Maria Borell, the trainer of 2015 Champion Sprinter Runhappy who became embroiled in a career-altering legal controversy in 2016, withdrew a license application to the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation on Tuesday after the board’s license review committee indicated it would reject the application.
The committee returned from an executive session after hearing testimony from Borell and her lawyer and offered Borell the opportunity to withdraw the application before the committee voted. At that time, the committee chairman Gregory Harbut told Borell and her lawyer, Karen Murphy, that the committee was likely to reject the application. Murphy asked to address the committee but was told to either accept or reject the offer.
“We will withdraw,” Murphy said.
By withdrawing the application, Borell will not have a rejected license on her record. It is common for licensing committees to allow applicants to withdraw an application rather than face a vote.
Borell was issued a trainer’s license in September of last year by the California Horse Racing Board, but she has not applied for stalls at any track in the state since the license was issued.
Borell has not started a horse since 2016, when prosecutors in Mercer County, Ky., charged her and her father with 43 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty in 2016 after dozens of horses on her father’s property were declared by state veterinarians to be in various stages of malnourishment.
Borell has maintained her innocence in the case, and prosecutors dropped the chargers against her in 2022 and expunged her record. Her father had earlier accepted a plea deal of nine misdemeanor counts and was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $4,300.
Citing the CHRB decision to award Borell a license and the Kentucky court’s ruling to expunge the charges from Borell’s record, Murphy said after the hearing that the committee’s decision left her “flabbergasted."
“The law in this case is that the charges were dismissed with prejudice, that whey were disposed of, gone,” Murphy said. “An expungement is like it never happened. That has to be respected. The history [of Borell’s case] has to be respected, because we all lived it. But the court has disappeared it.”
At the time the charges were filed, Borell was living in Florida. She told the committee that her lawyer advised her not to return to Kentucky while the case was being litigated, which she said in hindsight was a mistake.
“I didn’t handle it properly,” Borell said. “It made me look guilty.”
Murphy told the committee that Borell met with Santa Anita’s management and general counsel for three hours in December and that the track decided it would allow Borell to train there if she applied for stalls. Borell has also signed a contract with Rood and Riddle to make monthly payments on an outstanding debt to the veterinary clinic that will require the payments to be made once she is licensed in Kentucky, Murphy said.
“It was a very positive experience and a positive result,” Murphy said. “It was certainly going to be a problem with you and so we wanted to wrap that up.”
Borell shot to stardom in 2015 on the back of Runhappy, the winner of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and that year’s Sprint Champion, whom she trained in Kentucky. But just days after the win in the Sprint, the horse’s owner, James McIngvale, took Runhappy out of Borell’s care and transferred the horse to his sister-in-law and racing manager, Laura Wohlers.
Borell then moved to Florida hoping to drum up business. The charges in Mercer County were filed just months after Runhappy was removed from her care.
Borell told the committee that an existing client had been unable to provide her with runners since she was licensed in California due to health problems. But she said the client has several 2-year-olds she has been working with in Florida and that she was anticipating training them in Kentucky if she was licensed.
“I love Kentucky,” Borell said. “I consider Kentucky home, and I welcome the opportunity to come back here, and I will not screw up this time in any way, shape, or form. I will not let you guys down. I swear I will not screw up a second chance.”
Murphy said that Borell would likely file another application in the future, but not before doing some homework on how to address the license committee’s concerns.
“I can’t just do the same dance,” Murphy said. “I need to think and figure it out.”
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