4 Trainers to Be Named in Report

The California Horse Racing Board, still trying to right the wrongs that emerged from last year’s clenbuterol scandal at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, may be digging a deeper hole.

The seven commissioners are expected in the next few days to release a 30-page report, done by the California Department of Justice, that will name the implicated trainers in the horse-drugging controversy.

From independent sources, The Times has learned that among the four trainers is Darrell Vienna, who trains Gilded Time, last year’s champion 2-year-old male and a prime candidate for this year’s Kentucky Derby before foot problems hindered his training this winter at Santa Anita.

The other trainers are Barbara Caganich, Bruce Headley and Vladimir Cerin. Caganich was identified as one of the trainers by The Times last September.

The release of the report, prompted by pressure from pending lawsuits, could result in more legal action.

The four trainers raced horses that tested positive for clenbuterol, an illegal medication, early last year at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park.

The racing board’s problems began when board secretary Dennis Hutcheson dismissed three of the cases and the commissioners themselves threw out the other. Secondary testing of the horses’ urine was also positive, prompting Hutcheson to admit that he had erred in dismissing the charges.

The racing board met privately this week to discuss the clenbuterol report, which was prepared after the board asked for an independent investigation into the way the trainers’ cases were handled. The Sacramento district attorney’s office recently reviewed the report and said that neither the board nor Hutcheson had acted criminally.

But Harvey Furgatch, whose freedom-of-information suit against the racing board has been one of the pressure points, says he has no intention of backing down.

“In my mind, publishing this report will not finish my lawsuit,” he said.

“If there are only four races in the report,” Furgatch added. “I don’t believe the report is complete. I have been told that there were at least six (clenbuterol) races involving five trainers. Whatever it is, the public is entitled to have full disclosure.”

Other lawsuits against the board may be filed by trainers whose horses were beaten by the drugged horses, and by the implicated trainers themselves. Because the state’s secondary testing used up all of the horses’ urine samples, the trainers were denied the right to send specimens to labs of their choice for independent analysis.

In what might be interpreted as a move to stave off lawsuits, the racing board on Thursday announced the agenda for its meeting at Arcadia next Friday, indicating that it will consider disqualifying the horses that earned purse money and then tested positive for clenbuterol.

Clenbuterol is a powerful breathing aid that helps horses suffering from pulmonary bleeding and is believed to enhance performance. Not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the drug is illegal in the United States.

The dismissal of the four positives has been a national embarrassment for the board at a time when most of racing is suffering severe business declines. Board member Rosemary Ferraro asked last year for the resignation of Hutcheson, whom she accused of conducting a “cover-up.”

The clenbuterol affair is the second horse-drugging scandal the CHRB has had to deal with in recent years. In 1988-89, cocaine-positive tests came back on horses running for dozens of trainers, including the nationally prominent Wayne Lukas and Laz Barrera. Charges against Lukas and Barrera and most of the others were dropped because of lack of evidence. Trainer Roger Stein sued the state’s testing laboratory, eventually settling out of court.

Hutcheson has said that he did not file complaints against the trainers suspected of racing horses with clenbuterol because he questioned the accuracy of the Pennsylvania laboratory that then did the testing of California horses. The racing board notified the four implicated trainers last year, but until now has been unwilling to release their names, acting on the advice of the state attorney general’s office.

According to racing board records, which were obtained by The Times, Vienna raced two horses that tested positive for clenbuterol. The first horse, which ran at Santa Anita in January, 1992, showed negative in a second test and that case was dropped, in accordance with racing board practices.

The other Vienna horse, whose urine sample tested positive twice, was Sharply, who finished second in a $30,000 claiming race at Hollywood Park last May 25.

The Cerin horse with two positive tests was Pretend I’m Slew, who finished fourth in an $11,000 claiming race at Santa Anita on April 22.

Headley’s horse, Migrant Worker, ran second in a $35,000 allowance race at Hollywood Park on May 28 and then tested positive twice for clenbuterol.

Derbin, trained by Caganich, won a $21,000 claiming race at Hollywood Park on May 7 and tested positive twice for clenbuterol.

Derbin’s owner, John Valpredo, is the father of a racing board member. Don Valpredo, the son, was one of the commissioners who pushed for the independent investigation of the board’s handling of the clenbuterol cases.

“I have no knowledge of the medication clenbuterol,” Caganich told a racing board investigator when interviewed about the Derbin race.

Caganich recently told The Times that neither of the state labs that tested her horse would have been her choice had there been enough urine sample left for a third test.

Cerin was interviewed twice by state investigators after the Pretend I’m Slew race.

“Basically, he was at a loss (about) what happened,” the report read. “ . . . (He) stated he had talked to his vets and they could not figure out what happened.”

Bob Forgnone, an attorney who represents Headley, Cerin and Vienna, said that his clients would not discuss the case.

“I called the racing board, and they would not confirm that the report is being released,” Forgnone said. “Until they do, we won’t have anything to say.”