Stewards meet with Mullins's attorney

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Though they held a hearing with Jeff Mullins and his attorney on Thursday, the Aqueduct stewards delayed issuing a ruling in the case as they were still awaiting the results of tests conducted on the product Mullins administered to his horse, Gato Go Win, before the Grade 3 Bay Shore Stakes here on April 4.

If the report is available Friday, the stewards could issue a ruling then.

Mullins administered the over-the-counter medication Air Power, an all-natural liquid medication likened to cough medicine, to Gato Go Win while that horse was in the race-day security barn. NYRA rules prohibit a horse receiving anything other than Lasix while in the security barn, which all horses must report to six hours before their race. The Aqueduct stewards scratched Gato Go Win from the Bay Shore.

On Thursday, in the stewards office at Aqueduct, stewards Braulio Baeza, Carmine Donofrio and Ted Hill met with Mullins' attorney, Karen Murphy, while Mullins participated by phone from California.

According to Murphy, Mullins "presented a very compelling presentation of the facts of the day" during the 30-minute meeting. Murphy said that at no time was Mullins given a written version of the rules of the race-day security barn.

"The only experience Jeff Mullins has had in New York is the [2005] Breeders' Cup and when he came to the Breeders' Cup in New York there was security and detention, everything was reviewed, everything was logged," Murphy said. "If there was the slightest question of anything not being appropriate he was told he can't bring it in, and there was reliance on that experience that it would be a similar experience going into the detention barn for [the Wood]. Is it a total excuse? No. Is it a reasonable expectation that you would get a heads up?"

According to Murphy, Mullins checked in with officials at the race-day security barn and he assumed that they also went through his pail, which is where Mullins had the Air Power and oral dose syringe.

"He assumed that they reviewed the pail and that they would certainly have given him a heads up if there was anything in it that was not to be brought in," Murphy said.

Mullins is the trainer of I Want Revenge, who figures to go off as one of the favorites in the May 2 Kentucky Derby.