Forte Hopeful med overage reporting

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by Dahoss

Isn’t the real issue here that it didn’t come out for this long?

Why is everything so secretive in racing?

Because participants have due process. But yes.. the procedural aspect is the legitimate complaint here and worthy of discussion. But you well know attention to that topic wasn't the intent of the published report.

[Kasept]

Here's @DRFHegarty's piece...



Forte reportedly had positive test after Hopeful victory; stewards hearing today
Matt Hegarty | May 10, 2023

Forte, the morning-line Kentucky Derby favorite who was scratched the morning of the race, had a positive drug test after winning the Sept. 5 Hopeful Stakes last year that has yet to be adjudicated, the New York Times reported on Tuesday night.

The report quoted two anonymous sources and said that Forte tested positive for a substance “used to relieve pain and reduce inflammation.” Drugs in wide use in racing that have those effects include regulated painkillers like flunixin and phenylbutazone as well as regulated corticosteroids, such as dexamethasone and betamethasone.

Forte is owned by Mike Repole and trained by Todd Pletcher, one of the most prominent trainers in the U.S.

The report said that a stewards’ hearing to discuss the positive is scheduled for today, eight months after the Hopeful. Brad Maione, a spokesman for the New York Gaming Commission, confirmed that element of the report in response to an inquiry by Daily Racing Form on Wednesday morning. Maione declined to provide details about the violation.

“The trainer’s counsel has sought repeated postponement of the stewards’ hearing, which impeded the stewards from making a determination,” Maione said.

The connections of Forte did not immediately respond to phone calls on Wednesday morning. Pletcher’s attorney, Karen Murphy, also did not respond to a phone call.

The report is sure to generate additional controversy in a sport that has drawn widespread media coverage due to five horse deaths at Churchill Downs in the lead-up to the Kentucky Derby last Saturday and two additional deaths on the Derby undercard. The New York Times report called the positive an instance of “doping,” a highly charged term that is generally defined as a deliberate attempt to improve athletic performance with the administration of illegal drugs.

In addition, the delays in adjudicating the case are sure to lead to criticism of the sport. Despite the positive test eight months ago, Forte made four starts afterwards, winning them all, including his Derby prep, the Florida Derby.

Heightening the interest, Forte was scratched on the morning of the Derby by the state regulatory veterinarian due to lameness in his right front foot. He was then placed on the vet’s list, which will prevent the horse from starting in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the May 20 Preakness Stakes.

In 2020, the U.S. Congress passed legislation creating the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which was given a broad mandate to enforce safety rules at U.S. tracks and create a national drug-testing program. HISA initially planned to launch both programs by July 1, 2022, but logistical difficulties and litigation filed by prominent horsemen’s groups and other opponents of HISA have delayed the start of the drug-testing program until May 22.

Under HISA’s rules, the adjudication process for positive test results for both regulated medications and prohibited drugs is designed to be completed within a month of a positive test result, even when including appeals of any initial decisions. In addition, the rules call for a horse to be disqualified in the event of any positive test, regardless of fault.

Under HISA’s “anti-doping” program, trainers are handed a “provisional suspension” that prevents them from entering horses while the case is being adjudicated. Under racing’s current system, suspensions are not issued until a ruling from the stewards, and those suspensions can often be stayed pending an appeal of the ruling. Some of those appeals, especially when filed by trainers with deep pockets, can drag on for months and even years.

[Dahoss]

Originally Posted by Kasept

Because participants have due process. But yes.. the procedural aspect is the legitimate complaint here and worthy of discussion. But you well know attention to that topic wasn't the intent of the published report.

I’m well aware participants have due process. I also know what Drape was doing. A bute overage is nothing.

Which is why it coming out like it did is so ridiculous. There’s no way anyone can justify it coming out 8 months later. Impossible. It should have been public knowledge when the test happened, with the caveat that they are waiting for the split sample. Instead nothing is reported and it comes out in a hit piece by the horse racing assassin Drape on the backdrop of a pretty bad week for the sport in the public eye.

The sport gets so much negative press because they operate reactively instead of proactively. So many of our problems are self inflicted.

[Dahoss]

And of course the connections don’t want to talk now. Repole can’t wait to shove his family and daughter down everyone’s throat for years and wouldn’t shut up the entire Derby week. Telling us about how bad Forte felt he couldn’t run.

Bad report comes out and no one wants to say a word.

[Dahoss]

So they finally DQ’d Forte today. Probably just a coincidence that the NYT article comes out Tuesday night and all this happens days later

Meanwhile according to the connections lawyer, it took 4 months for the New York Gaming Commission to provide them with a list of labs they could send the split sample to. Apparently the split sample was sent to a lab t Texas A & M in December and it also came back positive. IN DECEMBER!!!

The whole thing is so stupid.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Dahoss

And of course the connections don’t want to talk now. Repole can’t wait to shove his family and daughter down everyone’s throat for years and wouldn’t shut up the entire Derby week. Telling us about how bad Forte felt he couldn’t run.

Bad report comes out and no one wants to say a word.

StopshovingGioia? Great name for a filly

[freddymo]

In my opinion, racing and the people who care about racing get it wrong. Instead of defeating the Drape story and educating people on the process and why something took as long as it took, they worry about Drape's motivations and try to discredit him based on his bad intention. You discredit a story with facts and explanations, not with the guy is J.O. Drape's facts are what matters, not why when he wrote the piece. The piece is the piece it makes specific representations and statements, and if those are untruthful or extraordinary, it's fair play to attack them. No need to attack his motivation IMO. Who cares what motivates him?

[Dahoss]

Originally Posted by freddymo

In my opinion, racing and the people who care about racing get it wrong. Instead of defeating the Drape story and educating people on the process and why something took as long as it took, they worry about Drape's motivations and try to discredit him based on his bad intention. You discredit a story with facts and explanations, not with the guy is J.O. Drape's facts are what matters, not why when he wrote the piece. The piece is the piece it makes specific representations and statements, and if those are untruthful or extraordinary, it's fair play to attack them. No need to attack his motivation IMO. Who cares what motivates him?

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Side note, there is no reason it took this long though.

[Kasept]

Pletcher suspended 10 days for meloxicam positive in Forte
Matt Hegarty | May 11, 2023

Trainer Todd Pletcher has been suspended 10 days by the New York stewards due to a positive test for meloxicam, a regulated anti-inflammatory drug, in the post-race sample of Forte after the horse won the Sept. 5 Hopeful Stakes last year at Saratoga Racecourse, the trainer and his legal representatives said.

The penalty was communicated by Pletcher and his legal team to Daily Racing Form and other industry trade outlets on Thursday afternoon, in advance of the expected release of an official stewards ruling in the case later today. Pletcher and his attorney, Karen Murphy, said they would appeal the penalty, which also included the disqualification of Forte from the Hopeful and a $1,000 fine.

Pletcher said that Forte was never prescribed or administered meloxicam, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that is a common ingredient in human pain relievers, and that he believed that the positive was the result of accidental contamination. The presence of meloxicam was confirmed in a split sample tested at Pletcher’s request and expense.

“This horse came into our care March 25, 2022, and he was never prescribed or administered meloxicam ever under our care,” Pletcher said. For now, Pletcher said that Forte would be shipped back to his base at Belmont Park in New York, where he may target the third leg of the Triple Crown, the June 10 Belmont Stakes.

The ruling is the latest development involving Forte, last year’s 2-year-old champion, over an extraordinarily eventful seven-day period.

Last Saturday morning, Forte was scratched from the Kentucky Derby by the state veterinarian, two days after bobbling during a videotaped workout. On Tuesday night, three days after the scratch, the New York Times was the first to report that the horse had a pending medication violation in New York from last year that had yet to be adjudicated, creating widespread confusion and criticism among racing fans, the general public, and the mainstream media.

The case has drawn widespread attention due to the eight-month gap between the horse’s positive test and the initial stewards’ hearing yesterday to address the positive. In between the positive test and the hearing, Forte made four starts, winning them all, and was voted the Eclipse Award winner as champion 2-year-old male. He was the morning-line favorite for the Derby at the time he was scratched.

Pletcher said on Thursday that he was informed of the positive test on Sept. 28, on a day when Forte was expected to be entered for the Oct. 1 Champagne Stakes. When he was notified of the positive test, he was told that Forte would have to test clean for the drug before he could be entered. Since a test could not come back prior to entries being taken, Pletcher re-routed the horse to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington on Oct. 8. Forte won the Futurity by neck.

Pletcher’s legal team made Dr. Steven Barker, a former director of a testing lab in Louisiana, available for questions during a Thursday afternoon conference call with a select number of reporters. Barker, who frequently appears as an expert witness for trainers in regulatory hearings or court cases, said that the amount found in the samples could not have produced an effect in Forte in the Hopeful.

“The level of medication gave him no advantage,” Barker said. “It didn’t endanger the horse. It didn’t endanger anyone else in the race. It didn’t do anything. It just happened to be there.”

Meloxicam is a regulated medication, meaning that is permitted to be administered to horses for therapeutic purposes provided it does not appear in post-race samples. It is not as commonly used in racing as other NSAIDs, such as phenylbutazone or flunixin, and it is not one of three NSAIDs that have been approved for equine care.

For penalty purposes, it is a Class B drug in the classification schemes of the both the Association of Racing Commissioners International, which recommends penalties to state racing commissions, and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which is scheduled to take over the administration of a national drug-testing and enforcement program later this month.

The ARCI recommends a minimum suspension of 15 days "absent mitigating circumstances” for a meloxicam positive. HISA recommendations also call for a 15-day suspension, and the authority’s rules call for adjudicators to consider “mitigating” and “aggravating circumstances” in consideration of all penalties. Both call for disqualification of the horse from the race.

The New York State Gaming Commission has not issued a penalty for a meloxicam positive in a Thoroughbred horse since 2013, according to its database. In that case, Dennis Lalman, an owner-trainer, was suspended for 15 days, but the penalty was reduced to seven days after he waived his right to appeal. Lalman’s horse was disqualified.

By any measure, Pletcher is one of the most successful trainers of all time and was elected to racing’s Hall of Fame in 2021 at the age of 53. In 2007, Pletcher served a 45-day suspension for a positive test for mepivacaine, a pain killer, and in 2010 served a 10-day suspension for a procaine positive after his horse Wait a While finished third in the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

The Forte case has once again exposed an enormous vulnerability for racing at a time when the sport is drawing unwelcome coverage from the mainstream media in the wake of a spate of horse deaths at Churchill Downs and a reputation that has become tarnished over the past several years by a string of court cases revolving around the use of both legal and illegal drugs.

If Forte had started in the Derby, the colt’s positive in the Hopeful would have been reported within days of his running in the race. That would have surely resurrected strident criticisms about drug use in racing at the highest levels following the controversy surrounding the 2021 Derby, when the winner, Medina Spirit, trained by Hall of Fame member Bob Baffert, tested positive for a regulated medication.

On Wednesday, gaming commission officials cast blame on Pletcher and his legal team for the delay in hearing the case, saying that Pletcher’s attorneys had “sought repeated postponement of the stewards hearing” since the positive was reported last September. In addition, the officials said that finding a “capable” lab to conduct testing on a split sample had also delayed the adjudication.

But Murphy, Pletcher’s lawyer, sharply disputed that account, saying that the gaming commission had not provided Pletcher with a list of laboratories that could test the split sample until early in 2023. She also said that the first hearing in the case was scheduled for March, but then she asked for “one or two adjournments” of hearing dates.

“The delay is wholly on the gaming commission because they weren’t prepared to proceed with the case in a professional and orderly manner,” Murphy said. “[The perception is] somehow, Todd is gaming the system and is able to do something that others can’t. No one can proceed with anything that other can’t.”

Murphy added that “if there was any delay by Todd Pletcher it was maybe two, three, or four weeks.”

The Forte incident arose just weeks prior to the expected national launch of HISA’s Anti-Doping and Medication Control program, which is designed to create a national framework for testing of prohibited and regulated medications and the adjudication and enforcement of penalties for violations under the program’s rules. Under that system, the positive by Forte in the Hopeful would have likely been reported to the public within weeks of the finding, and the adjudication process likely would have been over within a month of the race.

HISA had hoped to launch the ADMC program last July 1, but logistical delays and litigation by horsemen’s groups and other critics of HISA delayed the launch until earlier this year. Just days after the March 27 launch, a judge delayed the implementation by 30 days, citing a violation of a requirement under the Administrative Procedures Act requiring a 30-day grace period.

Shortly thereafter, the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees HISA, extended the delay to May 22, until two days after the running of the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes. The FTC stated that the reason for the delay was to “avoid chaos and confusion” during the first two legs of the Triple Crown.

Although HISA will have jurisdiction over most positive tests that occur on May 22 and beyond, any pending cases, including Forte, will continue to be adjudicated by the regulatory authorities in the state where the case arose.

Murphy said that Pletcher “will appeal and we will go all the way and I think we will prevail.”