Prairie Meadows trainer gets year ban

A trainer in Iowa has been suspended one year after he admitted to regulators that he accidentally spilled a banned substance into a horse’s feed supplement, according to the Prairie Meadows stewards.

Robert Roe, who has three wins from 17 starts this year, received the suspension from the Prairie Meadows stewards after one of his horses tested positive for the active ingredients in a natural substance marketed as kratom, which can be consumed as a powder and as leaves. The horse, Candy My Boy, who tested positive after races on Sept. 20 and Sept. 28, was placed on the veterinarian’s list for 180 days.

According to the stewards, Roe testified during a hearing on Oct. 22 that he was aware that he dropped the substance into the joint supplement, but he did not throw the supplement out, because “he did not believe he spilled enough into it that it would affect the horse.”

Roe testified that he believed that the substance was legal and that he purchased it for his own use. Some users experience stimulant-like effects from ingesting the substance.

This is the second known positive for the active ingredients in kratom. In 2017, a harness trainer, Michael Weiner, was suspended indefinitely by New York regulators after four of his horses tested positive for the substance. At the time, the active ingredients had not been classified by racing regulators, but Weiner received the penalty under a catch-all rule prohibiting any unclassified substance that can impact a horse’s performance.

Roe has been training since 1984 and has a career record of 103 wins from 1,097 starts, according to Equibase.