According to an attorney for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, Forte , last year's champion 2-year-old Thoroughbred male, has been disqualified from a victory in the 2022 Hopeful Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course for testing positive for meloxicam, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication.
Karen Murphy said chief New York steward Braulio Baeza Jr. informed the connections May 11 that aside from the disqualification Pletcher was suspended for 10 days and fined $1,000.
The ruling was issued by the New York State Gaming Commission a few hours after Forte's connections spoke with reporters about the situation.
Pletcher said that Forte, owned by Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable, was never treated with the medication and that he plans to appeal the decision.
"Forte came into our care on March 25, 2022, and he has never been prescribed or administered meloxicam," Pletcher said. "We did an internal investigation and could not find an employee who had used the drug."
The appeal will take place before a hearing officer, who can make a recommendation on how the NYGSC should proceed. The NYGSC is not bound by the hearing officer's recommendation though.
Mike Repole said he would file a lawsuit if the disqualification is not overturned.
"I've spent $20 million buying horses," the owner of Repole Stable said. "I'll spend $20 million fighting it in court.
"You talk about epic incompetence, this defines epic incompetence," he added. "This renegade bullying needs to stop."
Steven Barker, a chemist, LSU professor, and expert witness for the connections, said 500 picograms or .5 nanograms of meloxicam was detected in Forte's system after a post-race exam. Though widely used in humans, meloxicam is not permitted as a medication for Thoroughbred racehorses and there is zero tolerance for it in testing.
Barker added that the low level of the medication would not impact a horse's performance and was reflective of contamination rather than administering of the drug. He said 1,000 nanograms would be needed to affect performance.
"There's an absolute certainty that the amount of meloxicam (in Forte) has no affect on performance and it was probably a result of contamination," he said. "The reason for regulation of the industry for drug use is to make sure that no one has an advantage, no one is in danger, or anyone has done something illegal. In this case there was no advantage, the horse was not endangered, or anyone else in the race was endangered. It didn't do anything. It just happened to be there."
Barker criticized the industry standard of zero tolerance, arguing that there should be exemptions for minute traces or contamination.
"There has to be a reason in science (for a penalty)," Barker said. "Zero tolerance has neither reason or science. It is wrong. It does more harm to the industry to call all these trace-level findings a positive while there are new synthetic drugs out there that can kill a horse. Contamination needs to be considered in every case."
A stewards' hearing took place May 10, a day after The New York Times initially reported the drug positive, citing two unnamed sources. The suspension for Pletcher and the fine are in keeping with typical suspensions for meloxicam. Repole said he is considering legal action against the Times for reporting it as "doping."
Murphy blasted the hearing, saying that she was not allowed to speak on Pletcher's behalf and that they were not allowed to call certain witnesses. She said several requests to have Dr. George Maylin, director of the New York State Equine Drug Testing Program, testify were denied. Repole and Murphy said Maylin told Baeza that he believed the finding was due to contamination.
Maylin said to BloodHorse that he told Baeza that contamination was a "possibility." When asked if he agreed with the sanctions, he said, "I do not set the penalties. It was established to be a zero tolerance medication."
Murphy said: "Todd had to present his own case, call witnesses. That's not something in the playbook for trainers. I was denied the right to participate and speak and Todd Pletcher was denied the right to counsel at a hearing that ends up with a sanction. That's pretty shocking to me."
When asked about Murphy's inability to speak and the comments by Maylin, Brad Maione, director of communication for the NYSGC said, "Yesterday's stewards' meeting with trainer Todd Pletcher was an opportunity for the licensee to tell the stewards the licensee's side of the story—a standard step in an investigative process. It was not a public hearing. Today, the state steward (Baeza) issued its ruling, which speaks for itself."
The connections said they were informed of the test results Sept. 28, the day when entries were taken for the Oct. 1 Champagne Stakes (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack, preventing Forte from being entered in the stakes. Instead, he ran in the Oct. 8 Breeders' Futurity (G1) at Keeneland.
Murphy disputed claims that the colt's connections were responsible for the more than seven-month gap between the finding and the hearing.
"The Gaming Commission has stated two or three times that we delayed the process and that's a little bit shocking to me because it's false. I don't like government regulators making false statements. They can embellish a bit but they can't say something that's not true," Murphy said. "We were on this from day one and before day one. We don't even have George Maylin's lab report. They refuse to give that to us. It took the Gaming Commission four months to give us a list of labs we could send our spilt sample."
Pletcher said the son of Violence would be shipped to Belmont Park May 13. Repole added that Forte would be a candidate for the June 10 Belmont Stakes (G1).
"No doubt," Repole said about the Belmont, "as long as Braulio doesn't give me a lifetime ban."
Forte must forfeit $165,000 in earnings in first-place prize money from the $300,000 Hopeful. The race is also valuable in elevating a colt's eventual stallion value.
His disqualification elevates Gulfport from second to first in the Sept. 5 Hopeful. In other horses affected with graded placings, Blazing Sevens rises from third to second, and Mo Strike moves up from fourth to third.
Following the Hopeful, Forte won the Breeders' Futurity and Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Keeneland before being honored this winter with an Eclipse Award. Pletcher also won an Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer, his eighth.
This year, Forte is 2-for-2, having won the Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) and Florida Derby (G1), both at Gulfstream Park. He was scratched from the Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs as the morning-line favorite due to what his connections said was a bruised right front foot and Pletcher said the timing was not right to have Forte ready for the May 20 Preakness Stakes (G1). He currently is on the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission veterinarian's list, a listing of horses ineligible to run for a period of time, as the result of his scratch by a regulatory veterinarian on the morning of the May 6 Kentucky Derby.
Forte was one of a half-dozen Derby competitors on the veterinarian's list in advance of the Derby for unspecified reasons. Horses can be placed on the list for a variety of reasons, ranging from unsoundness to veterinary treatments. He first appeared on the May 4 edition of the Kentucky vet's list, which said he went on the list April 22. He did not appear on the April 25 edition of the Kentucky veterinarian's list.
