Pletcher begins serving 10-day suspension under duress
?q=100)
Trainer Todd Pletcher began serving a 10-day suspension on Thursday for the finding of a regulated medication in a horse he trained nearly four years ago under a ruling issued by the New York State Gaming Commission.
Though Pletcher began serving the suspension Thursday, his attorney, Drew Mollica, said that the “case is far from over,” citing a recent motion he has filed with the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, which in May upheld a 2023 decision by the New York State Gaming Commission to issue a 10-day suspension to Pletcher based on the finding of meloxicam, a regulated anti-inflammatory medication, in the post-race sample of Forte after winning the 2022 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga.
Mollica said that the court recently denied a motion to stay the suspension, allowing the 10-day suspension to go into effect. The NYSGC ruling was posted on the commission’s website on Thursday. Mollica said he has filed motions “for leave to appeal and leave to re-argue the decision based on the merits of the case.”
“This case is not over,” Mollica said. “This case continues.”
Forte, who would go on to be voted 2-year-old champion colt after capping his 2022 season with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, was owned by Mike Repole, who has a separate action in New York’s courts challenging the disqualification of Forte from the Hopeful based on the positive.
On Thursday, Repole posted a lengthy criticism on social media of the 10-day suspension, New York’s regulators, and the sport in general.
“The New York State Gaming Commission is everything that is wrong with horse racing regulation,” Repole said. “In my opinion, they are incompetent, inflexible, arrogant, and completely disconnected from the people and horses they are supposed to serve.”
Repole went on to complain that the drug finding would not have been considered a positive under the current policies of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which did not have jurisdiction in New York at the time the Hopeful was run in 2022. HISA’s rules have a screening limit for the drug that would not have triggered a positive finding at the concentration found in Forte’s post-race sample.
Repole, a New York native, also said that his enthusiasm for running horses in New York was waning.
“Kentucky understands that horse racing is about horses and people,” Repole wrote. “We can easily just run for MORE money at Churchill Downs and one of its other tracks with [half] the expenses. Too often New York acts like horse racing is about regulators and power.”
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.