CHRB files complaints on eight individuals in regard to last year's spike in fatalities

The California Horse Racing Board on Monday filed complaints against eight individuals, ranging from veterinarians to trainers, alleging violations emanating from a report issued last week about the spike in fatalities that plagued Santa Anita one year ago.

The exhaustive, 77-page report did not find any use of illegal medications in the 23 horses who perished the first three months of the meet last year. Among other things, though, the report cited veterinarians who had sloppy record keeping and trainers who were program trainers for others, and the complaints filed Monday were specific to those types of violations.

Drs. Sarah Birch and Jennifer Finley are both alleged to have failed to turn in veterinarian confidential reports for medication administrations on two horses each.

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Drs. John Araujo, Joe Dowd, and Karen Valko were cited for allegedly failing to turn in veterinarian confidential reports for medication administrations for one horse each.

In some of the complaints, the veterinarians are alleged to have failed to fill out the required medication paperwork for several days on a horse.

Mario Garcia, licensed as a horse owner, is alleged to have been training a horse without a trainer’s license, which is grounds for having his license suspended or revoked.

Trainer Antonio Garcia is cited for allegedly delegating his training duties to a non-licensed trainer.

And owner-trainer Oscar Heredia is alleged to have delegated training duties for a horse he owned to another trainer while Heredia continued to train another horse.

All eight have hearings scheduled with Santa Anita’s stewards between April 24 and May 1.