Forster accepts 15-day suspension for gabapentin

Grant Forster, a trainer who splits his time between the Midwest and Louisiana, has accepted a 15-day suspension from Kentucky stewards after a horse he trained tested positive for gabapentin, a drug that is widely used to treat nerve pain and seizures in humans.

Forster will begin serving the suspension on March 28. Epicurean, a horse trained by Forster, tested positive for gabapentin, a Class B drug under Kentucky classifications, after finishing sixth in a race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 26 last year. Epicurean was claimed from the race.

Forster, who informed his owners about the suspension in an email last week, said that he had never administered gabapentin to Epicurean or any other horse in his barn and that the positive test was a “complete shock to me.” He said that none of his employees said that they were taking any medications containing the drug, and that his veterinarian said that he had last prescribed it “several years ago” to a horse who was foundering on a farm.

“While I would have liked to somehow try and prove my innocence, in the end it always comes down to the rule in horse racing where the trainer is the absolute insurer of the horse and what is in its system,” Forster said. “To say this positive test is a gut punch would be a gross understatement.”

Technically, the suspension was for 30 days, but the stewards reduced the penalty to 15 days provided that Forster does not have a Class A or Class B positive for 365 days after the ruling, which was signed on March 12. Forster waived his right to an appeal.

Forster said that he has not had a positive for a banned medication in his entire 20-year career training, other than an overage for the regulated medication phenylbutazone in Washington state in 2005. He was given a warning, according to database records.

Forster has a career record of 301 wins from 1,915 starts, for purse earnings of $8.5 million. This year, racing at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, he has had six first-place finishes from 21 starts.