Attorney says ex-employee placed needles, injectables in suspended trainer Aparna Battula's barn

A cache of hypodermic needles and injectable substances found in the Monmouth Park barn of the now-suspended trainer Aparna Battula was placed there by a disgruntled employee who had been fired the day prior to the discovery, the attorney for the trainer said on Tuesday.

Karen Murphy, the attorney, said that the fired employee admitted to placing the needles and vials in the trainer’s tack room and then calling investigators to alert them to the cache during a hearing with Monmouth stewards to discuss the incident. The employee, a groom who spoke during the hearing via telephone, also accused Battula of other illegal acts during her testimony, Murphy said.

“I can only surmise it was because she was angry about being fired,” Murphy said.

Murphy also said that another groom employed by Battula testified during the hearing that he witnessed the fired employee entering the tack room on the day of the search with a bag in her hand. The groom had assumed that the fired employee was retrieving some of her personal belongings, Murphy said.

Following the hearing, which was held Aug. 3-4, the New Jersey Racing Commission summarily suspended Battula while it conducts an investigation into the incident, including testing the substances found in the tack room. Murphy has filed an appeal of the summary suspension, and also requested a stay of the penalty until the investigation is complete, she said.

It is illegal for trainers to possess either hypodermic needles or injectable substances on the grounds of a racetrack, a rule the NJRC cited in its ruling to issue the summary suspension.

Murphy said that Battula testified the injectable substances included multiple vials of vitamin shots, and that they were stored at Battula’s home. When asked if Battula ever injected the substances herself to horses she trained, Murphy said that she mixed them with leg paints and into feed. Murphy said she had the substances in her house because it was cheaper to buy them on her own than to have a veterinarian supply and administer the vitamins.

Battula was already serving a 15-day suspension for an overage of the regulated medication dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, when she was issued the summary suspension on Aug. 9. Corticosteroids are generally injected into joints for their anti-inflammatory properties.

The barn search in which the cache of needles and vials was found was conducted on July 29, prior to Battula beginning her suspension for the dexamethasone positive, Murphy said. She also said that Battula’s barn and tack room was “searched up and down” by track security personnel after the dexamethasone overage, and that the search did not turn up any prohibited materials.

Battula, a 31-year-old native of India, immigrated to the U.S. as a 19-year-old and graduated from the North American Riding Academy. She rode for two years, but suffered an injury and turned to training in 2015. She has won three races from 25 starts this year, and seven races from 75 starts in her career.