HIWU

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's (HIWU) "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Resolved ADMC Violations Date: 07/18/2025 Licensee: Joseph David Perez, trainer Penalty: A fine of $500; imposition of 1.5 Penalty Points. Admission. Explainer: Vets' list medication violation for the presence of Phenylbutazone—a class C controlled substance—in a sample taken from Digits on 6/15/25. Date: 07/17/2025 Licensee: Arthur Agostini, trainer Penalty: Disqualification...

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's (HIWU) "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Among this week's rulings, Bonnie Lucas has been banned for 60 days and fined a total of $8,000 for violating the rules on intra-articular joint injections within a specified standdown time prior to a timed workout or race. For the 47 horses that had been...

One day after an arbitrator ruled that Phil Serpe would be suspended for two years in a contested clenbuterol positive case from last summer at Saratoga Race Course, the 66-year-old trainer was back in federal court Tuesday seeking to renew his request for a preliminary injunction in his nine-month-old lawsuit against the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). At the same time, Serpe's legal team also wasted no time in filing an immediate appeal with the FTC to have his July 14 Horseracing Integrity...

In discussing the evolution of his StrideSAFE wearable sensor, Dave Lambert turns to a tufty-haired German philosopher called Arthur Schopenhauer, who described new truths as a play in three parts. "First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident." Lambert has had the rejection and a little bit of ridicule, he said. "Some people have thrown rocks at me," he added, one recent afternoon via Zoom in a brightly lit corner of his Kentucky home, a small bronze horse as his virtual companion. "But...

A member of the Internal Adjudication Panel (IAP) for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) on July 10 imposed a two-year suspension and a $25,000 fine on a veterinarian who has practiced on the New York circuit for more than three decades for "failing to submit over three thousand veterinary treatment records to HISA within 24 hours after examination or treatment of Covered Horses during the period from Jan. 1, 2023, through Mar. 7, 2024." The veterinarian, Michael J. Galvin, could...

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's (HIWU) "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Resolved ADMC Violations Date: 07/08/2025 Licensee: John E. Salzman, trainer Penalty: Disqualification of Covered Horse's Race results, including forfeiture of all purses and other compensation, prizes, trophies, points, and rankings and repayment or surrender (as applicable); a fine of $500; imposition of 1.5 Penalty Points. Final decision by HIWU. Explainer: Medication violation...

The Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) has suspended the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratory's (PETRL) probationary Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) Equine Analytical Laboratory (HEAL) accreditation status for a minimum of six months, beginning July 8, 2025, the organization announced in a release Wednesday morning. Effective immediately, samples collected in Pennsylvania are being sent to Industrial Laboratories for analysis. HIWU's independent Laboratory Expert Group, which evaluates the performance of Program laboratories, recommended the suspension of PETRL's probationary HEAL accreditation due to nonconformities associated with HEAL compliance. HIWU,...

The Illinois-based trainer Gerald Butler, who is currently suspended 20 months and was fined $10,000 after a Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA)'s arbitration panel for Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program (ADMC) matters ruled in February that he possessed the banned substance levothyroxine (Thyro-L) in his Fairmount Park barn last summer, sued HISA in federal court July 3, seeking a stay of his penalties in a case that challenges the  definition of the word "possession." According to the sequence of events described in the arbitrator's decision, on June 13, 2024,...

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)-related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU)'s "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Resolved ADMC Violations Date: 06/20/2025 Licensee: Edward Barker, trainer Penalty: 7-day period of Ineligibility for Covered Person, beginning on June 21, 2025; Disqualification of Covered Horse's Race results, including forfeiture of all purses and other compensation, prizes, trophies, points, and rankings and repayment or surrender (as...

Without much notice or attention--the way he prefers it--lifelong racetracker John Pimental is easing back into a sense of shedrow normalcy as spring morphs into summer at Monmouth Park. "It feels good to be back to working--making a living again," Pimental told TDN one recent afternoon before feeding time. The 70-year-old trainer has five Thoroughbreds bedded down in the same barn his former outfit of eight occupied on the morning of July 28, 2023, when agents for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) descended upon the modest racing stable...

Every week, the TDN posts a roundup of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's (HIWU) "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Resolved ADMC Violations Date: 06/09/2025 Licensee: Victor Barboza, trainer Penalty: None. Case dismissed. Explainer: Barboza had faced a medication violation for the use or attempted use of a Class C controlled medication on Gayles Evening during the race period, an event dated 3/2/25. According to the final ruling of the internal adjudication...

In recent months, the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU) has adjudicated several cases under the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program related to adenosine, a vasodilator, and Hemo 15, a foreign product that lacks FDA approval, according to an advisory from HIWU, which says that neither substance has any valid veterinary use in the racehorse. "Both substances are categorized as an S0 Non-Approved Banned Substance and therefore are prohibited from Use in a Covered Horse or Possession by a Covered Person at all times," reads the advisory. "Hemo 15...