Second Opinion Disputes Positive Cocaine Test : Horse racing: Official acknowledges results of Ohio State test differ from those of board’s laboratories. He would not say whose sample was tested.

One of the many horse urine samples that recently have shown evidence of cocaine has been analyzed by an independent laboratory that is not calling it a positive test, according to Dennis Hutcheson, executive secretary of the California Horse Racing Board.

Hutcheson said the independent lab’s report has been given to Rick Vulliet, the state’s equine medical director, who will review the result and make a recommendation to the racing board.

Hutcheson would not identify the horse that provided the sample or the trainer involved. At least 15 trainers from the thoroughbred, quarter horse and harness ranks are facing accusations that their horses tested positive for cocaine or a metabolite of cocaine.

According to Hutcheson, the sample that does not show cocaine was a split sample sent to Ohio State University. The state’s accusations against the trainers were based on reports from the racing board’s primary laboratory and a backup lab.

Blake Heap, a thoroughbred trainer who had a horse test positive for cocaine after a race during the Orange County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos in August, is one of the few accused trainers who has sent a split sample to Ohio State. Several trainers have sent their samples to Cornell University, which does the state testing for horses in New York.

Heap, after being contacted by The Times, said he called Hutcheson to ask if the Ohio State sample was his and was told that the information could not be divulged.

“I hope it’s mine,” Heap said, “because if it is, it means I’ve got a case in appealing this. There’s something wrong, though, about my not being told, one way or the other. I paid to have the sample sent to Ohio State, and I deserve that much.”

Told about Heap’s call, Rosemary Ferraro, chairman of the racing board’s medication committee, was critical of Hutcheson. Ferraro and Phoebe Cooke, a former board member, opposed Hutcheson’s appointment to the job last year.

“Once again, there’s something wrong with the procedures on this,” Ferraro said. “Within 24 hours after information like this is obtained, a trainer has the right to know where he stands. The information can be relayed from a veterinarian or a steward at the track, but the important thing is that the trainer be informed.”

Heap said this was the second positive cocaine test for a horse he had run at Los Alamitos. The first was at the fair in the summer of 1988.

“This was before the Roger Stein positive, before all of those positives came out at that time,” Heap said. “The day I was supposed to have my hearing, I was told that the charges were being dropped and that I didn’t have to go. I was never told why. There were some rumors, but I never really got the reason.”

In 1988-89, six trainers, including the nationally known Wayne Lukas and Laz Barrera, were accused of running horses that tested positive for cocaine. Stein, who was one of the trainers, was fined and suspended, but charges against the others were dropped. Multimillion-dollar lawsuits by Barrera and Stein have resulted.

This time, the accused trainers have again denied that they gave their horses cocaine. The accusations by the racing board are related to the rule that says trainers have the ultimate responsibility for their horses.

Donald Calabria, an attorney who represents trainers John Russell and Blane Schvaneveldt, the biggest of the names in the current round of accusations, said that the split sample from Ohio State didn’t belong to either of his clients.

The positive cocaine tests head the agenda for a special meeting of the racing board Friday at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton Hotel.