MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2018 PRINCIPLES PROPEL MOTT WINSTAR'S STABLEMATES RACING LLC OFF TO A FLYING START by Bill Finley TO COURT BATTLE When Well Humored (Distorted Humor) captured last Saturday=s Wayward Lass S. at Tampa Bay Downs some may have looked down at the name of the winning owner and assumed this was just one more stakes victory from the loaded WinStar operation. It was. And it wasn=t. Well Humored is indeed officially owned by WinStar Farm, but she races for WinStar Stablemates Racing LLC. The racing stable represents the next step in the WinStar Stablemates program, which was launched some seven years ago. WinStar Stablemates is a club that allows members inside access to the farm and all things WinStar. AStablemates has always been a fan initiative to help align fans with the farm and give them exposure to the daily goings on at the farm and what the farm is like,@ said WinStar CEO and President Elliott Walden. AWhat we=ve been trying to do is help Bill Mott | Sarah Andrew educate fans and to create enthusiasm for the business.@ (Click to continue to p6) The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton IN TDN EUROPE TODAY While newly christened Horse of the Year Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}) carried last week=s on-track headlines with his HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR & TEOFILO’S RIVALRY scintillating score in the GI Pegasus World Cup, there was no John Berry takes a look at how racetrack rivals Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) shortage of behind-the-scenes news percolating out of various and Teofilo (Ire) are performing as sires. racing commission meetings, lawsuits, and legislative efforts. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. Bill Mott=s legal crusade against the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) has all the elements of a fight worth following, both from the perspective of the Hall of Fame trainer wanting to clear his own name and for Mott=s stated desire to establish a legal precedent to protect other trainers who similarly believe they have been wronged by the NYSGC=s drug-testing process. Mar. 9 is now the next court date for Mott=s ongoing lawsuit against the NYSGC, which traces back to a pair of alleged medication overages in 2014, but has since escalated into a civil rights case based on the commission=s failure to provide the trainer with split blood samples to defend the allegations made against him. State court action in Mott=s suit had been stayed pending the outcome of his NYSGC hearing report and results order. But that portion of the case reached a regulatory conclusion Jan. 22 when the NYSGC voted to concur with a hearing officer=s recommendation that Mott is responsible for an overage of the therapeutic drug flunixin (Banamine) in Saratoga Snacks (Tale of the Cat), who finished sixth and last at Belmont Park Sept. 20, 2014. Cont. p3 PRESIDENT & CO-PUBLISHER Barry Weisbord @barryweisbord [email protected] SR. V.P. & CO-PUBLISHER Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] V.P., INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Monday, January 29, 2018 Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN News and Features Editor Ben Massam @BMassamTDN Associate Editors Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN Assistant Editor Bobby Klatt ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistants Alexa Reisfield Michelle Benson Photo Editor/Dir. of Distribution Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] Birthday girl! 2009 Horse of the Year and Champion Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Social Media Strategist Alexandra (Medaglia d’Oro) celebrates her 12th birthday today at Stonestreet Farm in Justina Severni Lexington, KY. | Sarah Andrew Director of Customer Service Vicki Forbes [email protected] TIGER MOTH TAKES THE LADIES CLASSIC 8 Marketing Manager John Gunther’s homebred Tiger Moth (Street Sense) bested favored Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen Actress (Tapit) to win the GIII Houston Ladies Classic Sunday, while Three Diamonds Farm’s Bigger Picture (Badge of Silver) won his Director of Information Technology Ray Villa second straight GIII John B. Connally Turf Cup. [email protected] Bookkeeper NEW RIDER FOR BOLT D’ORO 10 Terry May MGISW Bolt d’Oro will have a new pilot when he makes his [email protected] sophomore debut in the Mar. 10 GII San Felipe S. as Javier WORLDWIDE INFORMATION Castellano will replace Corey Nakatani. International Editor Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | 732-747-8955 (fax) www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 10 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • JANUARY 29, 2018 Even though the hearing officer deemed that Mott presented AIn summary, the system here worked as designed,@ Liebers substantial evidence that he was not responsible for an concluded. improper third-party administration of furosemide (Lasix), the Mott and Mollica strongly disagree with the hearing officer on NYSGC still voted to uphold the original 15-day suspension and that last point. $1,000 fine handed down by the Belmont stewards based on the ASo we=re now in a holding pattern, which is fine,@ Mollica said. two original alleged violations (last week=s TDN story here). AAll court battles take a long time, and this one=s going on Upon first learning of the penalty last Monday, Mott=s 3 1/2 years so far.@ attorney, Andrew Mollica, termed the NYSGC decision a Atravesty of justice.@ In the days since, Mollica has had time to Alternate Preakness Pitch digest the hearing officer=s report in its entirety and attend a A years-long $426,000 study conducted by the Maryland Thursday status hearing with a judge about how the court case Stadium Authority over the future of Pimlico Race Course edged will proceed. closer to a second phase when the Maryland Racing Commission Beyond finding it incredulous that some 2,000 pages of voted Jan. 25 to approve state funding to allow the analysis to testimony transcripts got Aglossed over@ and boiled down into continue. just a 17-page recommendation, Mollica said via phone on The project still requires additional legislative sign-offs before Friday that the NYSGC=s decision to cast aside the alleged Lasix it advances further, and it=s important to keep in mind that this infraction while not reducing the original penalty demands initiative is only the research phase to determine if the home of further scrutiny. the second jewel of the Triple Crown is worthy of a $250-300 AOn further reflection after looking at that order, what stands million refurbishment--it is not the actual renovation or rebuild out to me is that [the hearing officer] found [the state=s testing of the Maryland Jockey Club (MJC)-owned track itself. lab to be] not right on the Lasix,@ Mollica said. AWell, we take the position that if the [testing for] Lasix isn=t right, then neither is the Banamine.@ The hearing officer=s report established that when Mott initially requested a Areferee@ sample of the body fluids sampled from Saratoga Snacks, only the urine sample was delivered to the testing facility because the blood sample had been Aconsumed in the testing@ at the NYSGC-approved lab. The report, authored by Robert Liebers (an attorney who is an independently contracted hearing officer, and not a full-time commission employee), also asserted AThere was no bad faith by failing to preserve a blood sample.... The fact that Dr. [George] Maylin [director of the New York Drug Testing and Research Program] testified that he would prefer to have more blood drawn does not create bad faith.... The fact that Dr. Maylin and [Mott] both believe that there could be a better system does not equate to bad faith. Preakness winner=s circle | Horsephotos TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 10 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • JANUARY 29, 2018 According to the Baltimore Sun, completion of the study in Ark Sinking? 2018 will involve Aanalysis of the neighborhood surrounding the Remember all the buzz about the Ark a few months ago? In track and of possible non-racing uses for the facility,@ with the September, the TDN profiled the first racehorse to clear goal of being able to use the information that is gathered to debate Pimlico=s future during the 2019 General Assembly quarantine through the new $65 million, privately owned, session (full story here). full-service animal transit facility at Kennedy International But at least one state representative doesn=t think the Airport. Maryland legislature will ever fund a Pimlico rehab, and that For international Thoroughbred shippers, the equine portion studying that scenario further is a passive waste of time. of the 178,000 square-foot, climate-controlled, Delegate Patrick McDonough, a Republican running for veterinarian-staffed complex built adjacent to the JFK runways Baltimore County executive, told the Sun he=ll be filing a bill to was supposed to offer inbound New York horses a faster, better create a public-private commission to instead research building alternative to vanning two or three hours to a United States a brand-new Astate-of-the-art@ racetrack elsewhere in Baltimore Department of Agriculture (USDA) facility in Newburgh, New County as part of a grand-scale sports and entertainment York. complex. Now, four months later, the Ark is incurring Amassive Without it, McDonough said he believes the GI Preakness S.