Trainer Sanchez-Pinero Gets Multiple Suspensions, Fines

Mid-Atlantic trainer Angel Sanchez-Pinero, already serving a two-year suspension for an albuterol positive, has been suspended an additional eight years and fined $90,000 by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit. The trainer received five additional sanctions Jan. 12 and 14 for violations from August 2024 through May 2025. Sanchez-Pinero has been working as a licensed trainer since 2003, racing primarily claimers at Parx Racing, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Laurel Park. Prior to the most recent sanctions, Sanchez-Pinero was serving a two-year suspension for an albuterol positive found in the now-4-year-old colt Gone Boy, who was tested following a start in a maiden claiming race April 19, 2025, at Aqueduct. The colt had blood, urine, and hair samples collected, which revealed negative results in the blood and urine but positive results in the hair samples. Sanchez-Pinero denied giving albuterol, a bronchodilator, to Gone Boy and disputed the results of the hair testing. He argued with investigators that the hair had been cut and not pulled from the roots, so it represented a period of time when the horse was not in his care. HISA portal records indicated Sanchez-Pinero had been the trainer of Gone Boy from Aug. 1, 2024, to June 17, 2025. The horses raced six times for him between Oct. 10, 2024, and April 19, 2025. The hair sample tested corresponded with a period time from Dec. 19, 2024, to April 19, 2025. Also Dr. Daniel Eichner, president and laboratory director for the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah, said albuterol administered by inhaling is undetectable in the blood after five minutes and therapeutic doses either inhaled or administered orally are undetectable in urine within 72 hours. Albuterol can be detected in hair up to four months. Sanchez-Pinero was suspended beginning Nov. 25 and fined $10,000 along with the loss of any purse money. The incident with Gone Boy was only the latest in a long string of conversations and hearings between Sanchez-Pinero and HIWU investigators going back to Aug. 5, 2024, when a horse in his stable named Magical Jaime tested positive for the anabolic steroid boldenone. The now-10-year-old gelded son of Magician (IRE) was tested following a supervised work at Delaware Park to get off the vet's list. Because Magical Jaime is male horse and the substance identified is an endogenous steroid, the result triggered an atypical findings investigation. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, for which HIWU handles testing and enforcement, implemented an atypical findings policy to protect trainers who might have a positive test that can be explained by environment contamination or a substance not given exogenously. Such an investigation involves contacting the trainer and giving him or her the opportunity to explain the positive test result, therefore providing the opportunity to avoid an adverse finding being publicly reported. At first, HIWU contacted trainer Jose Delgado who was listed as Magical Jaime's conditioner in the HISA Portal, where trainers register the horses in their care. Delgado told investigators he had not trained the horse in more than a year. Delaware Park confirmed that Sanchez-Pinero was the trainer responsible for Magical Jaime. After months of requesting a response and medical records related to the boldenone positive, Sanchez-Pinero eventually disclosed in an email that he regularly gave the horse a feed supplement that contained DHEA, another anabolic steroid with the name dehydroepiandrosterone. The DHEA was in a supplement labeled Enhancer. Sanchez-Pinero was reportedly trying to explain the postwork positive test and disclosed the use of another banned substance. On Dec. 5, 2024, he turned over to investigators the bottle labeled Enhancer containing a white liquid and an empty white bag labeled Body Builder 4000. The labeling on the bottle clearly stated "contains DHEA." The trainer would later argue in a hearing that finding him in violation for possessing and administering DHEA would "send a message" that people will be punished for trying to help HIWU. Yet, investigators said Sanchez-Pinero only disclosed the supplement in an effort to defend himself from the boldenone allegation. While HIWU worked through the Magical Jaime investigation, Sanchez-Pinero would have another horse test positive. Laguardia, a 3-year-old filly in 2025, tested positive twice March 26, 2025, before and after race 2 at Parx Racing. The filly was tested prior to the race because another horse Sanchez-Pinero shipped to Parx that day had been discovered with a patch of blood on its neck by a vet doing prerace rounds to administer Lasix. Laguardia was tested again after the race. Both tests revealed the banned long-acting bronchodilator formoterol. Laguardia was provisionally suspended April 24, 2025, prohibiting the horse from participating in any timed work or race. Sanchez-Pinero argued he deserved a hearing before the horse was suspended, which he got, but Arbitrator Armand Leone Jr. deemed the hearing premature and ordered the trainer to obtain legal representation. In the meantime, HIWU told the trainer the horse would be suspended for 60 days and could be released if it cleared a follow-up drug test at a HISA-sanctioned track. Sanchez-Pinero then chose to work Laguardia May 1 at Laurel Park and May 17 at Westampton Farm Training Center in Westampton, N.J. The trainer would later say he did not know the horse had been suspended because he did not have access to his email, but investigators pointed out he had been notified of the horse's suspension in writing and verbally by HIWU investigators. Sanchez-Pinero would get his full hearing regarding the Magical Jaime violations Oct. 7, 2025, and get another full hearing regarding the Laguardia violations Nov. 11, both following his two-year suspension for the Gone Boy positive. The working of Laguardia while the horse was suspended gave Sanchez-Pinero an additional one-year suspension and an additional fine of $5,000, giving him for this violation alone a three-year suspension and $30,000 in fines along with the loss of any purses. The long road adjudicating the Magical Jaime violations would deliver an additional five-year suspension plus $60,000 in fines and the responsibility of covering arbitration costs.