Two Owners Arrested

The stewards at Santa Anita scratched two horses from the first race Friday, two days after their owners were arrested by the FBI in Northern California in a $12-million bank-fraud scheme.

Michelle Serrao and her partner, Bryan Rosenquist, were arrested at their Vacaville home Wednesday and charged with stealing the money from Bank of America over the last year. Until recently, Serrao and Rosenquist worked for Loomis, Fargo & Co., a firm responsible for delivering money to the bank’s automated teller machines.

At Santa Anita, Serrao is listed, through her Bella Thoroughbreds stable name, as the owner of Breeznthru and Win a Feu , a pair of fillies scheduled to run in Friday’s first race. Another of Serrao’s horses, Tera Kitty, was scratched from the fourth race after failing a veterinarian’s exam. All nine of Serrao’s horses, trained locally by Josh Litt, have been put on the stewards’ list, which means they are prohibited from running.

A Santa Anita steward, Pete Pedersen, said Rosenquist runs horses in his own name, frequently at Northern California tracks, and also has run horses in partnership with Bella Thoroughbreds.

“We took the horses out in the best interests of racing,” said Ingrid Fermin, another Santa Anita steward. “The owners are entitled to a hearing.”

Rosenquist, 39, and Serrao, 41, were found to have about $3.4 million in a checking account in a Vacaville credit union. Authorities are trying to account for the rest of the missing money, believed to be more than $8 million. Charges have been filed in federal court. If convicted, Rosenquist and Serrao each faces a maximum sentence of 30 years.

Rosenquist’s annual salary at Loomis was $40,000 and Serrao earned $28,000 a year. They owned a ranch in Vallejo, where federal agents found about 50 horses, 100 cattle, five or 10 racing mules, some chickens and a few sheep.

“We are considering our options with the [racing animals],” said Andrew Black, an FBI spokesman.