Archive for the ‘Horse Welfare’ Category

By Ray Paulick
UPDATED FRIDAY, 3 P.M. 
The two horses mentioned in the story below have been scratched. Click here for details.

Two horses that previously raced for the Paraneck Stable managed by Ernie Paragallo, who was recently charged with 22 criminal counts of animal cruelty at his Center Brook Farm in upstate New York, have been entered to race at Delaware Park on Monday under the name Nob Hill Stable.

Paragallo and Paraneck Stable are being investigated by the New York State Racing and Wagering Board (SRWB) and its horses are banned from racing at New York Racing Association tracks until a new authorized agent is named to run the stable. Paraneck is listed with the SRWB as being owned by Jennifer and Kristin Paragallo, Ernie Paragallo’s daughters. Paragallo had his owner’s license revoked by the SRWB in 2005 because of financial irresponsibility but he was allowed to retain a license as authorized agent to the stable. NYRA is insisting Paraneck retain a new agent who is not related to the Paragallos in any way or has been an employee of the operation. Paraneck has been a leading owner at New York tracks for more than a decade.

The Paulick Report has learned that Robert Savitsky, a Melville, N.Y., attorney, has applied with the SRWB to be the authorized agent for Nob Hill Stable.

John Wayne, executive director of the Delaware Racing Commission, said there is “100% reciprocity” in Delaware regarding the New York ban on Paraneck horses and said his office is currently investigating whether or not NYRA’s requirements have been met.

Wayne said he began looking into the matter Wednesday when he first saw the entries for Monday’s racing program at Delaware Park. The Nob Hill Stable name listed as owner of the two horses, Another Hades and Pink Viper, is spelled differently than the Knob Hill Stable founded by the late Steve Stavro of Canada. Kristin and Jennifer Paragallo are listed as owners of Nob Hill Stable. Paraneck’s private trainer, John P. Campo Jr., is listed as trainer. (Note: Daily Racing Form past performances spell the owner’s name Knob Hill Stable.)

“Before anyone would be permitted to race horses whose connections have had a previous problem," Wayne said, "the owner and trainer in their application would have to file a sworn statement saying that they have no connection with the former connections of the horse. Those statements have to be notarized and signed under a threat of perjury. Once that affidavit comes back to me, I’ll review it and have it looked at by an investigator.”

Wayne said it was his understanding that no new authorized agent has been approved for Paraneck in New York. “As far as I know, there’s an application filed with the (New York) wagering board and I don’t think that process has been completed.” 

"An application has been filed which has not been acted on," SRWB spokesman Joseph Mahoney said, though he would not confirm Savitsky as the applicant. "It is being reviewed. We have a subpoena out for certain records involving the financial affairs of Mr. Paragallo, Center Brook Farm, and Paraneck Stable, trying to find out if he was the actual owner of the horses when he was only licensed as an authorized agent. We are also looking at questions involving what the daughters’ role has been with Paraneck. It is an intensive investigation. But we have certainly not acted on the application or approved it."

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
Some Thoroughbred trainers and veterinarians are giving new meaning to the term “happy hour.” This isn’t the typical late-afternoon or early evening sessions when drinks are discounted at local watering holes but the time, usually two or three hours before a horse race, when an injection (normally 60 cc’s) or oral dose of alcohol—often vodka—may be administered to a Thoroughbred to calm him down.

This alleged practice, which is prohibited as a Class 2 violation in the classifications of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, made headlines a couple of years ago when a racetrack veterinarian in Nebraska was charged in a criminal case with injecting alcohol in horses with the purpose of affecting the outcome of a race. Those charges were eventually dropped when witnesses couldn’t be located for the trial.

Things got quiet on the alcohol in horses front until last fall, when three trainers at Turf Paradise had horses test positive for ethyl glucuronide, a metabolite of ethanol. Ethanol is the alcohol in beer, wine and hard liquor.

One of the horsemen was Keith Bennett, a former leading trainer at the Phoenix, Ariz., track, who is currently second in the standings with 64 wins from 198 starts, a healthy win percentage of 32%. A second is Justin Evans, who is third in the current standings with 37 wins from 113 starts, a 33% win percentage. The third is E. Mark Welch, with nine wins in 82, an 11% win percentage.

Evans had three horses test positive for ethyl glucuronide positives in a 12-day period between Oct. 31-Nov. 11, 2008. The chief veterinarian for the Arizona Department of Racing ordered tests for the substance in late October 2008. A search of Evans’ barn uncovered six or seven 7.5-liter bottles of vodka in a file cabinet. Evans said in a hearing that he used the vodka as an “old trainer’s remedy,” soaking a pad in the alcohol and using under leg wraps on all of his horses.

The testing was conducted by Industrial Laboratories. Tests for ethyl glucuronide had only been developed a few years earlier by the University of Pennsylvania and had not been widely available until recently, an employee of Industrial Laboratories told the Arizona Department of Racing.

As a result of the multiple positives, stewards ruled that Evans should be suspended a total of 18 months. He was also fined $3,150 and the owners were stripped of purse winnings. Evans appealed, and an administrative law judge reduced the suspension to 120 days. Click here to read the adminstrative judge’s ruling.

According to sources, Turf Paradise officials exercised their right to exclude trainer Evans from the premises, though he was told he could apply for stall space in the future. He is currently stabled at Lone Star Park in Texas, where he won with one of his first four starters of the recently opened meeting, with two third-place finishes.

Another trainer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Paulick Report alcohol is also being used in connection with so-called milkshakes, which contain baking soda and electrolytes and are designed to reduce the lactic acid buildup that causes fatigue. The concoction is mixed together as a paste, the trainer said, and can be administered through a dose syringe, though it is more effective when given through a tube into the horse’s stomach.

“You’re getting them carbohydrates at the top of the lane where some horses are running out of gas,” the trainer said. “I tried it, and believe me, it works. But I quit doing it because I couldn’t afford to get caught.”

Scot Waterman, executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, said he is skeptical about the effectiveness of alcohol in milkshakes. It’s his understanding the substance is given to calm horses, not to increase carbohydrates. But he said the use of alcohol in horses has “always been in the rumor mill,” and is something the RMTC takes very seriously. The organization funded a study several years ago to develop the most effective detection methods for ethanol using blood and urine tests and even experimenting with a breathalyzer. “It’s easier to detect when given orally (than intravenously),” Waterman said. “The absorption is slower.”

Turf Paradise steward Ismael Trejo said backstretch security has been employed as an adjunct to testing in hopes of acting as a deterrent to trainer who might otherwise consider giving alcohol or other banned substances to their horses. “We put state investigators on trainers’ barns and have had investigators shadow private veterinary practitioners,” he said. “Maybe we won’t catch them, but we hope we can stop them. The fear of getting caught can be the best deterrent.”

“We do catch cheaters,” said Eugene Joyce, general manager of Turf Paradise. “It might be painful to read the headlines, but we do catch them. We want trainers and $2 bettors to have confidence in the game and to make people believe it’s being contested on a level playing field.”

There are concerns in Arizona and other racing jurisdictions that budget cuts by state government will lead to fewer post-race tests and reduced personnel for backstretch security and investigations. And security is a key to deterrence, said Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the California Horse Racing Board.

“Our security has been specifically alerted to watch for this type of thing (administration of alcohol),” he said. “Investigators know to watch for it, and this is one of the reasons we are adamant about our ‘water only’ rules on raceday. If it’s not water, the investigators can tell the difference.”

Arthur said some “old-time trainers” will say they used to dose horses with alcohol “somewhere in the neighborhood of four ounces. It is something we are concerned with, something we watch for.”

The CHRB regularly confiscates and tests syringes used by veterinarians to ensure raceday injections are Lasix only, Arthur said. “When we confiscate one syringe, everyone on the racetrack knows about it an hour later," the former racetrack practitioner and surgeon said. "If somebody wants to bend the rules, I don’t want them to be comfortable doing it. That’s why we do barn inspections, vet vehicle inspections, to make people say, ‘Hey, this isn’t worth it.’

“We have no problem prosecuting people we catch, but the goal of our program is to stop people from anything illegally.”

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
Ernie Paragallo may or may not have financial problems in his private life. But he very likely has a legal problem, stemming from the reported discovery on his upstate New York farm of horses that were not being fed or cared for properly or humanely. Police in New York on Wednesday took control of Center Brook Farm and its 170-plus equine occupants.

In one published report, Paragallo claims to be spending $5,000 per week on feed for the horses on his farm. That sounds like a lot of money to many of us, but Paragallo has played at the top end of the racing and breeding world. One of his racing stable’s former stars, Unbridled’s Song, winner of the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 1995, has been an extremely successful stallion, standing as the property of a syndicate at Taylor Made Farm in Kentucky.

Unbridled’s Song is the sire of two of this year’s leading Kentucky Derby contenders, Old Fashioned and Dunkirk.

According to sources, Paragallo owns as many as 20 of the 40 shares in Unbridled’s Song, whose 2009 live foal stud fee is $125,000 (down from $150,000 in 2008, and $200,000 in 2007). Each of those shares leads to roughly two live foals per year, meaning that if Paragallo owns 20 shares he will get $5 million or more in revenue in stud fees from Unbridled’s Song when this breeding season’s foals are born in 2010 (20 shares=40 foals, times $125,000 stud fee). Over a three-year period (factoring in the higher fees from 2007-08), Paragallo’s revenue from Unbridled’s Song could approach $20 million.

Yes, he certainly can afford to feed and provide proper veterinary care for his horses.

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By Ray Paulick
Something is rotten in the state of New York, and it involves the licensing of Thoroughbred owners.

Back in July of 2005, the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, which oversees licensing and the rules and regulations of pari-mutuel racing in the Empire State, revoked the owner’s license of Ernie Paragallo for financial irresponsibility. The wealthy New Yorker who in 1996 raced the Kentucky Derby favorite and now leading stallion Unbridled’s Song owed money (reportedly $18,000) to the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton equine hospital, apparently for veterinary work done on one or more of his Thoroughbreds.

But that ruling didn’t appear to slow Paragallo down, whose horses race in the name of Paraneck Stable. Paragallo’s daughters, Jennifer and Kristen, are licensed in New York as the “owners” of Paraneck Stable, which is among the leading owners in New York. Ernie Paragallo is licensed by the SRWB as an “authorized agent.” When I spoke with Paragallo last week about the mares from his Center Brook Farm that were found in a lice infested and malnourished condition at a New York livestock auction’s kill pen, he said he “runs” the stable as an employee of his daughters.

Why, then, does the New York Racing Association’s media guide list Ernie Paragallo’s biography as the owner of Paraneck Stable and everyone associate Ernie as the voice and face of Paraneck? Is this one of those wink-wink nod-nod things where the rules are made to be broken, or least overlooked?

“If I wanted to be licensed I’d have to prove to the board that I’ve satisfied the bill,” Paragallo said.

The University of Pennsylvania isn’t the only business that had to go to extremes to collect money owed by Paragallo. When the SRWB revoked his license, he reportedly owed $500,000 to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. That bill was said to be paid.

I can say from personal experience that Paragallo (or a business entity he controlled) wasn’t quick to pay for advertising invoices to at least one Thoroughbred trade magazine , either. On at least one occasion, a publication I was affiliated with was forced to hire an attorney and threaten to take legal action to collect money owed on advertising for Paragallo’s stallions.

I wonder if other businesses have had similar problems.

Five years ago, in July 2004, Paragallo announced he was going to sell all of his racing and breeding stock by the end of that year because of unspecified health problems. It’s a shame he didn’t.

Now I know that I’m going to be castigated for that statement by some people in the industry who will be quick to point out all the good things Ernie Paragallo has done: the $1 million given to the NTRA Charities New York Heroes Fund in 2001, the seasons to Unbridled’s Song and other stallions he has donated to charities, and the money he spends in the industry.

Racing does need Thoroughbred owners, and it needs more owners than it currently has. But it needs owners who act responsibly regarding the care and treatment of their horses. Based on what I’ve learned about the horses under Paragallo’s care, at least those at his Center Brook Farm, I don’t believe he fits into that category.

Of course, Paragallo isn’t even licensed as an owner, is he?

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By Ray Paulick
Alex Waldrop is a good soldier who reminds me of Hiroo Onoda, the World War II legend who in 1944 was sent to Lubang island in the Philippines and told by his Japanese superiors to wage guerrilla warfare against the allied forces and to never give up. Along with a few others who survived a 1945 invasion by American soldiers, Onoda conducted operations from a base in the mountains of the island, even after leaflets were dropped saying the war had ended. Letters from loved ones begged Onoda to come home, but even after his fellow holdouts left him or died, Onoda carried out the orders given him.

It wasn’t until his one-time commanding officer flew to Lubang in 1974 that Onoda gave up the fight.

Waldrop, in his capacity as CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Associations, hasn’t fought as long as Hiroo Onoda did, but someone needs to tell him the war is over. The NTRA has about the same relevance and power as the Japanese Imperial Army did after the end of World War II.

It’s not Waldrop’s fault. He came into an untenable situation in December 2006 when the unraveling of the NTRA and Breeders’ Cup relationship was complete and the NTRA was left with little money and even less authority to carry out a mission to be the “league office” for horse racing. An organization that began in 1998 with high hopes and lofty goals of organizing and marketing a dysfunctional business that lacked structure, coordination and a strong central authority — the hallmarks of success for other sports — was, by 2006, a pale shadow of its former self.

What survived of the NTRA after its divorce from the Breeders’ Cup in 2006 was an understaffed press office and an industry lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., and not much more. Illusions of marketing grandeur or meaningful changes in how the sport was structured were gone like the budget the NTRA once had.

Eighteen months into Waldrop’s tenure at the NTRA, the Thoroughbred industry had a serious implosion. The filly Eight Belles died after the finish of the Kentucky Derby with millions watching on television in horror. Compounding the problem, Rick Dutrow, the trainer of Derby winner Big Brown, revealed one of our sport’s dirty little secrets, that anabolic steroids were in rampant use and, shockingly to many people, were perfectly legal. The public outcry was enormous, and the NTRA was ill-equipped to deal with it, because it lacked the authority to speak for the industry over which it had little control.

When hints of a Congressional inquiry surfaced, there was a scramble to react. The industry did what it always does: form committees and make recommendations. Foremost among those was a decision by Waldrop and the NTRA board of directors to create a new entity, the Safety and Integrity Alliance, which drafted an ambitious code of standards on a variety of safety and welfare issues for horses and jockeys. It was and is an admirable document, however meaningless it mostly likely will turn out to be.

Tracks that comply with the code of standards will be accredited by the alliance, sort of a “good horsekeeping seal of approval” that a track owner can frame and hang on his wall. And what about tracks that don’t comply? Well, they’ll have a little extra wall space. That’s the carrot and stick that Waldrop is armed with.

It goes back to something said during the Congressional inquiry held last June, when members of the House of Representatives repeatedly pointed out to Thoroughbred industry leaders how important it was for them to get their act together and establish a meaningful central authority unless they wanted the federal government to do it for them. After Alan Marzelli, the president of the Jockey Club, testified about some of the safety recommendations his organization was making to the industry, he was asked how the Jockey Club intended to have its recommendations adopted.

Marzelli’s response: “We believe in the power of persuasion.”

The power of persuasion (aka, committee recommendations) is what has kept this industry from realizing its potential as a major league sport. The harmless carrot and stick that Waldrop now carries in his briefcase is about as powerful as the army that Hiroo Onoda commanded on Lubana island for all those years after World War II.

Onoda survived, which I’m afraid is about all Waldrop and the NTRA and the rest of the racing industry can do with our current structure (or lack thereof). Maybe, just maybe, if enough tracks comply with the Safety and Integrity Alliance’s code of standards, we can stop the bleeding that’s been going on for some time, long before Eight Belles took her last breath or Rick Dutrow uttered his last insult. But stopping the bleeding is not a cure for what ails us.

What we have isn’t working. What we need are fewer organizations and fewer committees, more followers and fewer (but stronger) leaders. Why, someone pointed out to me the other day, do we need separate organizations like the NTRA, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, the Jockey Club, the Breeders’ Cup, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and so many others? He answered his own question: because none of those groups is willing to cede authority and lose whatever little fiefdom they control.

Waldrop keeps fighting, seemingly against all odds. When racing’s obvious problems were brought up twice recently in the New York Times, first by sports columnist William Rhoden and then by turf writer Joe Drape, Waldrop fired back in a blog at the NTRA’s web site, defending the Safety and Integrity Alliance and pointing out progress that had been made since the death of Eight Belles. He even tried to incite an angry mob to join his army and attack the messengers at the New York Times for the audacity of their observations.

It was rather pitiful. I’m not sure that Waldrop, like Hiroo Onoda, is much more than an army of one.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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