Trainer Rodriguez issued provisional suspension for HISA violation
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The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has issued a provisional suspension to trainer Rudy Rodriguez after a hearing officer ruled that the organization’s charges against the trainer of failure to provide proper veterinary care represented a sufficient risk to horse welfare.
The suspension began today, according to a notice provided to Rodriguez’s attorneys and posted on the HISA website. The suspension will last until the case is formally adjudicated, which will be in a matter of weeks.
Rodriguez, a 53-year-old former jockey, was charged in late November with a violation of a rule that states, in part, that a “horse shall not be subjected to . . . deprivation of necessary care, sustenance, shelter, or veterinary care.” The charge was related to the lack of treatment records or evidence of treatment for 15 horses trained by Rodriguez who had been placed on the veterinarian’s list since Nov. 22, 2024, as well as a 16th horse who suffered a fatal injury at Aqueduct in November of this year.
Three of the horses who had been placed on the veterinarian’s list subsequently suffered fatal injuries.
Armand Leone, the hearing officer, wrote that HISA had “demonstrated good cause” in seeking the provisional suspension because Rodriguez “failed to follow the standard of care required for a trainer and endangered the welfare of his horses.” Leone based the ruling on evidence and testimony presented at a Dec. 12 hearing.
Leone specifically referred to testimony surrounding the care of a horse named Secret Rules who was placed on the vet’s list on Dec. 14 of last year, failed a workout test on Jan. 11, and then suffered a fatal injury during a workout on Jan. 19. Throughout that time, according to testimony, Secret Rules was never diagnosed for lameness despite a regulatory veterinarian’s recommendation for an evaluation.
“The unacceptable risks of serious injury or death from respondent’s failures to have his horses examined by an attending veterinarian after being placed on the vet list caused Secret Rules’ catastrophic injury,” Leone wrote.
Rodriguez’s attorney, Clark Brewster, who is also a horse owner, argued during the hearing that HISA had not demonstrated that the horses were not evaluated or treated because HISA rules do not require evaluation records to be entered into its veterinary records portal.
“An evaluation can result in a finding of nothing medically wrong and, thus, no diagnosis,” according to the report’s summary of Brewster’s argument. “The rules only require treatments, procedures, or surgeries to be put into the portal.”
Brewster and Rodriguez, in his own testimony, also denied that any of the horses were denied veterinary care. Brewster provided records for 100 veterinary treatments for the 16 horses, according to the hearing officer’s report.
“All respondent’s horses were routinely evaluated for lameness and other medical conditions,” Brewster wrote. “None were denied care.”
Rodriguez has won 1,677 races during his 15-year career as a trainer, most of them in New York, where he is based. He has won or shared in 13 meet titles at tracks on the New York Racing Association circuit.
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