DEL MAR : Testing Error Acknowledged by Hutcheson

Dennis Hutcheson, executive secretary of the California Horse Racing Board, reacted to a meeting of angry owners and trainers Tuesday by saying he should have acted differently when he dismissed four horse-drugging cases earlier this year.

“In retrospect, I should have let the split samples be tested,” Hutcheson said in a conference call with reporters from his office in Sacramento. “But I would have been damned no matter what I did.”

Urine samples from four horses--two of them winners--turned up positive for Clenbuterol when tested by the racing board’s laboratories after races at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park.

Dennis Meagher, interim equine medical director for the board, identified Clenbuterol as an illegal drug that opens up the airways of the lungs of horses with respiratory problems. Two American track and field athletes tested positive for Clenbuterol at the Barcelona Olympics; Meagher said that when used by humans, the drug has a steroidal effect and can be a growth stimulant.

Before the four urine samples could be tested by other laboratories, the normal procedure in California, Hutcheson dismissed the cases against the trainers, who have not been publicly identified. Then, when the samples were sent to the follow-up labs, they again tested positive.

Hutcheson gave several reasons for his actions.

“Because of information I had, I expected the other labs to find the tests negative,” he said. “But they didn’t, and now we have controversy.”

Hutcheson also said that a positive result for Clenbuterol after a race in January at Santa Anita had tested negative when the split sample was analyzed.

“This horse belonged to a trainer who has successful horses and an impeccable record,” he said. “Also, there were nine other positives for other drugs, including cocaine, and eight of those split samples were negative. I thought there was a good possibility of a lab problem. So, because of this and the cocaine fiasco that we had a few years ago, I dismissed the four (Clenbuterol) positives rather than go forward willy-nilly with complaints against the trainers.”

Hutcheson’s boss and predecessor, Len Foote, retired under fire because he filed complaints in 1989 against six trainers, including Wayne Lukas and the late Laz Barrera, for running horses that tested positive for cocaine. The charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence.

Later, there was another round of cocaine positives involving several other trainers, but the racing board couldn’t substantiate those charges, either.

Meagher and Rosemary Ferraro, one of two racing board members who opposed Hutcheson’s promotion to executive secretary in 1990, presided at a two-hour meeting of horsemen Tuesday at a hotel near the Del Mar track. Meagher complained that he was not notified regarding Hutcheson’s dismissal of the four positive cases.

There were suggestions from horsemen that Hutcheson should be forced to resign.

“You horsemen should realize how vulnerable you are if just one person is calling the shots,” Ferraro said. “Dennis Hutcheson has jeopardized the board and hurt a lot of honest trainers. In the future, the board is open to lawsuits from trainers if they are found with positives and can prove that there is a selective penalty process.”

Before the meeting, Ferraro said: “There is a conspiracy of silence going on. This is the worst thing I have seen in my 6 1/2 years on the board.”

Hutcheson said he acted within racing board guidelines, adding that a member of his staff had attempted to contact Meagher.

“I will not resign,” Hutcheson said. “I feel that I have the full confidence of the (seven-member) board as a whole.”