Horse Racing’s Rossi Family Busted By French Cops on Suspicion of Doping, Fraud

French authorities on Tues arrested troika members of i of France’s foremost racehorse-training families on suspicion of doping and fraud, Le Parisien reports.

Cédric Rossi, on with his uncle, Fréderic, and brother, Charley, was taken into custody at their training snapper inward Calas, nigh Marseilles.

Meanwhile, inward a co-ordinated raid inward Paris, law detained Charley Rossi’s partner, cover Italian jockey Jessica Marcialis. Eleven others were arrested in the genus Paris swoop, among them vets, trainers, and jockeys.

The raids were carried out past agents of the Robert William Service Central des Courses et Jeux (SCCJ), a ramify of the national law that investigates play crimes.

Win or Die Trying

The Rossi sept have been major players in Gallic Equus caballus racing for trey generations and has lately been very successful. Its horse barn star, Sealiway, won the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Ascot cobbler's last October, earning the sept £714,500 (US$943,000).

Last year, Marcialis became the first of all female jockey to win a Group 1 race, the highest take down of thoroughbred racing. She rode Tiger Tanaka to triumph at the Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp. The horse was trained past her partner, Charley Rossi.

But Le Parisien suggested the family’s success has raised suspicion inwards racing circles, coupled with recent deaths of their horses on the racecourse and during training. Following a ten-month investigation involving electronic and human surveillance, the SCCJ suspects the Rossis of orchestrating “an organised system of horse doping,” according to Le Parisien.

France Galop, the dead body that oversees racing in France, said inward a financial statement that the fight down against doping was an “absolute priority” for the racing industry, which pumps €10 zillion (US$11.3 million) a twelvemonth into preventative measures.

These include administering 30,000 doping tests per year on racehorses, which are carried come out before races, inwards training, and at he-man farms. Many are unannounced, said Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault Galop.

Medina Spirit

The arrests came just a daylight after the death of Al Madinah Spirit, the Equus caballus at the nerve center of the doping contention at this year’s Kentucky Derby. The colt is believed to have suffered a bosom attack patch training at Santa Anita in Golden State on Monday.

Medina Spirit failed a doping examine shortly after winning the derby in May. Trainer Bob Baffert denies doping, blaming the mental testing result on an ointment he had used to do by a roseola on the horse.

Meanwhile, inward September, trainer Jorge Navarro pleaded shamed to administering performance-enhancing drugs to horses under his care. He has agreed to pay $25.9 jillion inwards restitution, representing the amount he won from races where he admitted his horses were doped. He is currently awaiting a tutelar sentence.

Navarro was ace of the dozens arrested lowest yr for complicity in a long-running doping scheme. Also among them was Jason Servis, the trainer of Maximum Security, who appeared to win the 2019 KY Derby before being disqualified for interference.

Servis denies the charges and is awaiting trial.