Under questioning by an attorney representing Rodney Stewart, the veterinarian appealing a five-year suspension for his possession of cobra venom and other banned substances at Keeneland in June 2007, John Veitch, chief steward for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and a retired Hall of Fame trainer, admitted that his racing star Alydar was treated with cobra venom after suffering an injury in September of his 3-year-old season.

Technically, cobra venom, a powerful blocking agent, is not an illegal substance. It is not approved for use in humans or animals by the FDA and is prohibited in most racing jurisdictions, including Kentucky, which classifies it as a "Class A" drug, one that can be abused as an illegal performance enhancing substance.

Attorneys for Rodney Stewart, the veterinarian suspended for five years by Kentucky racing authorities in the 2007 “cobra venom” case that also implicated trainer Patrick Biancone, said in opening statements in an appellate hearing on Wednesday morning the suspension against their client was excessive and should be lifted.

Mike Meuser and Karen Murphy are representing Stewart, who received a four-year ban for possession of prohibited substances and a one-year suspension for failure to cooperate in the investigation. The appeal is being heard by Bob Layton, a hearing officer for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, which is represented by attorney Bob Watt.

Click here to see the original ruling.

In his opening statements, Meuser said Stewart had no intention of using the prohibited substances found in a refrigerator and packed in a soft-sided cooler in one of three barns Biancone occupied and that they had been packed by Stewart’s wife in preparation for the couple’s move to New York. In fact, Meuser contended, Stewart wasn’t even aware of the cooler’s contents, which the attorney said were placed in the refrigerator because it was a “hot June day.”

Meuser said, the three vials of prohibited cobra toxin found in the bag were still shrink-wrapped. Another prohibited substance found, Carbidopa-Levodopa (a human drug to treat Parkinson’s disease), was still in its original container, Meuser said, and its usage date had expired. “There is no evidence there was any attempted use of any of these substances,” said Meuser, who added that the cooler also contained rabies vaccines for dogs and cats.

Watt, in his statement, said the cobra venom, a powerful painkiller, had been purchased from BioToxins, a Florida-based company that specialized in snake venom. Watt referred to other substances discovered in the June 22, 2007, barn searches conducted by investigators with the racing commission (then known as the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority) and Keeneland security, including Ketoconazole, “something called Throat RX, and one injectable honey colored solution marked ‘For Mythical Elmo.’”

Meuser did not address the latter substances in his opening statement.

Watt said Stewart and his attorneys failed to properly respond to requests that were made to Stewart for billing and computer records, which resulted in the one-year suspension for failure to cooperate. Murphy countered that the ban should be lifted because the commission failed to give Stewart a hearing within 48 hours of a request for a stay of the suspension. She also complained that the request for a home computer was unreasonable and that the commission “was fishing for further violations,” even going so far, she said, as conducting tests in Hong Kong.

Biancone, who recently returned to training in California, was out of racing about one year, accepting a six-month suspension and agreeing not to apply for his trainer’s license for another six months.

A number of witnesses are being called in the case. Layton is expected to make a ruling within 60 days of the completion of the hearing.

To read about some of the testimony in the hearing, click here.

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“How do you corral 30,000 horses, having taken them off the range where they lived, and just say ‘night night’?” asked Madeleine Pickens, the animal-loving wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens and better known in Thoroughbred racing circles as the former Madeleine Paulson, who with her late husband, Allen Paulson, developed one of the most successful Thoroughbred breeding and racing operations of the 1980s and ‘90s. Allen Paulson died in 2000, and she remarried in 2005.

In recent years, Madeleine Pickens has spent sleepless nights agonizing over the plight of the American West’s wild mustangs, which have been rounded up and held in pens in increasing numbers over the last eight years by cowboys hired by the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management after complaints from cattlemen that the horses were depleting grazing areas. As federal funding for the wild horses was squeezed and the number of people interested in adopting them declined, BLM officials were faced with an unpleasant option: allow the horses to be sent to slaughterhouses or perform mass euthanasia.

The story of these wild horses – “America’s animal” she calls them – hit Madeleine Pickens’ radar screen at a time when she was putting considerable personal resources of time and money into efforts to end the slaughter of all horses. She studied the issue, then hired a polling company to gauge public opinion on the slaughter of horses for human consumption, finding out that seven in 10 Americans oppose the practice. She then paid for anti-slaughter advertisements in the New York Times, lobbied members of Congress and worked with other groups and individuals. Ultimately, however, those efforts ended in frustration because, she said, the pro-slaughter lobby, assisted by the cattle industry, was simply too entrenched with Washington, D.C., powerbrokers. Anti-slaughter bills passed by the U.S House of Representatives were stopped in the Senate. And she was outraged that so many Thoroughbred industry leaders failed to help.

“I would lay in bed, crying, and say, ‘How can we stop this? What can I do?” she told the Paulick Report. “I’m not a religious person, but a spiritual one, and I swear to God that I prayed for an answer.”

One night, she said, the answer came to her. “Why not buy a ranch and give every horse a home?”

Pickens’ plan for a horse sanctuary would be similar to how cattlemen got access to millions of acres of federal land, she said. “This is how the cattlemen got going,” she said. “They got the BLM land attached to their ranches with sweetheart deals. They pay a very low lease for it, and most aren’t even using the land now.”

Pickens has a private foundation in the formative stages, a key to which will be tax credits for donors, she told the Washington Post. She met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, where half of the wild horses are held. Pickens isn’t prepared to say how much she needs to raise for an endowment to make the plan work, but she is confident she will be able to make it happen. She envisions corporate sponsors, campgrounds and cabins for tourists to come and observe the horses. “There is so much support for this right now,” she said. “It’s amazing the number of calls and emails I’ve received from people who want to help or go to work there.” (Click here to see the official Madeleine Pickens Web site.)

She estimated that she will need upwards of a million acres, and is currently in negotiations on three different properties. She took her plan to BLM officials, who leaked the story to the Washington Post, prematurely, in her opinion. “The story got out way too early while I’m working on the land deal,” she said. “The land people may suddenly say, ‘Ohhh, deep pockets,’ and become unreasonable. I’m trying to  be responsible and do the right thing here. I’m very confident that next year this whole thing will be in place.”

Pickens said she felt like someone who’s been trying to walk through quicksand the last couple of years and can’t seem to get out of it. “Nothing was happening, and you can’t believe the idiocy of it all,” she said. “Why do people not get it?”

She grew weary of trying to work for a solution in Congress. “The people in the racehorse industry weren’t on board and we had all those cattlemen against us,” Pickens said. “We really couldn’t win. I give the people who have been fighting this for so long a lot of credit.

“I think this will work because I came up with a private-sector solution rather than trying to put a bill through Washington where politicians could have their way and destroy it. When the bureaucrats do it, it costs too much and doesn’t work. With private individuals, you’re not indebted to every group or compromised by lobbyists.”

Her proposal has been widely applauded, within the BLM and the general public. While her husband, a well-known corporate raider, oilman and philanthropist, has been a highly visible proponent for a plan to make America energy independent, Madeleine Pickens became an overnight celebrity because of her desire to save the horses. The week her plan went public, ABC’s World News Tonight named her “Person of the Week.” Some outside of the horse business remembered her as the heroine (pictured, left) who rescued hundreds of abandoned cats and dogs in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

“I knew people cared, but I was somewhat stunned at the way this story took off like a wildfire,” she said. “It surprised me, but it really shouldn’t have."

A PLACE FOR EX-RACEHORSES, TOO
Pickens said the ranch will not just be a refuge for wild horses. She wants it to be all inclusive for different breeds, and especially ex-Thoroughbred racehorses that often end up unwanted or sold to killer-buyers who send them off for slaughter in Canada or Mexico. There are no remaining horse slaughterhouses in the United States.

“We’re going to have enough land where I don’t know how we can say no to anything,” she said. “It won’t happen overnight. But I want to give the Thoroughbred industry an opportunity to do something here, and to make people feel that they are being responsible for the animals in their sport. I’m going to ask the industry for their support. It’s going to be difficult for the racing industry to change their way of thinking. With this, I hope they can say they have an exit strategy for their horses.”

Pickens is still angry over the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s refusal to support recent anti-slaughter legislation in Congress. She was one of a large number of major industry participants to sign a letter written by owner-breeder Josephine Abercrombie to members of Congress stating their support of anti-slaughter legislation and their disapproval of the NTRA’s position. “The NTRA had to compromise themselves with Goodlatte (Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and now ranking member), who has helped them with gambling legislation but has close ties to the cattle industry,” she said. “By getting behind my proposal, they won’t have to worry about the threat of someone like Goodlatte.”

The Jockey Club is another group that has disappointed Pickens. “They register 35,000 horses a year and they say those horses are worth millions and millions of dollars,” she said. “And they come up with some plan where people can give a few dollars when they register a foal and the Jockey Club says they’ll match up to $200,000 a year. This is the same old b.s. — $200,000 is a peanut. How dare they say this is all they’re going to put into a retirement fund for all the horses who don’t make it. It’s all part of what makes the system not work.

“In every business it’s leadership, and we’ve had horrible leadership in racing. Will Farish (vice chairman of the Jockey Club and owner of Lane’s End Farm, where Pickens retired Grade I winner Rock Hard Ten to stud) can be a good guy. He’s head of this and head of that, and people look up to him. But here’s a man who won’t go against slaughter. Why? Is it because he’s from Houston, where so many of the cattlemen are from?”

Pickens, who said she has withdrawn from the racing business largely because of its inaction on this issue, said she thinks the Thoroughbred industry can learn a great deal from how her proposal has been embraced by the public.

“Racing people can learn that they have a chance to endear the public to them,” she said. “They get a few gamblers here and there, but they are in trouble because they seem to have lost sight of the animal who is the athlete. They have too many fatalities and too many injuries that happen in public on national television. When that happens, it exposes the fact they have no exit strategy for the horses.

“Again, there is no leadership. Those who have been in it for a long time have done nothing to endear people to the business. Now they have an opportunity like the BLM has to try and resolve one of their problems.”

I asked Pickens why she is doing all this, what is driving her to take on a project so big?

She told me of how she emigrated to the United States from Iraq in 1969 because she wanted “to come to a new world and do something with my new country.”

But then she confessed to another reason, something that haunted her when she first learned about the horrors of slaughter: “Maybe it’s because I’m ashamed that I was in the industry for years and never knew there was a slaughterhouse for so many horses at the end of the day. I’m so ashamed I never knew. And people who know about it and aren’t doing anything, they should be ashamed, too.”

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A Franklin County, Kentucky, Circuit Court judge has ruled against a proposed sale of a 20% interest in Horse of the Year Curlin to majority owner Jess Jackson for $4 million.

The ruling by Judge Roger Crittenden came in a hearing on Monday involving the 20% owned by disbarred attorneys Shirley Cunningham and William Gallion, who have been hit with a $42-million judgment in a civil lawsuit involving the fees they charged clients in a class-action lawsuit against  the manufacturer of a diet drug. Cunningham and Gallion also face criminal charges stemming from the case.

The ruling against the sale was not based on the judge’s disapproval of the $4-million appraisal on the 20% interest, but because two parties objected to the sale: Gallion and Cunningham’s attorney, Andre Regard; and the attorney for the class-action plaintiffs, Angela Ford.

The judge’s decision effectively ends a lengthy legal battle involving Jackson’s Stonestreet Farm’s and Cunningham and Gallion’s Midnight Cry Stable (also doing business as Tandy LLC). Midnight Cry originally owned 100% in Curlin and sold Jackson and two other partners an 80% interest after the son of Smart Strike broke his maiden early in 2007. Jackson eventually bought out the other two partners, Satish Sanan and George Bolton.

Regard said his clients were looking forward to being partners in Curlin as he enters his new career at stud at Lane’s End Farm in Versailles, Ky., where he will stand for a first-year stud fee of $75,000, payable when the foal stands and nurses. "He’s going to be a very popular horse," Regard said.

Long before most Americans knew that ex-racehorses could end up on someone’s dinner plate in Europe, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation was doing what it could to provide an alternative to the slaughterhouse or a life of neglect and abuse. Founded in 1982, the TRF is the oldest, largest and best known operation dedicated to helping Thoroughbreds no longer able to race or serve as breeding animals.

The founder of TRF was Monique S. Koehler, who had a unique vision to have these horses serve as part of a vocational training program at the Walkill Correctional Facility in New York. In short, the TRF would provide the horses and Walkill would supply land and inmates who would be taught how to care for the horses as part of their own rehabilitation. The program has been a success, for both horses and the humans who have cared for them. Many former inmates have been quick to credit the TRF program for their own personal turnaround, as the therapeutic value of working with horses has been well documented. Click here to see a video about the TRF produced by HRTV.

This unique prison program has been replicated in five states that have TRF farms at correctional institutions and since the spring of 2004 the organization has operated a rehabilitation and retraining facility – the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center – at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington. The Secretariat Center is now open for public visitors from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with interactive demonstrations on Saturday mornings from 10-11 a.m. Horses from the Secretariat Center have been adopted out for second careers to horse owners around the country.

Like all welfare organizations, the TRF depends on donations to fulfill a mission that hopes to eventually rescue all ex-racehorses from slaughter, neglect or abuse. Breeders who produce the horses were recently given an option by the Jockey Club to contribute to the TRF through a checkoff program at the time a Thoroughbred is registered. Click here for details. But there are many ways to make a gift, sponsor a horse or adopt a horse.

Beginning today and running through Dec. 20, the TRF has launched an online fundraising auction of items ranging from racing memorabilia to exclusive vacation getaways. To see the list of auction items and begin bidding, click here.

Throughout the past week of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Paulick Report has focused on a variety of equine charities or individuals in the Thoroughbred industry who have dedicated a part of their lives to helping others less fortunate. These are only a small number of the many extremely worthy organizations and people who are making a difference to make this a better industry.

Here are links to the organizations featured in the past week: Belmont Child Care Association/Anna House; the Exceller Fund; ReRun; the Salvation Army fund-raising page started by my former colleague Ron Mitchell; Thoroughbred Charities of America; Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation; and Tranquility Farm.

There are others, too numerous to mention, and I would invite readers to list their favorite equine charities in the comment section below. I sincerely hope each of you will consider a gift, no matter how large or small, to an organization that is making a difference in our lives and in our industry. ]]> http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/the-giving-season/feed/ http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/court-vision-cocoa-beach-hollywood-turf-festival-winners/ http://www.paulickreport.com/blog/court-vision-cocoa-beach-hollywood-turf-festival-winners/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:37:37 +0000 Ray Paulick http://www.paulickreport.com/?p=399

By Ray Paulick

When IEAH Stables bought an interest in 2007 Remsen Stakes winner Court Vision from WinStar Farm earlier this year, the son of Gulch had the look of a Derby horse. He eventually lived up to that billing, though his Grade 1 Derby victory came not on the dirt at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May but on the Hollywood Park turf on the last Sunday in November. Under Ramon Dominguez, who earlier in the day won the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes with Godolphin Racing’s Cocoa Beach, Court Vision made an eye-catching run from last at the top of the stretch to win the Hollywood Derby by three quarters of a length, defeating Cowboy Cal and Midships.

Trained by Bill Mott, Court Vision covered a mile and one-quarter on firm turf in 2:01.43 as the 7-2 second choice in the betting. It was his fifth win in 12 starts and first in a Grade 1 event.

After winning three of four starts as a 2-year-old, Court Vision regressed somewhat on the road to the Triple Crown, finishing third in both the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park and Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. After a disappointing 13^th behind IEAH’s Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby, Mott switched the colt to turf, where he finished fourth in the Colonial Turf Cup and an unlucky second, beaten a nose, in the Virginia Derby, both races at Colonial Downs.

Back on dirt in the Travers at Saratoga, Court Vision was never a factor when sixth behind WinStar’s Colonel John, then ended his six-race losing streak with a victory in the Jamaica Handicap on turf at Aqueduct (the first time Dominquez rode him).

Muny set the pace from the outside post position in the Hollywood Derby, going a half mile in :49.41, six furlongs in 1:13.40, and a mile in 1:37.56. Cowboy Cal overtook the frontrunner in midstretch, but didn’t have enough to withstand the fast-finishing Court Vision, who caught him in the final strides. Midships closed well to get third. Based on Court Vision’s position at the one-mile call on the Equibase chart, he flew home his final quarter-mile in about 22 3/5 seconds.

Bred in Kentucky by the W.S. Farish and Kilroy Thoroughbred Partnership, Court Vision was produced from the Storm Bird mare Weekend Storm, a half sister to leading sire A.P. Indy. 

Video of the Hollywood Derby.

Earlier in the Hollywood Park Turf Festival program, favored Cocoa Beach rallied  in the stretch to catch the front-running second-betting choice Precious Kitten and win the Matriach by three-quarters of a length. Juddmonte Farms’ Visit was third.

Cocoa Beach, second to Zenyatta in her last start, the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic, was trying the grass for the first time since her maiden victory in Chile in January 2007. She was purchased by Godolphin last year and sent to Dubai, where she won two of four starts and was third in the UAE Derby. The 4-year-old daughter of Doneraile Court won her first two American starts, including the Grade 1 Beldame at Belmont Park, before running second in the Breeders’ Cup on the synthetic Pro-Ride track. She is trained by Saeed bin Suroor. Cocoa Beach covered the mile on firm turf in 1:35.49.

Matriarch chart.

Video of the Matriarch.

Video of the Hollywood Turf Festival graded races.

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Teruya Yoshida’s Screen Hero pulled off a huge upset in the 2,400-meter Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse on Sunday, taking the lead in the final 100 meters and holding off a fast-closing Deep Sky, winner of this year’s Japanese Derby. The 4-year-old filly Vodka, winner of the Japanese Derby of 2007 and the wagering favorite in the North American pool, was third. A third Japanese Derby winner, Meisho Samson, battled for the lead into midstretch but faded late.

A 4-year-old son of the Silver Hawk stallion Grass Wonder out of Running Heroine, by Sunday Silence, Screen Hero was bred in Japan by his owner’s Shadai Farm. He is trained by Yuichi Shikato and was ridden by Italian jockey Mirco Demuro, who one day earlier was issued a 30-day license to ride in Japan. Demuro has ridden at Japan Racing Association tracks on a temporary license every year since 1999.

The win was the fifth in 17 starts for Screen Hero and his first in a Grade 1 race. He was coming off a victory in the Grade 2 Copa Republica Argentino over the same Tokyo grass course. Click here to see past performances for the race.

Screen Hero covered the distance (about 1 ½ miles) in 2:25.50 and paid $122.80 to win in the North American pools. The race was televised in North America by TVG.

There were no North American horses in the race following the scratch by trainer Neil Drysdale of Canadian International winner Marsh Side due to a fever.

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It was billed as the “Biggest Vegas Qualifier Ever,” but horseplayers who paid $250 to enter Saturday’s TwinSpires.com contest in hopes of getting a berth in the annual National Handicapping Championship might call it the biggest online screw-up since the Churchill Downs-owned wagering platform melted down on Kentucky Derby Day earlier this year.

Midway through Saturday’s 15-race contest, many of the 550 entrants were unable to make their online selections. Instead they got an error message saying “database connection failed; too many connections.” The problem went on for at least five races, and there was no communication from TwinSpires.com to participants. “Obviously, it was not pleasant for the players,” one contestant wrote to the Paulick Report.

Vernon Niven, president of TwinSpires.com and executive vice president of Churchill Downs Inc., told the Paulick Report a decision was made to cancel the contest, refund all entry fees and reschedule the qualifying event as soon as possible. Fifteen berths were scheduled to be awarded for the National Handicapping Championship, to be held in Las Vegas Jan. 23-24. Prize money in that event, sponsored by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and Daily Racing Form, is expected to be $1 million.

“We had a database failure with the contest engine that overloaded some queues and caused the login process to freeze,” Niven told the Paulick Report. “Not every player was affected but due to the nature of this we had to cancel the contest and will be refunding everyone.”

No wagers were processed incorrectly, according to Niven, although he said the issue also prevented TwinSpires.com telephone operators from placing wagers via telephone. Some TwinSpires customers not involved in the handicapping contest also experienced log-in problems.

“It’s a huge embarrassment for all of us, and we pride ourselves in our contests,” Niven added. “It’s a slap in our players’ faces. We’ll look at who was affected and how they were affected.”

Saturday’s problem, on top of the Derby Day online wagering malfunction, comes from a company that hired a CEO in Bob Evans with a tech-savvy reputation and has a “think tank” division based in California’s Silicon Valley.

“CDI, which promotes itself as racing’s technology company has failed to deliver,” a contest player wrote to the Paulick Report. “I know I’ll be cancelling my account after this and the Derby Day fiasco.”

“We do pride ourselves on having an outstanding technology team and are working on this as best we can,” Niven said. “We did have problems on Derby Day 2008. That was a different issue – a wagering platform problem. We fixed that issue, as evidenced by Breeders’ Cup Day. This was a different issue. It is one of those things that our guys missed. It was a programming error on our part having to do with database queries that allowed our queues to overflow.

“Our players should not have to worry about that. We are contacting our players to let them know that we apologize and that we will be refunding them within 24 hours.”

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A group of fans discussing Exceller’s death on an online forum decided to do more than mourn his death. They pledged to support Thoroughbred rescue efforts, initially at the United Pegasus Foundation in California. They eventually forming the Exceller Fund to keep alive the name of the horse trainer Charlie Whittingham called the best Thoroughbred never to win an Eclipse Award. Exceller was, however, posthumously elected to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame.

This grassroots organization of racing fans and horse lovers began with just a dozen people, each pledging a minimum of $15 a month to support rescue efforts. The Exceller Fund’s membership has grown to well over 100 members and has saved more than 250 horses since its creation. There are no only employees, only volunteers, and the Fund’s annual budget is approximately $70,000. (Click here to see the Exceller Fund’s financials.)

Click here to learn about becoming a member of the Exceller Fund or here to make a donation.

Its mission statement – Providing a Future Beyond the Finish Line – allows the Exceller Fund to work with local horse rescue organizations to transition horses to a second career after racing or breeding by acquiring horses that might be at risk for slaughter and caring for them until a new home is found. Its Web site provides a list of horses the Exceller Fund has adopted out or helped in other ways.

Barbara Kraus served as president of the Exceller Fund until 2003, when Bonnie Mizrahi, who had been in charge of fund-raising, took the reins. In August 2008, top New York trainer Gary Contessa was named president, a move that increased the organization’s visibility. “To have a major trainer such as Gary Contessa want to be our president and champion our efforts is a thrill and an honor,” Mizrahi said. “I believe this will signal to fans that racing does not turn a ‘blind eye’ to the horses once they are done, and I hope it will inspire others to realize that the Exceller Fund wants to work with racing to provide a “future beyond the finish line” for these magnificent Thoroughbreds.”