Trainer Cody Axmaker said April 12 that he had submitted an appeal of two consecutive year-long suspensions and $2,500 fines issued by Monmouth Park stewards related to one of his horses dying from an apparent clenbuterol overdose last May.
A stewards' ruling posted on the New Jersey Racing Commission website indicates Carrol Stubbs' Wishful died "on or about May 9," four or five days after she arrived at Monmouth for stabling for the 2021 meet. According to Axmaker, she and other horses he trains were accidentally fed clenbuterol, a jug of which Axmaker said was mistakenly brought onto the Monmouth property.
Clenbuterol, often given orally as a syrup, is a medication that can be used therapeutically to assist horses with respiratory difficulties. However, critics say the drug has been abused due to muscle development properties, leading many regulators and some racetracks to implement restrictions to curb its use beyond treating horses with lower airway disease.
Wishful, a daughter of Storm Wolf who was age 6 last May, developed colic but appeared on the mend before she was discovered dead in her stall in the days after her exposure, Axmaker said. He said his 14 other horses recovered with adequate hydration and after being treated with acepromazine, a tranquilizer.
He said he informed Monmouth's investigator about what occurred the day after the clenbuterol ingestion, and his other horses were given time and tested to see if the drug had cleared their systems before racing.
Axmaker, 33, has trained in numerous states, including Florida and Arizona, where he was a leading trainer at Arizona Downs.
"Hopefully they grant me a stay and I can fight it. It was all an honest mistake," Axmaker said of his appeal before the New Jersey Racing Commission. "We weren't intending to give anything, any of them clenbuterol. It was in there from previous tracks I've been at that allow it. I was new in Monmouth. I didn't think nothing of it. I wasn't planning on unloading it. It ends up getting unloaded, and now I'm in a world of (trouble) for it."
Stewards issued a one-year suspension and fine for possession of the jug of clenbuterol in his stabling area, and an equivalent suspension and fine for failing "in his duty as trainer to protect and guard the horse Wishful against the administration of the prohibited substance." Without a stay or successful appeal, he is to serve his suspensions May 7, 2022-May 6, 2024.
"I was planning on going to Delaware," he said. "I don't know, this stuff might put me out of business."
Axmaker is currently training at Tampa Bay Downs.
The ruling said the jug of clenbuterol "may have been labeled aloe vera" and that Axmaker "instructed his stable employee to administer aloe vera." Axmaker disputes that portion of the ruling, saying the jug's label fell off due to age, leaving it without one. He said the clenbuterol was issued to him by a veterinarian in Arizona years ago.
"I don't feel (clenbuterol) is that harmful. If you give an excessive amount by what happened—it could be real harmful," Axmaker said. "I used it in the past correctly. It's just for cleaning up their lungs, mucus. If you have a horse that bleeds, it helps keep their lungs cleaned up and keeps them in the feed tub also."
Though the ruling on the New Jersey Racing Commission website is dated Feb. 16, following a hearing Dec. 7, Axmaker said he only received news of his sanctions three days ago.
"I'm trying to feel out the appeal and see what happens. I don't know if I can win the fight," Axmaker said.
