Top Horse Trainer receives 10 year ban
Posted on - 17 Oct 2011
The New York State Racing and Wagering Board on Wednesday revoked the license of Richard Dutrow Jr., who trained the 2008 Kentucky Derby winner, Big Brown, and barred him from New York racetracks for at least 10 years.
The board cited Dutrow’s long history of transgressions in prohibiting him from the sport. According to records kept by the Association of Racing Commissioners International, Dutrow has been cited 64 times in 9 states and at 15 tracks for a varied list of incidents, including multiple medication violations.
“He has repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly violated rules across the country,” John Sabini, the board chairman, said in a meeting at its headquarters in Schenectady, N.Y. “A license is privilege, not a right.”
The board’s hearing officer, Clemente Parente, who heard three days of testimony in the summer and weighed various arguments made in legal papers, had recommended Dutrow be barred for life. The board, however, decided the trainer should be given the opportunity to reapply for his license after 10 years.
Still, it was among the most severe penalties ever handed out in American horse racing, and especially notable because it was levied against a successful, high-profile trainer.
Dutrow, 52, is ranked 27th in the national standings for trainers with nearly $3 million in purse earnings for 2011. Horses he has trained over the years have earned nearly $79 million in career purses and won some of America’s most prestigious races, including thePreakness Stakes, the Metropolitan Mile and the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Although the ban specifically applies to Dutrow’s home base in New York, it is likely to be honored in other jurisdictions where top-level racing is conducted. This year, for example, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission refused to license Dutrow, citing his long history of violations as well as inaccuracies found on his license application.
Dutrow appealed that ruling, but he has since been unable to run horses in Kentucky.
The suspension will not take effect until Oct. 18, to allow owners to remove their horses from Dutrow’s stable. Already on Wednesday afternoon, the trainer’s lawyer, Michael Koenig, was seeking a legal appeal of the ruling.
The board voted unanimously to approve the suspension and it leveled a $50,000 fine as well. One board member, Daniel Hogan, acknowledged he was moved during a June hearing by Dutrow’s testimony about his affinity for horses but said he could not look past his rule-breaking.“It seems Mr. Dutrow loved horses, but he loved winning even more, and he broke our rules to win,” Hogan said.
In February, Dutrow was suspended for 90 days in New York after hypodermic needles were found in his barn, and after one of his winning horses tested positive for a banned pain-killer.
His horse Fastus Cactus tested positive for the drug butorphanol after winning the third race at Aqueduct on Nov. 20, and the three hypodermic needles were discovered in a desk drawer at Dutrow’s barn at Aqueduct two weeks earlier. The syringes were unlabeled but contained a muscle relaxer known as xylazine.
Dutrow has denied any knowledge of the drugs or syringes. Reached by telephone after the board’s decision, he referred all questions to Koenig.
Last fall, records kept by the Association of Racing Commissioners International established that Dutrow averaged a medication violation for every 343 starts by his horses — the highest among elite trainers in the United States. In 2008, he trained Big Brown to victories in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, then lost the Triple Crown when the colt, after being taken off his steroid regimen, finished last in the Belmont Stakes.
Sabini made it clear that the board intended to be vigilant in its enforcement of the Dutrow ban, warning him against merely turning his stable over to an assistant, as he has been found to have done in the past.
“If there is any smell of a third party training here, we aren’t going to look kindly,” he said.
