Twenty-seven racehorse trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors have been charged in a conspiracy to drug racehorses and cheat bettors, according to ESPN.
Among the accused is Jason Servis, trainer of Maximum Security, according to an indictment unsealed last week in Manhattan.
Servis is charged with secretly administering performance-enhancing drugs “to virtually all of the racehorses under his control.”
Last year, Maximum Security was the presumed winner of the Kentucky Derby until he was disqualified for almost colliding with another horse. Country House, a 65-1 shot, was named the winner, but Maximum Security went on to win four of his next five races—including the $10 million Saudi Cup at King Abdulaziz Equestrian Field in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Four separate indictments described a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute “adulterated and misbranded drugs,” ESPN reported. The horses ran at thoroughbred and harness racing tracks throughout the United States, including in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and Kentucky, as well as the United Arab Emirates.
The practice was “all to the detriment and risk of the health and well-being of the racehorses,” the indictment stated. It said the defendants routinely defrauded and misled federal and state regulators “and the betting public.”
At a news conference, Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, called the case was the most far-reaching prosecution of racehorse doping in the history of the Department of Justice.
The defendants acted “not for the love of the sport and certainly not out of care for the horses, but for money.” The horses were “injected and force-fed all manner of illegal and experimental drugs, drugs that allowed the horses to run unnaturally fast and to mask pain,” which can lead to injuries and death, he said.
According to information from the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, on average, nearly 10 horses a week died at U.S. racetracks in 2018—a number that is two and a half to five times greater than the fatality rate in Europe and Asia.
The indictment says Maximum Security was among the horses given performance-enhancing drugs. On June 5, 2019, the horse was drug-tested at Monmouth Park as Servis was preparing him to run in the Pegasus Stakes. In a phone call intercepted by authorities with a veterinarian, Kristian Rhein, Servis said Maximum Security had received a PED called SGF-1000. According to the indictment, Rhein told him not to worry, saying, “They don’t even have a test for it. There’s no test for it in America.”
Rhein was one of seven veterinarians charged in the case, which also alleges that horses were killed and “disappeared” in certain instances.
