NY Gaming Commission upholds Mott's 2014 suspension

NEW YORK – The New York State Gaming Commission on Monday upheld the penalties of a 15-day suspension and $1,000 fine assessed to Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott by the New York stewards for the finding of an overage of the therapeutic drug Flunixin (banamine) in a horse Mott raced at Belmont Park in 2014.

The Commission did agree with hearing officer Robert Liebers' recommendation finding that Mott not be responsible for the overage of Lasix also found in that horse, Saratoga Snacks, who finished last in the fourth race at Belmont on Sept. 20, 2014. However, according to Ron Ochrym, the acting executive director of the Gaming Commission, Mott’s penalties were based solely on the Flunixin overage. In New York, Lasix is administered by a third party.

Ochrym said that Mott will be notified of when the suspension is to begin, acknowledging that as a trainer with a large stable of horses in multiple jurisdictions he would be afforded ample time to make the necessary transfers.

Mott has been fighting these penalties since they were first issued on Jan. 23, 2015. He has sued the New York Gaming Commission for what he believes is a lack of due process. In fact, there is a judge’s conference scheduled on Thursday in Supreme Court in Schenectady regarding Mott’s civil lawsuit against the Gaming Commission. Mott said Monday he plans to be at that conference.

Mott’s defense of being denied due process by the Gaming Commission was based on the fact there was not enough blood to be tested by an independent laboratory of his choosing. Blood can determine at what levels a drug was in the system of a horse while urine can only detect the presence of the drug itself.

In a Gaming Commission hearing that took seven days over a 7 1/2-month period in 2017, Mott argued his case that trainers are supposed to have a right to have a referee blood sample tested. The Gaming Commission said it is not a right, and would only be able to offer blood as a split sample if there was enough remaining from the original sample. In this case, there wasn’t.

“The road to justice is slow but we intend to pursue it and anyone who reads this transcript of the hearings knows it that this is a travesty of justice,” said Drew Mollica, attorney representing Mott.

Mott, who watched Monday’s Gaming Commission meeting on the computer from Florida, expressed frustration about the hearing officer’s decision to uphold the penalties.

“It’s like they had their minds made up before we ever had a hearing, that’s the way it seems to me,” Mott said. “The hearing officer was in the same room, he heard the same stuff that we did, it seemed like it had no impact on him.”

Beginning with last November’s Aqueduct fall meet, it was announced that horsemen are now assured of having the option to send a referee blood sample to an independent lab to verify test results. The program is largely funded by the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, which will pay for the dedicated refrigerators for the storage of referee samples as well as extra tubes and labels and the service to dispose of the blood sample once test results for the initial sample have cleared.