Two Charles Town positives result of contamination

Two horses that won on the same day at Charles Town Races in West Virginia out of the same barn have been disqualified from their races after the horses tested positive for ingredients in “bath salts,” but the trainers of the horses will not be punished due to a stewards’ finding that the positives were due to contamination.

The horses – Morality Clause, who won the second race at Charles Town on Sept. 17, and Take Me Home, who won the fourth race that day – both tested positive for trace amounts of fentanyl and eutolyne, which are both Class 1 drugs. Fentanyl is an opioid, while eutolyne is a stimulant. Both are commonly mixed into recreational drug cocktails.

According to a stewards’ ruling, both horses were exposed to a worker in the barn of Jack Hurley, who trains Morality Clause. Take Me Home, who is trained by Timothy Kreiser, shipped in to Hurley’s barn the morning of the race, and Keiser was not present due to COVID-19 protocols restricting access to the backstretch.

The worker, who was not identified in the rulings, refused to take a drug test and has been suspended, according to the stewards.

The rulings were first reported by the Thoroughbred Daily News.

Both horses were odds-on favorites and won by open lengths. They have been placed last in the official order of finish for both races.

In both cases, the stewards ruled not to impose a penalty on the trainers because of “substantial mitigating factors.” Both trainers declined to have split-sample tests conducted on their horses and cooperated with the stewards, the rulings said.

“The amount of fentanyl and eutolyne found in the horse is a trace level which lends credibility to the probability that the horse was inadvertently exposed to the drug in some manner,” said the ruling for Kreiser, which noted that the employee in Hurley’s barn had contact with the horse “for hours” prior to the Sept. 17 race. “Based upon an evaluation of the evidence, the stewards conclude that the positive is attributable to inadvertent exposure. … There is no reason to believe that Mr. Kreiser knew of or caused the drug to be administered to the horse.”