Veterinarians appeal Indiana medication suspensions, say allegations are 'false'

Two veterinarians who have been issued 60-day suspensions by the Indiana Horse Racing Commission have appealed the penalties and requested a stay, according to one of the veterinarians.

Cyndi Loomis and Nicole Wettstein, both practitioners with Kentucky Equine Medical Associates, were issued the 60-day suspensions on Nov. 7. The ruling cited violations of a regulation that prohibit the possession of expired medications or mislabeled or unlabeled medications. The veterinarians appealed the suspensions on Monday, Loomis said.

The suspensions stem from a July 5 search of a storage room that Loomis and Wettstein maintained on the backstretch of Horseshoe Indianapolis, Loomis said. The room contained veterinary equipment such as ultrasound and radiograph machines, along with medications that are used routinely on the backstretch, Loomis said.

“There’s nothing performance-enhancing, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that’s not on everyone’s shelf or trucks,” Loomis said.

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She said that the IHRC maintained that several bottles of medications contained substances that were not approved by the FDA or had expired, and she said that the expired medications were in storage so that they could be eventually transferred for proper disposal in Kentucky.

“They don’t have any facilities [at Horseshoe] for proper disposal,” Loomis said.

The July 5 search followed by one day the summary suspension of Loomis and trainer Marvin Johnson, along with his wife, Christy, under allegations that Loomis administered adrenocorticotropic hormone, also known as ACTH, to horses that were entered to run that day. ACTH is a cortisol-stimulating substance, and it is illegal to administer on raceday, along with any other substance but Lasix.

Marvin and Christy Johnson were both issued one-year suspensions by the IHRC in late October based on the allegations.

Loomis said on Thursday that the IHRC misidentified the horses who were treated, and that the horses who were treated with ACTH were not entered to run that day. The summary suspension of Loomis was later lifted by an administrative law judge after the IHRC failed to file an official complaint against her within 90 days of the suspension, as required by Indiana’s regulations.

Three weeks after that decision, the IHRC released the rulings against Loomis and Wettstein based on the search of the storage room.

“The allegations are false,” Loomis said, in reference to the in-today horses. “This whole thing is a mess.”

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