LOS ALAMITOS : Dominguez Seeking Injunction to Overturn Ruling After Horse’s Positive Cocaine Test

Caesar Dominguez, the second-leading quarter horse trainer in the country, is seeking an injunction to overturn a ruling issued by the Los Alamitos Board of Stewards concerning an allegedly positive test for cocaine by one of Dominguez’s horses.

The stewards issued a ruling last Friday, prohibiting Dominguez from entering any horse in a race, in California or elsewhere, pending the completion of an initial investigation into a positive cocaine test by the horse Barium in a race at Los Alamitos on May 30.

According to Marla Lloyd of the California Horse Racing Board, Barium tested positive for the drug benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine. Lloyd said that the presence of a metabolite indicates that the drug actually passed through the horse’s system and was not simply put into a test specimen.

The race in question on May 30 was a $5,000 claiming race for 2-year-old maidens. Barium finished second and did not race again during the Los Alamitos summer meeting, which ended on July 28.

Dominguez, who through the latest American Quarter Horse Assn. records had won 96 of 503 starts with earnings of $720,040 for the year, denied any wrongdoing.

“I have been training since 1972 and I have never had a bad test,” he said from his barn at Los Alamitos, where his string of about 50 horses is still stabled. “They must think I’m stupid to have given cocaine to a $5,000 maiden. I don’t what happened or how it happened. All I know is that I didn’t do it.”

In California racing, the Trainer Insurer Rule makes the trainer solely responsible for the condition of his horse in a race.

“That is the rule they hang you with,” Dominguez said. “You are at their mercy because of that rule. I’ve started over 500 horses this year and have had hundreds of horses tested. Now they get one bad test for a drug as common as cocaine and I’m shut down. Anybody could have done it, but around the race track you’re guilty until you’re proven innocent.”

Dominguez is the trainer of the top 2-year-old colt Takin On the Cash, already the winner of three Grade I stakes this year. Takin On the Cash is scheduled to run Thursday in the first set of trials for the $2.5-million All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs in Ruidoso, N.M.

With Dominguez on suspension, Takin On the Cash will be trained in New Mexico by his brother Albert, a licensed trainer in that state.

“At least we get to keep it in the family,” joked Dominguez. “I’ll tell you one thing, if this thing keeps me from running that horse in the All-American in my name, it’s going to be a hard thing to handle. You work all your life for a shot at that race and now this.”

The All-American final will be run on Labor Day, the winner earning $1 million.

The Los Alamitos stewards maintain that they are following standard procedure.

“When we have a situation like this, our policy is to deny the trainer from entering any horses until we complete our initial investigation and bring him or her in for a hearing,” steward Merlin Volzke said.

One concern expressed by Dominguez is the two-month lag between Barium’s race and the suspension.

“I must’ve run 300 horses after May 30 and not one has come back bad,” Dominguez said. “Now, two months after I run a horse, they tell me I’ve got a bad test.”

According to Lloyd, the reason for the delay is that Barium’s urine sample was sent to Iowa State University for testing, rather than to the state-approved lab which at the time was handling most of the state’s tests.

Dominguez also said there is a double standard in the handling of such matters by the CHRB. He cited the recent cases of thoroughbred trainers Laz Barrera and Wayne Lukas. Both had horses that allegedly tested positive for cocaine and in both instances the CHRB dropped charges against them.

“I guess if you’ve won the Kentucky Derby, they don’t do anything to you,” Dominguez said. “Me, they keep from running any horses. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

An interpretation of the rules of racing by Len Foote, then the executive secretary of the CHRB, allowed Lukas and Barrera to continue training while their cases were pending. Roger Stein, another thoroughbred trainer who also had a horse that tested positive, was suspended but went to court and got an injunction against the suspension. In all of those cases, the tests, performed by Truesdail Laboratories in Tustin, were ruled insufficient to meet legal standards.

Trainer Bob Baffert has recorded 40 victories in quarter horse stakes at Los Alamitos during his career but the 38-year-old conditioner might be hard-pressed to top his first thoroughbred stakes triumph there Monday night with Theresa’s Pleasure.

Theresa’s Pleasure, a 2-year-old filly, won the $35,000 Proud Sister Stakes and her time of 49 3/5 was a world record for 4 1/2 furlongs.

The previous record for the seldom-raced distance was 50 2/5, shared by eight horses.