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By JOE DRAPE

The New York Racing Association will announce Friday that the trainer Jeff Mullins will be barred from its racetracks for six months for giving one of his horses an unknown substance in the Aqueduct monitoring barn in April and repeatedly lying about it. The association has also made it clear that, in contrast to past practices among trainers, Mullins cannot transfer his horses to an employee, relative or business associate to get around the suspension in order to run in New York.

The aggressive punishment of Mullins in New York comes at a time when horse racing is under intense scrutiny for its use of illegal drugs, overuse of legal medications and lax oversight, all of which many veterinarians believe are part of the reason the United States has the world’s worst mortality rate for thoroughbreds. Racing officials acknowledged they were trying to send a message, especially in light of Mullins’s public remarks in the wake of the incident and his cavalier attitude during two days of testimony at an administrative hearing.

“You cannot surreptitiously bring contraband into our security barn and then lie about it,” said Neil Getnick, whose law firm, Getnick & Getnick, serves as the racing association’s independent integrity counsel.

The punishment will extend only so far, however. Mullins, one of the most successful trainers in the country — and one of the most notorious for his many medication violations — is free to run in any other racing jurisdiction during the ban. That includes Santa Anita in California, where he intends to run a horse next week at the Breeders’ Cup, one of racing’s richest events.

The origins of Mullins’s punishment go back to April 4, when he was caught giving what he said was a cough remedy to Gato Go Win with a dose syringe in the Aqueduct security barn. No medications are allowed in the barn, except for an anti-bleeding drug that can be administered only by a state veterinarian. The horse was scratched, but later that day, Mullins won the Wood Memorial with I Want Revenge.

Two days later, Mullins said that security personnel searched his bucket, where the substance and a syringe were in plain sight with soap and a sponge. Mullins, who is based in California, said he did not know of New York’s strict rules despite having items seized on two previous dates when his horses ran in New York.

“Once I carried it through, I thought it was O.K.,” Mullins told The New York Times for an article published April 7. “They watched me put it in the back of his mouth. They let me put nasal ointment in his nose, too.”

On April 19, the New York State Racing and Wagering Board suspended Mullins for seven days and fined him $2,500. Mullins maintained that he did not break any rules, but accepted the punishment.

New York racing officials were troubled, however, by Mullins’s conflicting assertions. His buckets had been thoroughly searched, according to transcripts of sworn testimony taken on May 14 and June 24 that were obtained by The New York Times.

When investigators first discovered the syringe and the substance, which Mullins said was the over-the-counter cough remedy Air Power, in the security barn, for example, Mullins told them that his groom, Reuben Julius, had carried them in. When Julius challenged the trainer’s assertion before investigators, Mullins admitted that he, indeed, had brought in the syringe.

Throughout his testimony, Mullins was at odds with other witnesses, including a Getnick & Getnick investigator, Erskine Rivers, and Sgt. Robert Cokinos of the New York Racing Association security force, as well as himself.

Mullins said he prepared Air Power and a syringe in “front of two guys who should have stopped me.” Rivers, however, testified that this was not the case, and that he first saw the syringe after Mullins lowered his hand down from Gato Go Win’s head after Mullins had administered the substance in the back of the horse’s stall. He then saw Mullins shake the syringe into the straw, and kick the straw around for a short time.

Mullins then threw the syringe into a bucket of water, according to Rivers, and drew water in and out to rinse it and preclude any positive test of liquid that may have remained in the syringe.

In his testimony, Mullins also denied telling reporters that his bucket had been searched by security personnel and that the guards had not told him that he was violating security barn rules. He also asserted that he did not know that Air Power was illegal on race day, adding, “I drink a little bit of it myself.”

Mullins did not show up in New York for the second day of testimony on June 24; instead, he briefly took questions by telephone before ending his testimony.

When lawyers for the racing association produced a citation that showed Mullins was fined in October 2004 for giving one of his horses Air Power at his home base of California, where it also is prohibited on race day, Mullins said he did not remember it. He was then asked if he denied that it happened.

“Well, obviously not,” Mullins said. “I was fined $100 for it. I didn’t get something for no fine. And no, definitely, kangaroo court.”

Mullins, who did not return calls to his cellphone Thursday, has a history of drug violations. In the spring of 2008, he was suspended for 20 days by the California Horse Racing Board for use of the Class 2 drug mepivacaine. In 2005, one of his horses tested positive for exceeding the limit of total carbon dioxide, which indicates the horse had a “milkshake” — a concoction of baking soda, sugar and electrolytes that helps a horse ward off fatigue. Mullins’s horses were put under 24-hour surveillance for 30 days.

In August 2008, a California Horse Racing Board complaint said another of Mullins’s horses had exceeded the regulatory threshold for total carbon dioxide in a blood sample taken before a race at Del Mar.

The six-month suspension that the racing association is handing down means that Mullins will not be able to use the Wood Memorial as a springboard to the 2010 Kentucky Derby as he did with I Want Revenge. That colt was a favorite to win this year’s Derby until he was scratched the morning of the race with a bad ankle, an injury that has most likely ended his career.

Still, Mullins is free to race in California and other states — in fact, he has entered In the Slips to race in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf next Friday at Santa Anita Park.

“We can only wield the bat we have, which is our races and our stalls,” said C. Steven Duncker, the racing association’s chairman. “We are committed to integrity and due process and maintaining a level playing field for our owners, trainers and our public.”