RMTC

By Tom LaMarra

The Indiana Horse Racing Commission March 10 upheld an administrative law judge’s order that trainer Tom Amoss be suspended 60 days and fined $5,000 in a therapeutic medication case that has dragged on for more than three years.

Meanwhile, the IHRC also approved a settlement agreement with Quarter Horse trainer Ron Raper, who was found to have received “contraband” and to have injected horses within 24 hours of races in 2014 at Indiana Grand Race Course. But because Raper provided information for an IHRC investigation, and agreed to continue to cooperate in ongoing investigations, his four-year suspension was reduced to one year and his $20,000 fine eliminated.

The convoluted Amoss case was triggered by an October 2011 positive in a sample taken from an Amoss-trained horse at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino for the therapeutic medication methocarbamol, a muscle relaxant. Since that time the issue of multiple medication violations and what is believed to be an unprecedented third test on the same sample became major factors in the case.

And it’s not over. Though the IHRC accepted the order by Gordon White, the administrative law judge and deputy attorney general, after summary judgment, the action can be appealed. After the IHRC ruled on the matter Tuesday, Amoss said he would appeal.

“We will appeal,” said Amoss, the leading Thoroughbred trainer at Indiana Grand Race Course the last few years and currently leading trainer at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. “We look forward to having our day in local trial court.”

Peter Sacopulos, an attorney who represented Amoss at the March 10 meeting, said the appeal will include a request for a stay. He said that decision will be up to the court, but if granted, Amoss would be racing at Indiana Grand when the live meet begins April 21, the day the suspension is scheduled to begin.

Amoss, who also addressed the IHRC on his own behalf, said the positive test for methocarbamol in a sample taken from second-place finisher Hero Heart Oct. 21, 2011, wasn’t supported by a subsequent split-sample test, the results of which were returned in February 2012. Based on that outcome, such cases are dismissed.

There was, however, a third test on the sample. Amoss said the IHRC made a motion to test the sample, but attorney Robin Babbitt, who initially represented the racing commission in the case, said Amoss’ attorneys at the time requested the third test and then decided against it.

The third test, performed by the LGC laboratory in Lexington, found no methocarbamol but did identify guiafenesin, a metabolite of methocarbamol, at the level of one nanogram, or one-billionth of a gram. Babbitt argued the metabolite indicated a positive test; Amoss and Sacopulos claimed it didn’t match the second split-sample test.

“Every case in Indiana history has been decided by these two tests, the split test versus the primary test, as your rules clearly state,” Amoss told the IHRC. “This third test was going to be something that had never occurred in Indiana racing before. We take strong exception to the commission’s continual statement that my sample has tested positive every time it has been tested, for if that were true this case would have been brought before you in a timely fashion.”

Amoss in his testimony cited another case, that of Standardbred trainer Roger Welch, who had a horse test positive in 2012 for tramadol, a narcotic-like pain reliever categorized as Class A, the highest for penalties. Association of Racing Commissioners International rules call for a one-year suspension, but Welch got 14 days because IHRC staff determined “current science” warranted a lesser categorization and penalty, Amoss said.

Amoss attempted to make the same argument for methocarbamol, which in 2014 under new rules in Indiana had a testing threshold of one nanogram. Had that level been in place when the sample from the Amoss-trained horse was tested, a positive wouldn’t have been called.

“I am asking to be treated the same way, with the commission using current science,” Amoss said. “And the current science shows one nanogram of methocarbamol is not a violation.”

IHRC member Greg Schenkel argued against employing regulations retroactively.

“One of the issues here is the timing of all this and the time that has elapsed since the original test,” Schenkel said. “I’m not sure how we would deal with it as a regulatory agency, or even the legislature, if we started applying laws retroactively.”

The 60-day suspension for Amoss stemmed from the fact he had other therapeutic medication overages within a one-year period. In 2012 the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, because the positives came so closely together, treated them as one and fined Amoss under mitigating circumstances.

Amoss noted that trainer Wayne Minnock last year had four positives for the therapeutic drug dexamethasone in Indiana within one month, and that dexamethasone and methocarbamol fall under the same RCI guidelines. But Minnock, he said, was only fined.

“I don’t understand why mine were counted individually when his were not,” Amoss told the IHRC.

IHRC executive director Joe Gorajec said that under the new multiple medication violation penalty guidelines, the first offense calls for a fine, the second a 15-day suspension, and the third 30 days. He suggested the KHRC is guilty of not following the guidelines.

“Kentucky failed Mr. Amoss,” Gorajec said. “If Kentucky went by the RCI drug classification guidelines when Mr. Amoss got a positive in May at Churchill Downs they should have called him in—(told him to) find out the source of the problem and then clean it up.

“It’s like they said, ‘That’s Tom Amoss, a leading trainer, so let it slide. We’re just going to give him a fine.’ It’s a parking ticket. Kentucky should have given him 30 days. Kentucky didn’t do what it was supposed to do, and we’re living with it. We’re here because he doesn’t want to serve his suspension.”

The IHRC voted 3-0, with one abstention, to uphold the 60-day suspension and $5,000 fine. Commissioner Sue Lightle, who abstained from voting, had expressed concern with the severity of the penalties given the testimony in the case.

Amoss said he has spent more than $130,000 defending himself in the case, and that Indiana taxpayers probably have, too.

“How much more penalty do I have to suffer for one-billionth of a gram of an approved therapeutic medicine that does not constitute a violation in any racing jurisdiction in the United States?” he said.

As for the Raper settlement, it was approved without discussion. IHRC staff said Raper has agreed to “continue to provide truthful testimony and to fully cooperate with the commission staff’s ongoing investigation of and prosecution of misuse of medication and violations (of administrative code) in the stable area at Indiana Grand.”

The agreement states if Raper fails to cooperate in investigations or is subject to other disciplinary action, the full suspension and fine may be imposed. It also states that “any waiver of any provision” of the agreement must be approved by the commission or commission staff, but not necessarily by both.

Raper’s testimony was part of the case that involved veterinarian Ross Russell, who last year was suspended for 20 years by the IHRC. Russell, who questioned the testimony as well as comments made by a former employee, requested a hearing before an administrative law judge.