The Jockey Club has denied stud book privileges to 12 individuals for at least one year due to violations of its good-conduct rules, the organization announced on Thursday.
The denials go into effect on Jan. 1 and will prevent any of the individuals from registering foals through the length of the suspension period, but the suspensions will not have any other practical effect on their activities beyond that. The Jockey Club, a non-profit agency, controls the U.S. stud book, which maintains registries of all Thoroughbreds eligible to race or breed in the country.
Many of the denials were handed to trainers who violated a provision of a rule dealing with positives for medications. The Pennsylvania trainer Michael Pino, for example, received a 2-year denial after serving a 60-day suspension from 2023-2024 for six positives of the regulated medication prednisolone.
Robert Roe, an Iowa-based trainer who has not started a horse since 2023 and had eight wins from 123 starts from 2016 to 2023, was banned five years. Roe was banned for one year in 2020 after admitting that he had accidentally spilled the prohibited substance kratom into a horse’s feed. The horse tested positive.
Angela Maria Aquino, a California-based trainer, was given a four-year denial. Aquino had multiple medication positives in 2022. Gary Johnson, a trainer based in Ohio, was also denied stud-book privileges for four years. Johnson had two positives for clenbuterol in 2022.
Three individuals received 3-year denials: Damon Dilodovico, Felix Flores-Coba, and Ivan Vazquez. In addition to Pino, four other individuals received 2-year denials: Nick Caruso, James Nicholson Jr., Ralph Riviezzo, and Jose Romero.
Amber Cobb, a trainer who received a seven-year suspension in 2023 from New Jersey regulators for a number of violations including striking a horse, received a one-year denial. Cobb has not started a horse since 2021.
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