Geographical Mix-Up Adds Confusion to Legal Spat Over Beta-Blockers at Iowa Derby

Racehorse trainer Steve Asmussen is awaiting an Iowa judge’s determination on whether Prairie Meadows Racetrack imposed an “arbitrary and capricious” penalty on him. That’s after single of his horses failed a doping test inward July 2019.

But The Ioway Washington Dispatch reports a geographical error made by Asmussen’s sound squad could dent his case.

The horse, Shang, tried and true electropositive for the prohibited substance Atenolol, a beta-blocker. That was shortly after placing sec in the Ioway Derby’s sweepstakes for three-year-olds.

In May 2020, Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino’s Board of Stewards ordered Asmussen to forgo $49,700 in win and make up an administrative penalty of $1,000.

The ‘Wrong’ Atloona

But Asmussen says that the really depression traces of the Atenolol inward Shang’s system of rules would non experience granted the Equus caballus a competitory advantage. He says it points to inadvertent exposure to the drug and suggests Shang may have got come in into touch with the chemical via a worker urinating inwards the horse’s stall.

Asmussen’s lawyers fence that Atenolol is a usual contaminant inward the irrigate supplies of metropolitan areas. In court, they presented published grounds of Atenolol in the water furnish inwards Altoona. The job was, they got the legal injury Altoona.

Atloona, Ioway is rest home to the Prairie Meadows Racetrack and component part of the Des Moines metropolitan area. Atloona, Penn. is a metropolis 860 miles away, reportedly with a mellow engrossment of Atenolol in its faucets.

Crucially, constituent of the evidence Asmussen presented was most a different urban center named Altoona,” the board’s lawyers told the homage endure month, as reported by the Capital Dispatch.

“He offered an clause from The Altoona Mirror, dated May 2020, discussing the Department of Environmental Protection’s annunciation that it would look back the Altoona Water Authority’s irrigate direction practices,” they continued. “Problem is, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Altoona Water Authority are Pennsylvania government entities, and the Altoona Mirror is a Keystone State newspaper.”

Unjustly Punitive

In reaching its decision, the gameboard agreed that the traces of Atenolol in the horse’s system were passing low. But they said when a horse tests positively charged for a prohibited drug, it is sort out grounds of a formula violation, and the buck stops with the trainer. That includes preventing workers from relieving themselves anywhere near the horses.

Asmussen argues this is unjustly punitive and needlessly tarnishes the report of the horse racing industry. Before seeking a judicial review in the James K. Polk County Court, he challenged the determination via the Ioway Racing Commission, which upheld the board’s ruling. Asmussen wants the ruling overturned.

“To maintain such a insurance policy stance only if darkens the reputation of the full racing manufacture and does cypher to key and discourage the real threats to the racing industry or protect our racehorses,” Asmussen’s lawyers wrote inward their complaint.

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