Ward to serve 15 days for diabetes drug positive

Multiple stakes winner Averly Jane has been disqualified from her win in last year’s $150,000 Kentucky Juvenile Stakes at Churchill Downs and her trainer Wesley Ward will serve a 15-day suspension because the horse tested positive for metformin, a diabetes drug that lowers blood sugar in humans, according to a ruling by Kentucky stewards.

According to the ruling, Ward will sit out for 15 days from Jan. 26 until Feb. 9. Ward was technically given a 30-day suspension, but 15 of the days have been stayed provided the trainer does not have a Class A or Class B positive within the next calendar year.

Metformin, a Class B drug, is not an equine medication, but studies have been performed examining the use of the drug in mares that are overweight. The studies found that the drug had some impact on treating mares with equine metabolic syndrome, but that better feeding practices were more effective.

Ward said that he did not administer the drug to the filly and that he had “never heard of it” before the positive was called. The case took nearly nine months to adjudicate because Ward and his attorney, Darrell Vienna, called in witnesses in front of the stewards to argue that the case was environmental contamination. Ward said the drug was found at trace levels.

“It’s the fifth-most dispensed drug in the United States for diabetes,” Ward said. “It was four nanograms. It’s just a shame. I don’t know how it got into the horse’s system, and it obviously didn’t make her run faster.” Averly Jane won two races after the Kentucky Juvenile Stakes by open lengths as the heavy favorite.

Ward said that while conducting his interviews he talked to an employee of an equine vanning company who told him he has been taking the drug twice a day for 30 years to manage his diabetes.

“He told me, ‘It doesn’t make me run any faster,’ ” Ward said.

Averly Jane won her first four starts, including three listed stakes, before finishing fifth in the Grade 2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. It was widely known that the horse had a medication positive after the Kentucky Juvenile Stakes, which was run on April 28, because the second-place finisher in the race later ran in races for winners. The connections of that horse had declined to speak publicly about the result.

Averly Jane is owned by Hat Creek Racing, a partnership that includes Gatewood Bell, the vice president of racing at Keeneland. Bell was hired in February 2021, two months before Averly Jane won her first race at the track.

Bell said he preferred not to comment on the case.

Ward has a career record of 2,084 wins from 9,872 starts, and he is widely known for his work with young horses. The ruling stated that 15 days were being stayed from the suspension due to “number of violations in relation to overall record.”

Ward’s last medication positive in Kentucky was in 2016, when a horse he trained tested positive for methocarbamol, a regulated sedative.

“I try as hard as I can, especially in this day and age, when you want to walk a straight line,” Ward said. “But I respect the decision of the stewards.”