Kentucky Derby Trainer Charged as Part of Horse-Doping Ring
Derby Winner Among Dozens Accused by U.S. in Doping Scheme
(Bloomberg) -- The trainer of a horse that finished first in last year’s Kentucky Derby before being disqualified was charged with participating in an international racehorse-doping ring.
Jason Servis, who trained the would-be Derby winner Maximum Security, was one of 27 people indicted Monday by federal prosecutors in New York. The group included trainers, veterinarians and distributors who all profited from the “callous sale and administration” of dangerous performance-enhancing drugs for horses, prosecutors said.
Maximum Security crossed the finish line first at Churchill Downs last May but was disqualified for impeding the path of other horses. Maximum Security also won the world’s richest race, the Saudi Cup, late last month.
The indictments come amid increased scrutiny of the $100 billion global horse-racing industry, including calls for racing to be halted after dozens of horses died at Santa Anita Park in California, one of the nation’s premier thoroughbred tracks.
“Over the past two years, the public has watched with growing concern the reports of death and injury in the business of professional horse racing,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a press conference announcing the charges. “These defendants engaged in this conduct not for the love of the sport, and certainly not out of concern for the horses, but for money... And it was the racehorses that paid the price for the defendants’ unbridled greed.”
Berman said the trainers were motivated to cheat because they shared in earnings from their horses’ victories, and winning records also allowed them to boost their fees.
According to prosecutors, Servis doped nearly every horse in his care, including Maximum Security. He used falsified veterinary bills, fake prescriptions and a network of tipsters who let him know when officials were searching for signs of illegal doping.
Another trainer, Jorge Navarro, was charged with doping XY Jet, which won the Golden Shaheen race in Dubai last year before dying in January of an apparent heart attack. Prosecutors say Navarro used custom drugs designed to evade doping tests, including so-called “blood building drugs.” These boost a horse’s red blood cell count, improving race endurance but also stressing the animal’s heart.
Servis and Navarro appeared in court in Florida Monday. Navarro’s lawyer Jason Kreiss said the trainer would plead not guilty. Todd Onore, Servis’s lawyer, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Berman said the defendants knew the drugs could be lethal to horses, with one trainer telling a veterinarian on a wiretapped phone call that he’d seen animals die due to being “over juiced.” Navarro allegedly plotted with another defendant, trainer Nicholas Surick, to dispose of the bodies of dead horses rather than report the fatalities to the authorities.
“You know how many [expletive] horses he [Navarro] [expletive] killed and broke down that I made disappear?” Surick said on an intercepted phone call, according to prosecutors. “You know how much trouble he could get in ... if they found out ... the six horses we killed?”
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Anthony Lin
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