I first went to work at a racetrack in 1965 as a teenager. I've always loved the game because it truly is the greatest game. People either understand this or they don't. You meet some of the most interesting people at the racetrack and the horses are magnificent animals. But as colorful as racing is, it also has its dark side. For the past 25 years, I have been battling with the Pennsylvania Racing Commission as an attorney. Every day I try to fight the good fight in a system that is fundamentally stacked against the horsemen. In hearings against horsemen, the Commission is the investigator, the prosecutor and the judge. To have any chance at a fair shot, you depend on the integrity of every person working for the Commission.
People come to me all the time with grievances against the Commission. They say they know this or that about the unfairness and corruption of the Commission, but my answer is always the same: “Bring me some documentary proof of your claims and I will look into it. I can't go on what you think you know; I can only proceed based on facts.” But without fail, no one can ever produce any documentary proof. Then, in March of this year, a fellow came to me and said the Commission is finding positive tests and throwing them in the garbage, letting horses with illegal drugs in their systems get away scot-free. I gave him my standard response.
A couple weeks later he brought me a stack of papers that actually verified his claims. When I saw these papers, which included lab reports and emails from Brett Revington, Standardbred bureau director for the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Commission, I actually got physically ill. They show that, indeed, horses had tested positive for even Class 1 drugs and those positive tests were basically thrown into the garbage can. Most of these races were at Harrah's Chester. The papers only showed this activity in harness racing. There is no evidence that it exists in Thoroughbred racing in Pennsylvania. In my opinion, this was a scandal of the highest order and it proves the outright corruption infecting the Commission.
While I realized that this had to be exposed, I also realized that there are people who may use this information to justify taking the slots funding away from the horsemen. I had a moral quandary on my hands. Believe me, I wish I had never seen these papers.
In Pennsylvania, a horse has its sample taken post race and sent to the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratory (PETRL), the official lab, for testing. If the sample has a suspicious result, Dr. Mary Robinson, the acting director of the lab, sends what is called a short-term hold report to the bureau director. If Dr. Robinson actually finds an illegal amount of a drug, she later sends a positive test report to the bureau director showing the name of the drug and its quantified level.
In a major flaw in the system, the bureau director then has the discretion to actually call it a positive or not. If he doesn't wish to call it a positive, there is very little chance of anyone finding out. The system relies on the integrity of the bureau director. I was particularly interested in an email from Mr. Revington that was part of the stack of papers given to me. It read: “Those holds with possible positives. I spoke with legal and they suggested not to pursue due to timing. I'm OK taking that direction as internal thresholds suggest not to call positive anyways.” Note the words “those holds.” That suggests that there were multiple tests – plural – which were not revealed.
This email raised several red flags to me. For non-therapeutic drugs, the Commission has always maintained that the slightest level of detection is the standard, meaning that any detected amount is called a positive. They consistently raise this argument in court. Had the Commission been untruthful in their court statements? Dr. Robinson is a master at finding insignificant levels of a drug that cannot possibly affect performance, and the Commission constantly punishes people pursuing their level of detection theory.
I thought the best course of action was to confront Revington and ask for an explanation. I didn't want to show him everything I had, as I wanted to see his reaction first. So I brought him the above email and the short-term hold and reported positive forms from Dr. Robinson for the ninth race at Chester on September 11, 2016. In this $252,000 stakes race, a horse named Moonshine Hanover, trained by Christopher Beaver, had finished second and had earned approximately $50,000. There is no evidence Beaver ever knew his horse tested positive for the Class 1 drug oxycodone.
There had been several other positives for oxycodone at Chester both before and after the race in question and all had the purses forfeited. Why hadn't this one been acted upon? When I showed Mr. Revington the documents related to this race, his face became ashen and he called Jorge Augusto, the Commission's attorney, into the meeting. When I asked for an explanation, they both responded in anger telling me it was none of my business and they didn't have to explain anything to anybody. They then forcefully suggested I get out of their office.
Dr. Robinson's positive test report was dated September 21, 2016. Mr. Revington, who was hired in November 2016, later stated he didn't find out about it until May of 2017, claiming that that is why he did not proceed on the positive test. What happened?
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Reprinted with permission from the Paulickreport.com