing and six months responsibility for anti-doping...

Two assistants to a pair of already-convicted Standardbred trainers in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy scandal avoided prison terms beyond their time already served on Wednesday when a judge in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) sentenced them each to two years of supervised release and joint responsibility for monetary penalties. Both had cooperated with authorities in obtaining the convictions of others in the network, according to court documents. Conor Flynn, who worked for the former trainer Richard Banca, pleaded guilty to one felony count of drug...

Gary and Mary West have released a statement saying that they will support a redistribution of the purse of the $20 million Saudi Cup. The statement was made via the Twitter account of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, of which the Wests are longtime clients. Maximum Security won the $20 million Saudi Cup in 2020, just days before Jason Servis was named in a criminal indictment along with 26 others for a "widespread, corrupt scheme by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, PED distributors and others to manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs...

Lisa Giannelli, who was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison Sept. 8 after being found guilty of peddling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs as a years-long protégé under the recently convicted drug-dealing veterinarian Seth Fishman, filed a formal notice of appeal for both her conviction and sentence in federal court Sept. 21. Giannelli, 56, of Dalton, Delaware, was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and to forfeit $900,000. "This was not a one-time thing," Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) said at...

Since the FBI announced in 2020 that their years-long federal investigation into cheating allegations in horse racing had caught admitted "doper" Jorge Navarro, suspected "doper" Jason Servis and a host of other co-conspirators, the lines separating these criminals and most of the rest of the industry's participants with largely minor legal drug positives have been significantly blurred. Fast forward to the 2021 Kentucky Derby, a full 14 months after Navarro and Servis were arrested and charged with federal conspiracy charges related to drugging of their horses, social media erupted with...

Jordan Fishman, the Massachusetts-based drug formulator who made the illicit substances that were then injected into racehorses by the likes of convicted horse doper Jorge Navarro and the accused doper Jason Servis, got sentenced to 15 months in federal prison Tuesday for his role in the international drugging conspiracy. Back in October, Fishman, 64, had pleaded guilty to one count of adulteration and misbranding of purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). He faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Instead, Judge Mary Kay...

The government has recommended a three-year prison sentence for Kristian Rhein, the veterinarian embroiled in the MediVet Equine practice that marketed and sold "an adulterated and misbranded performance-enhancing drug," they revealed in papers filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Rhein was one of 27 people charged in a widespread doping scheme of Thoroughbred racehorses on Mar. 9, 2020 that included trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro. United States Attorney Damian Williams, in papers filed with Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in her court in the Southern District of New York, wrote,...

Jim Bolger is not expected to attend the parliamentary hearing he was invited to to discuss doping in Irish racing. Bolger made headlines last autumn and again this spring when describing the use of performance-enhancing substances as the "number-one problem" in Irish racing and saying "there will be a Lance Armstrong in Irish racing." Bolger was invited to the agriculture committee hearing alongside representatives of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, Horse Racing Ireland, the Department of Agriculture and the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, but Racing Post reports that a government...