Timothy Kreiser

Two odds-on favorites who won their respective races by 15 1/2 and 7 1/2 lengths at Charles Town Sept. 17 have subsequently been disqualified after both tested positive for the widely abused-in-humans synthetic opioid fentanyl and eutylone, the street-drug stimulant known as "bath salts." The Charles Town board of stewards, however, is citing "substantial mitigating factors" and terming both "trace level" cases as "environmental contamination" that will spare both horses' trainers from steep Class 1, Category A penalties. The explanation, according to a pair of West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC)...