Baltas handed one-year suspension by California stewards

Trainer Richard Baltas was suspended one year and fined $10,000 by a panel of three California stewards on Friday for violations related to the administration of raceday supplements at Santa Anita in April and May.

Baltas indicated Friday that he plans to appeal.

“I’m terribly disappointed,” Baltas said in a brief phone conversation. “We are going to appeal. The decision is the decision.”

The penalty takes effect Dec. 9 and continues through Dec. 8, 2023.

Last spring, backstretch surveillance cameras in the Santa Anita stable area caught one of Baltas’s employees administering the herbal supplement X-Treme Air Boost to Noble Reflection on the afternoon of May 8, hours before the horse was scheduled to start.

California trainers are under severe restrictions regarding medications and supplements that can be administered to a horse within 48 and 24 hours prior to a race.

A review of video surveillance from Baltas’s stable in April and May led the California Horse Racing Board to file a complaint on June 21, alleging that unpermitted substances were administered to 23 horses in the trainer’s care on race days at Santa Anita between April 15 and May 8.

The supplements X-Treme Air Boost and Cool & Calm were administered to horses in the stable in April and May to prevent bleeding and to aid nervous horses, according to testimony presented by the racing board in a hearing at Los Alamitos in September.

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Tests taken at the University of California-Davis, the state’s official testing laboratory, revealed the presence of higenamine and paenol in X-Treme Air Boost, according to the racing board’s complaint.

According to the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s website, higenamine is a stimulant that has been banned for use in athletes since 2017 by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Paenol is an anti-inflammatory, according to veterinary websites.

In their one-page ruling issued Friday, stewards Grant Baker, Luis Jauregui, and Kim Sawyer cited three racing board rules in determining the penalties – trainer to ensure condition of horse, conduct detrimental to racing, and administration of substances after entries.

Four days of formal hearings were conducted in the case at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita in September and October.

In effect, Baltas will serve a 19-month suspension.

Baltas has not had any starters in California since early May at the insistence of track and regulatory officials. In May, many of his runners were transferred to trainer George Papaprodromou, with a smaller number going to other trainers.

In early May, Baltas was banned from working or starting horses at Santa Anita by track management when the allegations surfaced. In late June, days after the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting concluded on June 19, Baltas attempted to enter horses at the Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos, but was denied the opportunity by track stewards.

Among the reasons cited in the decision were racing board rules stating the stewards had the power to refuse an entry “for good cause” and that they “may, without notice, refuse the entries of any person.”

Baltas filed a lawsuit regarding that decision, but the case not been completed.

Baltas, 61, has developed one of the most prominent stables in Southern California in recent years, frequently participating in the circuit’s leading races.

Baltas ranked fifth in the standings at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting in early May when he was banned from starting horses. He won five stakes earlier this year.

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