Trainer Miller fined for medication overage

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Peter Miller was fined $3,500 by Santa Anita stewards on Sunday after one of his runners tested in excess of the permitted level of the analgesic phenylbutazone following a workout in January.

Te Amo Mamo had a workout on Jan. 15 as part of the process to be removed from the veterinarian’s list. In a post-workout test, Te Amo Mamo was found to have 2.65 micrograms of bute, which was over the California Horse Racing Board’s limit of 2.0 micrograms. This was Miller’s third such penalty in the last year, according to the stewards’ ruling.

Miller finished the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting on April 8 with 30 wins, tied for second in the standings behind Bob Baffert, who won 37 races. Miller was suspended for seven days earlier this month and fined $2,500 for an incident in 2017 in which the stewards ruled he used derogatory language toward a backstretch employee.

Robert Falcone Jr., who began training in California in late 2017, was fined $500 for a recent altercation with backstretch security, according to a ruling issued on Sunday. The ruling stated that the 24-year-old Falcone displayed “aggressive behavior” after entering a restricted area without permission.