Kentucky suit alleges false dates on auction X-rays

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A Kentucky attorney has filed a class-action lawsuit accusing a leading veterinary practice of falsifying the dates on radiographs provided as a service to buyers at Keeneland auctions.

The suit, filed last week in Fayette Circuit Court by the Lexington attorney Mason Miller on behalf of one named plaintiff, alleges that veterinarians at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington changed the dates on which X-rays of horses were taken so that they appeared to have been taken within the timeframes established by Keeneland. The veterinarians than directed those X-rays be destroyed after the sale to hide evidence of the practice, the suit alleges.

The suit states that the alleged practice of forward-dating the radiographs “has allowed billions of dollars of horses to be sold that otherwise would not have qualified for to be sold … and it has produced hundreds of millions of dollars of commissions for consignors, and correspondingly exorbitant fees for the veterinarians involved.”

The suit names Hagyard, its information technology provider, and four veterinarians who are partners at Hagyard - Michael Hore, Robert Hunt, Dwayne Rodgerson, and Michael Spirito - as defendants. Keeneland is not named as a defendant. The other defendants are listed as “John Does 1-100,” representing unidentified sellers and consignors who profited from the alleged practices.

In a statement released in response to the lawsuit, Michael P. Casey, an attorney for Hagyard, said the lawsuit is “without merit” and “based on a fundamental misrepresentation of the facts.”

“We will vigorously address the misrepresentations and claims made in the suit through the proper legal channels,” Casey said.

The suit alleges that the practice of misdating the radiographs and deleting the data files from mobile radiograph machines began occurring in 2006 and stretched “over a decade.” The sole named plaintiff in the suit is Tom Swearingen, an Illinois-based trainer who has purchased 24 horses at Keeneland’s sale from 2007 to 2016 for a total of $400,000, the suit claims.

The suit states that the members of the class that should also be considered plaintiffs are “so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable” due to the fact that the sales “involve thousands of buyers since 2006 who are eligible for inclusion in the class.”

Keeneland currently requires that consignors provide sets of X-rays of each horse entered in the company’s September yearling auction that were taken within 21 days of the horse entering the auction ring. For other sales conducted throughout the year, the radiographs must have been taken within 15 days of the horse entering the ring. The radiographs are provided as a free service to potential buyers.

The lawsuit cites as supporting evidence an investigation by the Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners last year in which several of the defendants in the lawsuit and “other agents of Hagyard” testified under oath that dates of some radiographs were altered and that other constituents in the sales industry were aware of the practice.

The suit states that the practice of providing radiographs that were older than listed defrauded buyers.

“Simply put, no buyer would purchase horses at an auction if they knew it was being intentionally and fraudulently manipulated,” the suit states. “The defendants’ actions have undermined decades of work the Thoroughbred industry has undertaken to improve the integrity and honesty of the system.”