There has been very little news recently regarding the background or progress since the original indictments of Navarro/Servis et al in early March 2020. Two defendants, Sarah Izhaki and Scott Robinson, pleaded guilty in September, and Robinson has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $3.8 million. Izhaki is still awaiting sentencing.
At the August Jockey Club virtual 2020 Round Table, Jockey Club Chairman Stuart Janney spoke briefly about the case and strongly suggested that he anticipated further arrests.
Less than a week ago - on Thursday, April 29 - Gus Garcia-Roberts, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post, wrote a substantive article, With Private eyes and political muscle, horseracing’s elite pushed to punish dopers.
Garcia-Roberts joined the Post in late January. Previously, he worked at USA Today, where he was a national investigative reporter. During his time there, and in previous stints on investigative teams at the Los Angeles Times and Newsday, Garcia-Roberts has delivered revelatory and high-impact journalism about corrupt law enforcement, government waste and abuse of power in Hollywood.
Labyrinthine plot
This article has a tremendous amount of material that has not been available to the public nor to most members of the Thoroughbred racing industry. I very strongly recommend that you take the opportunity to read it. It will be very helpful in understanding elements of the case as it moves forward. For example, here is an observation made by the author:
“The indictments garnered national headlines; it appeared federal authorities had taken a spontaneous interest in a sport beset by scandal and existential threats: Top trainers under a cloud of doping suspicion, dozens of horses dying on the track, revenue dwindling.
“But what actually transpired, not fully reported until now, was a more labyrinthine plot: A years-long effort by the sport’s moneyed elite to expose the underbelly of the industry, paving the way for sweeping legislation, tucked quietly into a massive spending bill that would allow industry leaders and allies to police the sport.”
In fact, if you go back to 2015, the Jockey Club and others were already quietly devoting substantial time, effort and resources to the proposed federal legislation and developing a relationship with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). At that time, USADA had been - for over 15 years - the national anti-doping organization in the U.S. for Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American and Parapan American sport with tremendous credibility around the world.
Below is the list of prominent professionals who spoke on important topics during the second half of the 2015 Jockey Club Round Table.
Dr Kathleen Anderson, then President-Elect of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, and Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear spoke to best practices in the equine industry and important state government issues in Kentucky. Edwin Moses, Olympic 400m hurdles champion in 1976 and 1984, shared USADA’s anti-doping expertise. Jockey Club president and Chief Operating Officer Jim Gagliano spoke on the role of the Coalition for Horse Racing Integrity, which had just been launched and would become a critical lobbying organization during the various iterations of what became the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.
It is important to note that Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, spoke at the 2012 Round Table on Preserving Your Rights and the Integrity of Competition. At the 2016 Round Table, Representatives Andy Barr (R-KY) and Paul Tomko (D-NY) presented the Horseracing Integrity Act of 2015, which was slowly gaining momentum despite a political climate that did not value bipartisan initiatives.
‘No small fish’
Finally and quietly, the Jockey Club retained 5 Stones Intelligence in 2015. From Garcia-Roberts’ reporting in the Washington Post, we learn Janney said that, when the Jockey Club retained 5 Stones, he had a single instruction: No small fish. “I’m sure there are people out there that are doing little things here and there,” Janney said he told them. “We’re not interested. That’s something the racing commissions can work on etc. We’re after the people that by their conduct have a really significant impact on our game.”
We learn about two other important relationships from Garcia-Roberts’ reporting.
The first is the relationship between Janney and Jeff Gural and his security chief, Brice Cote, a former minor league relief pitcher and police detective. Gural is a horseracing enthusiast, and he owns and operates three harness tracks - Meadowlands in New Jersey and Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs in New York.
According to Garcia-Roberts, “Gural acknowledges that they banned trainers from his tracks based on little more than informed suspicion. When one of the trainers sued but the ban was upheld. Gural felt vindicated that he could do what he wanted on his property.”
The second thing we learn from the Post reporting is of the relationship between Jockey Club senior executives and the top executives at USADA. For example, it may come as a surprise to most people, but a good number of banned drugs in track and field and swimming are also used by cheating trainers at the racetrack.
Erythropoietin (EPO) is the best example. It manufactures red blood cells, which improve performance and seldom can be found in one’s system in a post-race test. EPO can significantly increase performance after the drug can no longer be found in a positive post-race test.
For that reason, over 50 percent of blood tests on Olympic athletes are done out of competition. However, in horseracing, less than two percent are out of competition, which means very few serious drug positives are caught in racing by post-race testing.
Garcia-Roberts continues, “In late 2015, Janney decided that, if the industry and elected officials wouldn’t act, the Jockey Club would. He envisioned a private investigation that would expose widespread doping in the sport. But he found initial meetings with detective agencies uninspiring. Tygart suggested a more formidable force. 5 Stones Intelligence was, at the time, secretly playing a central role in uncovering the conspiracy involving Russian state-sponsored doping of its athletes.”
Grisly cost of doping
USADA has been in the drug-testing business for over 20 years at Olympic and international level. It was directly responsible for taking down seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong for doping. Within the last 18 months, USADA banned three-time New York Marathon champion Alberto Salazar on doping charges for four years while Salazar was the longtime coach of the prestigious Nike Oregon Project.
Garcia-Roberts goes on and describes some of the actual language of the indictments:
“When the indictments were finally unsealed, they depicted a grisly cost of doping. In one wiretapped conversation, horsemen joked about [trainer Rene] Allard’s Standardbreds, which prosecutors claimed died in anguish after being administered misbranded and adulterated drugs. ‘What’s going on with the Allard death camp?’ asked indicted trainer Ross Cohen, prompting laughter from a veterinarian.
“Another indictment detailed the doomed saga of a horse named X Y Jet, which top trainer Jorge Navarro allegedly coaxed to big-money victories through the regular administration of PEDs [Peformance Enhancing Drugs], including a blood-builder they referred to as ‘monkey’.
“In January 2020, the year after X Y Jet won $1.5 million in a Dubai race, it dropped dead of a heart attack. ‘You know how many f---ing horses he f---ing killed and broke down that I made disappear?’ an assistant trainer remarked during a wiretapped call, referring to Navarro.”
Deeply flawed system
As I mentioned at the outset of the article, I strongly advise that you take the time to read the entire article. For example, the Thoroughbred racing coalition in the fall of 2020 had convinced the House of Representatives to pass what was then called the Horseracing Integrity Act by a unanimous vote in the House. However, it was not clear in the fall of 2020 when the bill would pass the Senate as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell still had concerns.
Garcia-Roberts explains the money that was raised by racing in support of McConnell and the main change in the bill that McConnell had requested, which changed the final name to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020.
Lawsuits have been filed by the United States Trotting Association (USTA), the National Horsemen’s Benevolent Protective Association (NHBPA) and the Oklahoma State Attorney General. I wrote this article on March 30, citing the opinions of two horsemen’s associations and a state regulator. Janney and Craig Fravel, President of the Breeders’ Cup at that time, in July 2018, wrote a detailed criticism of the deeply flawed Thoroughbred regulatory system. In the column, I edited down their criticisms to brief statements.
At the end of the article, I include edited remarks from New York Times journalist Joe Drape, trainer Graham Motion and Wachtel Stable owner Adam Wachtel, plus brief remarks from Gagliano and Janney.
There is a lot of work left to be done. This may be the last opportunity to completely reset the Thoroughbred racing industry and rebuild the business model so that it works for all participants.