Walter Wlodarczyk/Coglianese photo
Pletcher: Lab Hoping For HISA Contract May Have Tweaked Testing Levels On Forte Positive
Did a drug testing laboratory eager to win a contract with the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority lower their levels of detection on some tests in 2022, causing Todd Pletcher-trained Forte to test positive for an anti-inflammatory drug after winning that year’s Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga?
That was the theory trainer Todd Pletcher floated on Tuesday afternoon during a panel discussion with fellow Hall of Famer Bob Baffert at the Global Symposium on Racing, presented by the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program in Tucson, Ariz.
Amy Zimmerman, senior vice president at Santa Anita, moderated the conversation that touched on the enormous successes each trainer has enjoyed in racing, but that didn’t ignore some of the controversies that have dogged them.
Forte, the champion 2-year-old male of 2022 on the strength of three G1 victories in the Hopeful, Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland and the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland, tested positive for meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory medication used in humans and some animals to treat arthritis and other infirmities. Though the Hopeful was run on Sept. 5, 2022, news of the positive test did not come out until May 2023, days after Forte was scratched by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission’s regulatory veterinarian on the morning of the G1 Kentucky Derby. The Violence colt came into the Derby off victories in the G2 Fountain of Youth and G1 Curlin Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. Pletcher admitted that Forte was fighting a foot problem in the days leading up to the Derby.
Zimmerman asked Pletcher what dealing with Forte’s drug positive was like?
Recommended for You
“It was very frustrating, would be the main thing,” said Pletcher, a Race Track Industry Program graduate who earlier on Tuesday was honored as the University of Arizona’s Alumnus of the Year. “We had known about (the positive drug test) since September of the year before, but it realty wasn’t public, and then we had the incident where he scratched (from the Kentucky Derby) the morning of the race, then right on the heels of that it comes out he had a positive test from the Hopeful.”
The positive for meloxicam, a drug rarely found in post-race samples in horse racing, was called by New York’s Equine Drug Testing and Research Laboratory in Ithaca, N.Y., operated by Dr. George Maylin. Published reports said the level of the drug detected was 500 picograms per milliliter.
“The one thing that Bob (Baffert) and I are aware of, is that the levels that these are coming back at, is you’re helpless as a trainer I think – the contamination possibilities and the levels of the testing. I think what was happening at that time, and no one said this to me … a lot of the labs were positioning themselves to try to be selected by HISA, so they were cranking up the tests to test for lower and lower levels to try to demonstrate to HISA what their capabilities were. And that’s why you saw a rash of positives in human prescribed medication that I don’t think any horse people would give to horses. And if they were, at their levels that the tests were coming back, I don’t think it would have any effect.”
The New York laboratory was not among those selected by HISA to begin its Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program in 2023.
Forte was disqualified from his Hopeful victory, but the case is under appeal with the New York State Gaming Commission and civil courts, and the horse is still listed as the official winner of the race. Pletcher received a $1,000 fine and 10-day suspension that he has yet to serve, pending appeal.
