Change in Drug Testing Is Approved by Board : Horse racing: Trainers can seek a second opinion after positive samples are found, CHRB says.

The California Horse Racing Board, while not empowered to tell stewards what to do, indicated to dozens of horse trainers Friday that there would be no immediate suspensions because of recent positive tests of horses for cocaine.

The board, which because of inconclusive evidence dropped charges against five of six trainers--including Wayne Lukas and Laz Barrera--after making similar accusations in 1989, has 15 cocaine cases on its hands. They involve trainers from the thoroughbred, quarter horse and harness ranks. The horses that tested positive for cocaine ran between June of 1989 and last November.

At Friday’s special meeting, the board approved a rule that gives trainers 72 hours to ask for another opinion after the state tells them that their horses have tested positive for illegal medications.

The board’s 1985 medication guidelines also are scheduled to be revised as the result of pressure from horsemen. Some have seen their barns searched before the results of drug tests were available and were prevented from entering horses before rulings were issued.

John Russell, a respected thoroughbred trainer who had a horse test positive for cocaine at Santa Anita last year, questioned racing’s absolute-insurer rule, which makes a trainer responsible for his horse around the clock.

“It ought to be an accountability rule,” Russell said. “If someone broke into your house and you couldn’t find who did it, would you automatically accuse someone who lived nearby? But if you left the door open, you might be accountable.

“Before a trainer’s name is dragged through the mud, the state should be sure there is complicity and the trainer is negligent. It should be asking whether the trainer really did leave that door open.”

Russell said that between the time he enters his horse, 48 hours before a race, and the time the horse enters the starting gate, at least 10 people have access to the animal, half of whom don’t work for him.

“Not all trainers are as pure as the driven snow,” Russell said, “and if they are guilty, the penalty should be severe, because fixing a race is the same as grand larceny. But if there are extremely low traces of cocaine and there is no complicity, only the most paranoid person would believe that the trainer is responsible. It’s naive to think that we’re fixing races with these small amounts the tests have been picking up. Logic is the key word here.”

Russell, veterinarian Rick Arthur and members of the board suggested that the horses may be accidentally ingesting cocaine from the backstretch help.

“Cocaine is rampant on the backstretch,” commissioner Leslie Liscom said. “We may have to change the (horse-testing) rules because of this.”

Arthur said some trainers, such as Russell and Neil Drysdale, test their help for drugs, but there are problems of legality involved. He talked about trainer Lenny Dorfman’s assistant who was arrested at the barn by Arcadia police and was identified as a major drug dealer.

“He was the nicest guy in the world, and here one day the police are standing there with a gun at his head,” Arthur said.

Arthur also remembered talking to a stablehand who had quit using drugs for two years: “ ‘When I used, I had it all over me,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet you could go over to the tack room where I used to work and still find the stuff on the walls.’ ”

Conrad Klein, a lawyer who has represented the racing board as a hearing referee for almost 30 years, gave the board some suggested guidelines:

--When a horse tests positive, the trainer’s employees should be screened and his barn security should be checked.

--The trainer’s record of violations should be considered.

--The nature and quantity of the foreign substances should be factors.

--The way the horse ran in the race should be analyzed.

--The impact on the rest of his employees should be considered if a trainer is suspended.

“These are exactly the kinds of ideas we need to implement,” Lansdale said. “I think we should go along with these trainers and ease off them until we can look into this more.”

As a group, the trainers thought that the board had unfairly named names before the investigations were complete.

“When a trainer is suspended, he loses horses and never gets them back,” trainer David Hofmans told the board.