Track Ousts Trainer Who Tried to Hide a Workout

Golden Gate Fields management has kicked out a trainer who tried to hide a morning workout from the race track’s clockers last month.

Riley B. Griffiths, whose stable included six horses, was asked to leave after racing stewards fined him $1,000 for trying to conceal the Jan. 21 workout of the 3-year-old gelding Moskur.

“The public wagers on the information received from our clockers,” said Peter Runney, Golden Gate Fields general manager. “We feel strongly that the integrity of the information has to be above reproach. And it is the responsibility of the trainers to accurately identify their horses to those clockers.”

Clockers spotted Griffiths’ horse in the Jan. 21 workout and timed it in an impressive 1:12 4/5 for six furlongs.

“That’s a damn good work,” said chief racing steward Leon Lewis. “It would have gotten people’s attention (in the Daily Racing Form, where workout times are listed).”

The identity of the horse was unknown to clockers, however, until they saw the horse a few days later under Griffiths’ care. One of the clockers approached Griffiths about the horse, which they now identified as Moskur, and asked if it was the same animal they observed Jan. 21. Griffiths denied that Moskur worked out that day, and the clocker reported his comments to the stewards, who called the trainer in for a hearing, Lewis said.

“He denied it again at the hearing, under oath,” Lewis said. “We continued our investigation, and we got word to him that we were going to file charges against him for giving false testimony. Then he came in and recanted and said yes, that it was his horse.”