Lessons inherent as top Brit trainer draws ban, fine

Noted British trainer Nicky Henderson was handed a three-month ban and a £40,000 fine (that's $65,000 to us Yanks) for a medication violation uncovered in one of the Queen's own horses.

Racingpost.com reports that Henderson's charge, jumper Moonlit Path, was found to have been treated with the banned substance tranexamic acid, an anti-bleeding medication. The British Horseracing Authority determined that the drug was administered to Moonlit Path -- who debuted with a sixth-place finish in February -- but it was not logged on the records, deemed an effort to hide its use from authorities.

Moonlit Path has raced three times since, twice finishing fourth but being pulled up and not completing the race on May 15 at Aintree. She's earned £262 from her four starts.

"The treatment wasn't recorded in the horse's record-book and they concluded there was an attempt to hide the fact the horse had been given this substance," said Paul Struthers, public relations officer for the BHA. "They concluded that the reason it was done was because they knew the horse shouldn't have been given it."

Struthers said Henderson's previous clean record played into the decision not to disqualify him from the sport entirely. And the BHA considered the fact that tranexamic acid is considered effective for the condition Henderson was trying to treat -- pulmonary bleeding.

"Contrary to what some people believe, the panel's view is that if a horse has a tendency to bleed, (tranexamic acid) will stop it," Struthers said.

The penalty has supporters and detractors -- some who don't like it label it too harsh, while others decry its perceived leniency.

Rupert Arnold, chief executive of the National Trainers Federation, labeled the penalty "severe," offered sympathy to Henderson, and called for a U.K. meeting of the minds on treatments that he said benefit a horse's welfare without enhancing performance.

"While not condoning any breach of the rules, the NTF has sympathy with Nicky Henderson since every trainer's main concern is the welfare of their horses and it is therefore a cause of great regret that a senior trainer of such impeccable reputation should fall foul of the rules on prohibited substances by acting in the interests of his horse," said a statement from Arnold, published by Racingpost.com.

"This is becoming a difficult area for trainers to manage and there is a debate to be had about the sense of banning the use of treatments that protect the horse's welfare and are shown not to enhance performance. The NTF has already opened dialogue with the BHA on this subject and looks forward to progressing them."

Racing pundit John McCririck chastised the BHA for its decision, calling it "absolutely outrageous." He said Henderson was "a man of proven integrity" who has been "condemned in a secret court in a tribunal, of which we have not seen the evidence."

Yet Henderson himself wasn't complaining. Not much, anyway.

"I am obviously hugely relieved that this saga has been concluded and, even though this seems a harsh sentence, we accept the findings and can now look forward again to the future and an exciting season ahead," he said in a prepared statement published by Racing Post. "... Although the medication should not have been administered, I can only reiterate, as the panel has accepted, that it was only given in the interest of the welfare of Moonlit Path herself."

Perhaps Henderson isn't as concerned as he might be due to the timing of the ban. Eight-time champion jockey Peter Scudamore notes there aren't many top U.K. jump races between now and October. And the fine -- though seemingly substantial -- isn't so much for a conditioner of Henderson's stature; after all, he trains for the Queen.

"If they had banned him for a year, that may have affected his long-term career," Scudamore told Racing Post "As it is, he has received a stiff fine of £40,000 -- but he'll be able to pay that."

Critics of Henderson and of his punishment focused both on the fine, and on whether he received enough time on the sidelines compared to the severity of the offense -- knowingly administering a banned substance, and apparently trying to hide it.

Tom Tate, former president of the National Trainers' Federation, said he sympathized with Henderson, but said Henderson knew the rules.

"I've much sympathy for a co-trainer, and one with such a fine record and reputation as Nick, but I suppose we all want to win races and we all want to look after our horses, and the rules are the rules," Tate said. "Unless they change those rules on these prohibited substances, we're all bound by that."

Conditioner Milton Harris went further, saying Henderson got off easy because of his stature as a top trainer with lofty connections.

"I don't want to see any trainer getting a ban, but the fact of the matter is that if they have found him guilty, which they have, it surely has to be a longer ban than three months," Harris said "The fine means nothing as he is a wealthy man, but if someone else had broken the rules the ban would have been longer. All we want is a bit of consistency for all, regardless of status."

The Telegraph reports that the tranexamic acid finding was the first of its kind in the U.K., and calls Henderson's punishment a lesson to other British trainers that "few will forget in a hurry."

"Nearly all trainers rely almost entirely on vets to guide them through the minefields that involve drugs, be they permissible or outlawed. It is nonsense to suggest that horses should not be treated within the Rules to raise and prolong their quality of racing life," writes J.A. McGrath in The Telegraph. "For that reason, trainers choose a vet they know, respect and trust. But at the very end of the road, the trainer holding the licence carries full responsibility."

That is a lesson that shouldn't be lost on U.S. trainers, veterinarians and racing authorities, as well.

When Patrick Biancone's barn refrigerator was found to contain vials of cobra venom, he blamed a vet (whose name indeed was on the bag) and his attorney requested punishment by fines instead of suspension. But even when Biancone was fined for his prior offenses, it wasn't expensive. During the cobra venom scandal year of 2007, he'd already been given a stay of a 15-day suspension in California where the fine was just $10,000 for a race-day medication violation, and Kentucky had given Biancone a 15-day suspension but no fine for using a banned bronchial dialator, apparently to enhance performance of a horse. He ended up banned for a year over the cobra venom findings and received no fine at all.

I've harped on this before, but Biancone is the ultimate proof that in the United States, trainers can violate the rules repeatedly without losing their livelihoods to the authorities. Common medication violations are so prevalent -- and with the exception of Biancone's cobra venom scandal, typically so poorly covered and catalogued -- that they hardly make news. A trainer draws a 15-day ban, transfers the horses into the hands of his assistants, and comes back after a vacation (if he left at all) with his business none the worse for wear.

Britain sends a message with its suspension of Nicky Henderson -- violators will be punished. That its conditioners and horseman community are so willing to debate Henderson's punishment publicly shows the magnitude both of the offense and of the punishment.

Over here most conditioners would duck questions about another trainer's suspension, fearing, I suppose, that next time we'll be talking about them.

There's considerable latitude for discussion on whether the United States should follow the lead of most foreign jurisdictions and ban all race-day medications. But it's past time to get serious about punishing those who violate the medication bans that are already in place.

Fifteen days isn't enough even for minor offenses. And a $10,000 fine is a lot to someone trying to scratch out a living, but for a conditioner charging $100 or more per horse in his barn for day money and collecting 10 percent from each winning purse, particularly stakes purses, it is obvious chump change.

Trainers and veterinarians over here need to be sent the message that offenders won't be tolerated. Violations should draw fines commensurate with the offense and a suspension -- with active horses transferred out of the barn's hands -- that threaten to cost them clients. Habitual violators should lose their licenses and their careers.

Otherwise, any statements the racing industry might issue about its concern for horse welfare simply can't be taken seriously.

Daughters of Biancone, Wolfendale score first wins: Young trainers had good, and bad, examples to follow

Like father, like daughter. Or in one case, let's hope not.

Sunday was the day for first-time winners among the second-generation trainers' ranks. Both Marie Biancone, daughter of conditioner Patrick Biancone, and Maggie Wolfendale, daughter of trainer Howard Wolfendale, collected their own first victories as trainers on June 14, 2009.

In another interesting parallel, both women's horses won the seventh race on the card at their respective tracks.

Ms. Biancone scored at Arlington Park in only her third race after hanging out her own shingle. The French-born Biancone collected a long-shot win in Arlington Race 7 with Grand Symphony, a 4-year-old Stravinsky filly who won drawing off by four in a six-furlong maiden-claimer on Polytrack.

Ms. Wolfendale, still just a senior at Towson University in Maryland (majoring in broadcast journalism) took the the seventh at Colonial Downs with Gulch Fever, a gelding formerly trained by her father. Unlike the Biancone winner, Gulch Fever was sent off as the 2.70-to-1 favorite, and he won just as handily, clear by 4 1/4 in the one-mile turf claimer.

Maggie Wolfendale's feat is particularly impressive to me. While still a year away from her college degree (an accomplishment in itself) she has seven horses in training at Colonial Downs. And it's pretty apparent she's learned a thing or two from her father, who won his first race as a trainer at Laurel Park in 1977 and his 1,000th at the same track some 28 years later, in 2005. Howard Wolfendale was named the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association's top trainer for 1989.

Maggie's horse skills have been well-honed through the years. She has ridden dressage and even ponied horses in the Preakness post-parade. Now she sometimes combines her broadcasting and journalism skills with her knowledge of the horses to write an occasional column at Preakness.com and to offer her picks via the Colonial Downs JumboTron between races.

And as if a winner's circle photo of your very own horse wasn't already a beautiful thing, it can only get better with the 2008 Miss Preakness as your trainer (pictured).

Marie Biancone, meanwhile, emigrated to the U.S. from France in 2004 and has served as an assistant to her father since then. And that isn't necessarily all positive. During her time as an assistant to Patrick Biancone, Marie's father was suspended for a year by Kentucky stewards in 2007 after three vials of alpha-cobra toxin -- that's snake venom, apparently used to deaden sore joints on horses that should be resting, not running -- were found in his barn at Keeneland.

The elder Biancone claims the contraband wasn't his. Indeed, it was contained in a red bag labeled with veterinarian Rodney Stewart’s name and phone number (Stewart got a five-year ban). But the stuff was in the Biancone barn's refrigerator, which makes it also his responsibility, and Biancone's prior record makes it difficult to believe he follows nothing but the straight-and-narrow these days.

The now-57-year-old Biancone was heralded for winning back-to-back runnings of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1983 and 1984 (with All Along and Sagace), but after leaving his native France to train in Hong Kong, Biancone was suspended from that Asian jurisdiction when two of his horses tested positive for banned substances. Biancone had been fined in 1997 when more than 20 of the horses in his care tested positive for banned substances. The 10-month ban for the second series of Hong Kong violations prompted Biancone to relocate to the States.

During 2007 alone -- the year that eventually ended with Biancone's 12-month suspension (technically shortened later to six, albeit with the agreement from Biancone that he wouldn't reapply for a Kentucky license for another six months) -- Biancone had his hand slapped for two other violations. About a month before the cobra venom was found in his barn refrigerator, Biancone completed a 15-day suspension (ending Sept. 19, 2007) for a medication violation stemming from a May 3 race at Churchill Downs. Only days earlier, on Sept. 5, 2007, he was fined $10,000 by California stewards and received a stay of a 15-day suspension for a violation that occurred Jan. 7 at Santa Anita.

That's a rap sheet covering a decade-long span and multiple jurisdictions all around the world. It's a black mark that is embarrassing particularly to American racing, where Biancone proves a trainer can get caught and accused and caught again and keep getting re-licensed eventually. And it's a record that unfortunately will follow Biancone's name, which is also his daughter's, in the minds of the horse racing public unless and until she proves to be a winner without all the incidents and accusations of doping.

I really hope that's exactly what Marie Biancone does -- win plenty of races, without a hint of impropriety. That isn't just what the Biancone name needs for some redemption, it's what all of racing needs, from every trainer.

Meanwhile, sincere congratulations to both women on their first victories as conditioners. May your racing lives be filled with many more happy moments like those.