Trainer Rusty Arnold suspended 90 days for 2016 ractopamine positives

George R. “Rusty” Arnold, the Kentucky-based trainer, will have to disperse his horses during a 90-day suspension recently handed down by Kentucky’s stewards for two positives for the banned drug ractopamine dating from 2016, according to the stewards’ ruling and the trainer.

Arnold said in an interview earlier this week that he has never administered ractopamine, a drug that is used as a feed additive for livestock in order to build lean muscle mass, to any of his horses. He said that he believed that the two positives, which occurred within a week of each other after the horses raced at Kentucky Downs in September 2016, were the result of environmental contamination.

Arnold said that he plans to appeal the penalty to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

“I have full confidence in this commission to look at the facts of the case and render a fair judgment,” Arnold said, in a statement he provided on Friday. “They are knowledgeable and fair people with the authority to make a decision. I am 100 percent sure I will be cleared of the charges because I have two things on my side. The truth and innocence.”

Arnold, who has three wins from 26 starts this year and has a lifetime winning rate of 14.8 percent from 11,576 starts, has had two medication violations over the course of his 40-year career, both for overages of regulated medications.

While ractopamine is legal to administer to livestock and is a common feed additive, the drug is a Class 2 prohibited substance in racing. The drug began surfacing in horse racing a decade ago, and it is believed to be effective in building muscle mass only when it is administered on a regular basis, similar to anabolic steroids, which are banned, or the bronchial dilator clenbuterol, which is regulated.

The two Arnold-trained horses that tested positive were Prudence, who won a $130,000 maiden special weight at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 10 at odds of 17-1, and Quality Emperor, who finished second in a $130,000 maiden special weight on Sept. 15 at odds of 5-1.

Arnold said that he was notified of the positives in October of 2016. Commission personnel searched his barns at that time, he said, but the search did not turn up any illegal medications or traces of ractopamine in any of Arnold’s supplies.

“They searched our barn from top to bottom and tested about ten bags of stuff,” Arnold said. “There was nothing with ractopamine in it, but that can go either way.”

Arnold’s suspensions comes in the wake of a string of violations recently in horse racing in which trainers have argued that their horses have been exposed to contaminants. In several cases last year, racing commissions in New Jersey and Maryland issued minor penalties for the findings of trace levels of Class 1 drugs, including cocaine.