Keeping Pace: Lessons From Our Canadian Friends

Many in the world of harness racing were surprised last fall when trainer Anthony Beaton, a stalwart on the Ontario racing scene, was summarily suspended for two years for animal cruelty. At first, the story was that he had beaten a young racehorse nearly to death with a whip and had been filmed doing so. Then came word the horse was not seriously injured. Then came word there was no video. Now, after a ruling by Ontario regulators, we have as definitive an account as we are going to get. The bottom line? While neither noble nor advisable, Beaton’s actions last October at a training track did not merit the severe punishment he initially received.

A Beaton-trained Bettor’s Delight colt named Wait in the Truck, a brand-new $30,000 purchase from last year’s prestigious Lexington sale, lay down at the Classy Lane training center last October 12 and refused to get up. Here’s how regulators described what happened: “the horse was taken out from the barn and a jogging cart was hooked to the horse when it suddenly fell to the ground, an asphalt driveway. The horse got up but then went down again. The cart was removed and the horse got up. The cart was then reattached and the horse fell again. Beaton said that he and his assistants tried to get the horse to stand but it would not.”

It was at this point that Beaton began to whip the colt to try to get him up. Again, the panelists: “He continued to hit the horse with the whip but the horse would not get up. Beaton then said that he shouldn’t have done that and that 15 or more welts and some blood appeared on the horse. He thought that in all, he whipped the horse about 25 - 30 times but many of them were taps. He thought that he administered only five ‘full swings’. He said that the horse had approximately 15 to 25 welts from the whipping.” The scene was so dramatic that people gathered to watch. Some were upset. At least one took photos.

Some of those photos formed the basis of an anonymous complaint about the episode made to Ontario racing officials. Almost immediately, provincial regulators were at Beaton’s barn to check on the condition of the horse. A regulatory vet checked out the colt; so did Beaton’s vet. Neither vet saw any significant injuries to Wait In the Truck but vets and others did see what they later called “marks,” “abrasions” or “welts” on the colt. “Superficial,” said the regulatory vet. Beaton was suspended, his horses were scratched from a lucrative Ontario Sire Stakes race, and the well-respected trainer missed a chance to race in Breeder’s Crown contests later that month.

Flash-forward four months. On appeal, a panel of appellate regulators last week “concluded that Beaton’s conduct was a ‘one-off’ incident and not indicative of his overall good character and excellent horsemanship.” He was not liable for an act of animal cruelty, the panelists found: “Was Beaton’s purpose in using his training whip that morning designed to deliberately and/or maliciously inflict pain on the horse? We think not. Rather, Beaton’s use of the whip was motivated by the desire to get the horse on its feet and to teach the horse that it was not acceptable behaviour to throw itself on the ground. In his own words, he had no desire to be ‘rough with the horse’ and we accept his statement to that effect.”

But Beaton was not totally excused. “We have also concluded that Beaton’s repeated use of his training whip was excessive in the circumstances,” the panelists wrote. “In our view, the frequency of the use of the whip, the ensuing increase in force and the resulting welts and markings on the horse were conduct prejudicial to the best interests of racing.” They also answered a question many readers might have about whether what happened to Wait in The Truck is a common practice in racing: “Nor can this conduct be justified on the basis that it conformed with the standards of the industry when breaking yearlings. If repeated and excessive whipping of a horse particularly when it is lying on the ground conforms with the standards of the industry, then those standards must change.”

In the end, following a hearing that took up 2,026 transcript pages, the panel voided the trainer’s two-year suspension and returned him to good standing in the Province. Afterward, Beaton’s lawyer told Harness Racing Update, which had a good summary of the decision: “We were also pleased by the panel’s clear messaging to [racing regulators] on the need to conduct their own investigation when faced with anonymous complaints…” Beaton’s lawyer then reiterated a point he had made during the hearing; regulators knew the horse was not injured immediately after the episode and still scratched all of Beaton’s horses from lucrative stakes races.

Beaton is unhappy about how quickly it was all taken away from him last fall. There are some who will be unhappy his punishment didn’t stick. Indeed, this is a mixed verdict in more ways than one. The panelists also gave some pointed advice to the regulators who brought the case. “The goal of [provincial regulators] to protect the welfare of racehorses is highly commendable and deserves top priority but it must be balanced with the interests of individual licensees having regard to the circumstances of each case,” panelists wrote. “When anonymous tips are received by [regulators], it is quite proper to take the information received seriously but in order to assess it, it should conduct a detailed and thorough investigation on its own before it acts.”

That’s a standard that all horse people can and should support regardless of where they land in Beaton’s case. However, the episode raises other vital questions the Standardbred industry should soon answer. Like, whether there ought to be explicit rules prohibiting the whipping of horses who are prone (or not yet of racing age) Whether “industry standards” must evolve. Or whether we need to change the regulatory definition of “animal cruelty.” Many in harness racing say Beaton is a good guy who did a bad thing, copped to it, and paid with four months in racing purgatory. But I have also talked to owners who say they’d take their horses away in a minute from a trainer who did what Beaton did, regardless of the outcome of any regulatory hearing.

The horse is still at Classy Lane. His owners reportedly made stakes payments on him last week. I reached out to Beaton to ask what he might say to people who believe that prone horses should never be whipped; whether he wanted to say something more broadly about the need for the humane treatment of animals. I was hoping for some sign of outward awareness in him of how badly this incident might look to the outside world. The trainer didn’t respond. His lawyer did: “Looking ahead, Anthony remains steadfast in his commitment to upholding high standards of horsemanship and contributing positively to the racing industry. He deeply appreciates the support received throughout this challenging ordeal and looks forward to resuming his work with horses.”

There’s remorse. And then there is whatever this is. Paulick Report’s editor Natalie Voss posted an important story last week about Scott Robinson, a man whose career selling unregulated drugs to horse trainers and others appears to have been interrupted briefly by a federal prison term. Robinson pleaded guilty to drug adulteration and misbranding after he was swept up in the doping scandal that hit racing shortly before the coronavirus did. When the feds first came for him, he tried to extort them. Then he copped a plea. He appears to have served a little more than one year in federal prison before he was released in November 2022.

Even before Robinson had gotten out of prison, he had registered a business that sells some online products for use in animals that have murky labeling or are not recognized by the Food and Drug Administration. “Extra-label use is limited to circumstances when the health of an animal is threatened, or suffering or death may result from failure to treat,” Dr. Mary Scollay, chief of science for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, told Voss. “There are still so many people out there who believe generics are the same as products [like this] and they’re not. If it doesn’t have an NADA or an ANADA number on it, you should be very suspicious.”

What I want to know is what federal probation officers think of Robinson’s work these days. With his guilty plea, and prison term, Robinson was also given three years of supervised release. He is still in that window. Whoever is doing that “supervising” among federal officials surely should be aware of what Robinson is now doing and whether it breaks any laws, rules, or regulations. If the FBI isn’t interested, and Food and Drug Administration agents are protecting human health and safety, I would think that Robinson’s sentencing judge would be interested in knowing what he is up to. Maybe the Bureau of Prisons and his former prosecutors as well.

NOTES

More on metformin. Another week, another metformin positive that makes news. Paulick Report and others reported that the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit suspended trainer Jonathan Wong for two years after his horse, Heaven and Earth, tested positive last year. Wong appealed the suspension, and lost, after the arbitrator concluded that Wong was “untruthful” in trying to explain what happened. The arbiter also touched on a big point of contention as HIWU rolls out these long suspensions. “Mr. Wong has attempted to impose a quantitative testing obligation to try to require measurement of what is indisputably a non-threshold substance." I will try to dive into that qualitative versus quantitative dichotomy in future columns.

Here is the text of the arbitrator’s final decision in the Wong case. It’s 50 pages long. Sadly, I doubt many people in horse racing who have a lot to say about metformin positives will take the time to read it. Here’s how the arbitrator summed up the case: “Instead of accepting responsibility for this harmful substance finding its way into Heaven and Earth, Mr. Wong chose to blame the agency charged with the protection of the health, welfare and safety of these horses.” It’s hard to read the order and argue that Wong was denied his due process rights. In some instances, he was given a much fairer shake than some judges give criminal defendants.

Maybe the best thing about the spate of metformin stories in horse racing is that they’ve raised awareness of the problem among doctors and other experts who handle the drug in real life. Here’s what horse people should know in evaluating these cases. “Unless the individual taking the tablet crushes or chews it (and puts a finger in the mouth), handling the film coated tablet does not transfer metformin to the hands,” writes Joseph S. Bertino Jr., a clinical pharmacologist in New York who told Thoroughbred Daily News readers that they are getting all these metformin stories wrong. “Thus, horse exposure from a human dose (by rubbing the face) or even putting a finger/hand in the horse's mouth would be quite a stretch of science.”

Repole isn’t wrong. I’ve never met Mike Repole but I really appreciated what he said to Steve Byk on Steve’s At The Races podcast last week. Repole blasted his fellow owners for failing to speak up on behalf of racing reforms. He said he gets private vows of support from owners who say they are “right behind him” and when he turns around there is no one there. Repole wants owners to return some of the purse money they earn to help aftercare programs, for example, and for breeders to do more than they are doing now to ensure the longevity of the sport. I feel your pain, Mike, I really do, for reasons I have written about and those I have not.

The headline is incomplete but the story is interesting. Thoroughbred trainer Dan Blacker wasn’t suspended for 90 days and fined $15,000 for not filing veterinarian inspections reports. The BloodHorse reports that he was given those sanctions as the results of an audit by California regulators (not HISA officials) revealed “that 527 of 789 official works by Blacker's horses performed Jan. 1, 2022, through July 1, 2023, were conducted without veterinarian examinations on file prior to the works.” The record-keeping questions came up during a fatality investigation involving an unraced 2-year-old. To his credit, Blacker owned up to his mistakes. Here’s how the Los Angeles Times covered the same story. Notice the headline.

Good for the hunter-jumper crowd. Their trade association just announced “the establishment of the Blue Ribbon Commission, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at addressing critical issues surrounding equine welfare and the sport's social license to operate.” Here’s another quote: “Central to the commission's mandate is enhancing transparency, accountability, and ethical stewardship. By fostering open dialogue and proactive engagement, the commission seeks to bolster trust and confidence in the sport, while championing the principles of fair play and sportsmanship.” Meanwhile, United States Trotting Association leaders roll us all off a cliff.

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