KHRGC ordered to issue training license to Maria Borell
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A hearing officer has ordered the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation to issue a training license to Maria Borell, the former trainer of 2015 champion sprinter Runhappy. The hearing officer, Clayton B. Patrick, found that the commission’s recent decision to deny Borell a license violated her due-process rights and was based on “vague and inconsistent” grounds.
Patrick, the deputy executive director of the Kentucky Public Protection Cabinet, wrote that Borell “met her burden of proof by a preponderance of evidence” during a licensing hearing held in 2025. That hearing ultimately resulted in the KHRGC’s license committee informing Borell that she would be given the option of withdrawing her license application to avoid a decision to deny the application.
“The corporation’s case lacked substance and was not convincing on the issues presented,” Patrick wrote. “The corporation failed to present evidence of conduct or inaction serious enough to justify non-renewal of Borell’s license.”
Patrick's order can be approved by the KHRGC or appealed by the corporation. If the KHRGC rejects the order, Borell will appeal the decision in court, according to her attorney, Bob Heleringer.
“They had no case,” Heleringer said on Tuesday. “They had no grounds. This case has been a vendetta since day one against someone the committee doesn’t like.”
In response to a request for comment, a KHRGC spokesperson referenced the options available to the agency but said that the “KHRGC has no further comment at this time.”
Borell has not started a horse since a career-altering controversy erupted in 2016 regarding the condition of horses on a Kentucky farm owned by her father. While Borell and her father were both separately charged with negligence in the incident, the charges against Maria Borell were dropped by county prosecutors and expunged from her record in 2022.
At the time the charges were filed, Borell was living in Florida. On the advice of an attorney, she did not return to Kentucky until the charges against her were dropped.
Borell applied for the license in Kentucky approximately six months after she received a license from the California Horse Racing Board late in 2024. The CHRB said at the time that Borell had met all of its conditions for licensing.
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