[ "Call to Post" plays ]
♪
Hoppert: I've covered horse racing for 17 years.
There's a saying that I love
that says, "A racehorse is the only animal
that can take a thousand people for a ride at once."
Announcer: And they're off!
Hoppert: And it's so true.
♪
You could hear the hooves thundering.
It's. like, almost like your heart is beating fast
with the horse.
You feel like you're on the horse.
Like you're in it. It's a battle.
♪
It's the most exciting two minutes in sports.
Announcer: And they're off...
Antonucci: You're watching the brilliances of the colors,
the speed, the energy.
Its beautiful chaos.
♪
Watching them race is almost mesmerizing.
Their athleticism. Their speed.
♪
Lynn: It's a beautiful sport, and I think
when it's done the right way, there's nothing like it.
It's the best.
♪
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Man: And tens of thousands of fans are getting ready
for the horse racing's biggest race, the Kentucky Derby.
Anything can happen, so we're watching it very closely indeed.
Hoppert: What happened surrounding
the 2023 Kentucky Derby this year, um, it was bad.
It was really bad.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
[ Announcer speaking indistinctly ]
Woman: This is race 5 this afternoon.
That's Take Charge Briana
who falls to the ground.
The horse had to be euthanized.
That is four total since last Thursday.
An eighth horse has died at Churchill Downs.
Race 2, horse number 9. Just behind us here.
Hoppert: In all, 12 horses died at Churchill Downs,
including two trained by the same trainer
collapsed within days,
and it really just got worse from there.
Woman: The horse's death hours before the Preakness Stakes.
Man: And all this comes as there have been a litany
of recent thoroughbred deaths that are under investigation.
Drape: Horses dying in clusters is not a new phenomenon.
It's just now people are paying attention
and want to know why.
Announcer: And it's the New York-bred wonder
Maple Leaf Mel!
[ Crowd groans ]
Man: He went down right at the wire.
Woman: This is a very sad state of events there.
Man: Has many questioning the sport itself.
Woman: Enough about calling this a sport.
Man: They are drugged and doped.
It's simple animal exploitation, animal cruelty,
and animal killing, and it has to end.
Man: It's hard to explain dead racehorses, really.
We got to get rid of the bad actors in the sport,
and we've got to get rid of all these drugs.
Woman: More than two dozen people are now charged
in an international scheme
to drug horses to make them race faster.
Woman: There's a genuine feeling
that this is the inflection point,
and if we don't act, it may be too late.
♪
[ Indistinct conversations ]
Motion: But he's also-- he was coming off a two-mile race,
so I think he was a little confused.
I'm hoping that staying up here,
it might freshen him up a little bit.
Motion: I've been in the business training my own horses
for about 30 years.
Man: What do you love about thoroughbred racing
in particular? The horses.
♪
The way horse racing works is an owner
will approach me about training a horse
that perhaps he's purchased or bred.
I will then prepare the horses for a race.
12 and 3. That's really good, guys.
12 and 3. Just stay together, now.
Ultimately, the best way to train a horse
is get on him yourself, right? But I'm too heavy.
So I am very much looking for my riders to tell me
how the horse is doing. 49...?
Because the horses can't talk, right?
They can't tell me what's wrong with them.
That's my job.
So I've got to figure out if they've got a problem
before they hurt themselves.
Good job, guys. Well done.
We feel scrutiny every day.
I feel scrutiny in everything I do.
When that horse leaves the paddock
to go onto the racetrack, whatever happens to that horse,
I put him out there, right?
How are you? Good to see you.
I've told the jockey what to do.
So it's my responsibility.
Yeah, I would just be patient, right?
Yeah, I'm gonna break, and then I'll...
Yeah. Just be patient.
Get him in a good spot.
You got him, Alice?
- Yeah. - Good luck.
♪
[ Indistinct conversations ]
♪
Arthur: I think it was Winston Churchill said
that looking into a horse's eyes
is good for the soul of a man, something like that.
They're smart animals.
They're graceful, beautiful.
They're brave creatures.
Bold.
And America was founded with horses.
♪
Motion: I mean, horse racing goes back centuries, and it was
always about "my horse is faster than your horse," right?
That was the sport of it.
It started as a sporting pastime for the wealthy.
It was called the sport of kings.
And, you know, you had the Secretariats of the world.
[ Announcer speaking indistinctly ]
Arthur: With horses like Seabiscuit.
Announcer: Seabiscuit is the winner!
Hoppert: The Kentucky Derby is the oldest
continuously held sporting event in the United States.
The Twin Spires, the mint juleps...
people in hats and pretty dresses.
It oozes... history.
♪
Arthur: In the old days, you had a lot of private stables.
People raised their own horses for the most part.
Then it became more of a commercial game,
more of a business.
The emphasis was on making money rather than being a sport.
Finley: So, the thoroughbred industry in North America
is over $50 billion a year.
So, sales, the racetracks, and the gambling.
One of the biggest industries in the entire world.
Arthur: And there's a lot of money in winning these big stakes.
Announcer: Animal Kingdom to win the Derby!
So, what sort of happened to the game
to change it a little bit is the rise of the super trainer.
♪
Basically, a super trainer is a franchise.
They have 200 horses.
They have three or four horses in each of the big races.
It's Chad Brown. It's Todd Pletcher.
Bob Baffert. You know, Steve Asmussen.
They get the majority of the good horses.
They have huge stables.
Super trainers-- they're making millions
on the racetrack.
Announcer: And a second Kentucky Derby for Todd Pletcher!
Bob Baffert gets yet another chance at a Triple Crown!
Hoppert: A trainer like Bob Baffert--
in his career, his horses have made
almost $350 million on the racetrack.
Yeah, I think it's changed inasmuch as
the purses have increased, which, of course,
makes the racing more competitive.
Announcer: They're off!
Drape: I've been covering horse racing for 25 years,
and I've seen really the money and the economics just balloon.
It's a "win now" culture.
And, you know, I'm afraid that it's eclipsed the culture of
"let's care for our horses first."
Man: Beautiful horse. Woman: Mm-hmm.
Wow. He's pretty textbook.
I mean, he's...
I mean, he's probably gonna be turf, though.
But that's okay.
- Great-minded horse, huh? - Mm-hmm.
Man: Yeah, so we're just looking at kind of
how they strike us coming out.
Like, there's no perfect horse,
but you're trying to identify the ones
that are gonna stay healthy, stay sound.
Very nice. Thank you, Diego.
Thank you.
♪
Got one more.
Hoppert: The Saratoga Sale--
it's a premier event as far as horse auctions go.
♪
Beyond the pedigree, I'm looking for an individual
that shows athleticism, has a great walk,
has a great hip, and really has a great mind.
We try to find the next best superstar.
♪
[ Indistinct conversations ]
Man: Ladies and gentlemen, it's our pleasure
to begin the 102nd Saratoga Sale.
Arthur: They're buying a dream.
They might be buying Secretariat. You never know.
We're guessing. You don't know.
[ Auctioneer calling ]
Ramsey: The bidding is ferocious.
You kind of put your money where your mouth is
and just hope it turns out well.
[ Auctioneer calling ]
Hoppert: There could be a lot of backdoor dealing,
people teaming up against others.
There's ownership groups that now team up together.
They call themselves the "Avengers."
It's basically Bob Baffert, Donato Lanni,
Sol Kumin, who's a hedge-fund manager.
The way that they approach the game
is that they pool all their money together
and they can buy more horses, better horses for less price.
It's run like a business. It's run like a hedge fund.
Lynn: The ambiance is great.
Everybody's there to look at horses and buy horses.
Bidding's exciting.
You can get a little swept away in the--
in the fury, if you will.
[ Auctioneer calling ]
$500,000...thank you.
Lynn: It's a stressful time, but it's an exciting time
because it's a lot of the bottom line
for people that have bred and raised the horses.
♪
This is a cowgirl's hope chest.
So, um, this was Havnameltdown's halter,
and Bob sent it back to me after his last race.
So, that's his mom.
[ Clears throat ] This is him as a yearling.
This is his lineage. It's all speed.
This horse was like a bullet.
He was. He was bred to run.
♪
I've been breeding horses.
My first baby, I think, when I was 22.
So a long time. [ Laughs ]
But it's something you fall in love with.
I mean, there's nothing like it.
And the babies know you when they come out
because they've heard you in the belly talking to mama.
[ Smooching ]
Come here. Come on.
He was my baby.
He, um...
Like, the second day he was born,
there was a ball out in the field,
and he grabbed it, you know, and threw it.
And he took off after it.
Babies at two days old don't do that, you know?
He was just a very different horse.
I knew he was special. Eat it up, buddy!
He was Dennis the Menace, you know?
He would get up to the bucket and eat.
He's just pushing his mama,
trying to get her out of the way.
And he would turn around and put his butt in the bucket
so she couldn't eat till he got through chewing.
He was a naughty teenager. He really was.
And he was always happy,
and he was very trusting with humans.
Mommy's so proud of you. You're so handsome.
So when he got ready to leave,
I said a little prayer that, you know,
"Be with him and don't put him anywhere
that he's not gonna be treated good."
So, this picture right here was from back in March.
And that's Bob and the three owners, the "Three Amigos."
When I met Bob, I was, like, starstruck.
I had shown Bob horses for years.
He came to see the horse.
When Bob looked at that run,
he said, "That's what we want right there.
Look at what his body's doing. Look how easy he's doing it."
He wasn't even out of breath. Like, it was nothing to him.
And everybody at the track was talking about him,
that he was gonna be the next Juvenile champion.
It's a dream to have Bob Baffert train for you.
I'm just a little breeder.
You know, I've never had more than five mares
that were just mine.
That's like a little girl's fairy tale right there.
Like Cinderella. It's Bob Baffert.
Announcer: And away they go!
Mister Iceman broke smartly,
but now there goes Havnameltdown.
Havnameltdown very fast, gets the lead.
Havnameltdown gives Juan Fernandez
another stakes win.
Announcer: They're off in the Bob Hope Stakes!
Havnameltdown kept it all together in the Bob Hope!
Havnameltdown makes short work of the competition
to win the San Vicente.
Devall: We bought the mare and bred her
for less than $7,000,
and he won $708,000.
It was exciting.
Bob's so smart with these horses.
He's one of the best in the world, you know?
And they just-- It just keeps on and keeps on.
It's ridiculous.
Baffert: I grew up on a ranch
and I never thought of being a horse trainer.
I wanted to be a jockey first, and I was just too big.
I didn't make the weight.
I started training Quarter Horses.
I was never really around a trainer,
so I was, like, self-taught.
I won a little derby, and that really started my-- my roll.
Once it gets in your blood, you just want to--
The competitive spirit comes out that we all have.
And so basically I just was hooked
from day one on the racing.
♪
Finley: Bob Baffert is really the face of our industry.
You go anywhere and you say you're in the horse business,
and they say, "What about the guy with the white hair?"
The most recognizable figure in horse racing.
Man: His horses have won hundreds of millions of dollars.
He has had a long and storied career.
Wallace: And the media cover his horses
like movie stars on the red carpet.
If you want to get a horse to the Kentucky Derby,
he is the man. He knows what he's doing.
♪
Hoppert: He's won six Kentucky Derbies,
a record eight Preakness Stakes,
three Belmont Stakes,
two Triple Crowns.
It's unheard of.
Papp: However, for every good thing
that has come from Bob Baffert's barn,
there seems to be a rash of bad things.
Drape: Since 2000, Bob Baffert's fatality rate
is about seven deaths per thousand starts,
which makes him one of the deadliest trainers in California.
Arthur: The record speaks for itself.
The drug violations are there.
Hoppert: From 2011 to 2013,
Bob Baffert had seven horses drop dead,
and while no cause could be determined by investigators,
it came out later he was giving
every horse under his care thyroid medicine.
He's had at least 30 medication violations in four decades.
He's had very high-profile medication violations,
including one for his Triple Crown winner Justify.
Man: Justify failed a drug test
that would have made the horse ineligible
for the Kentucky Derby.
Drape: Bob Baffert's record with drug tests is pretty long,
but he wins a lot of big races
and he makes a lot of people money.
And that's ultimately what horse racing has become--
a money grab.
Hoppert: When a trainer gets fined
for a positive drug test,
it's a few thousand dollars.
And in the grand scheme of things,
I mean, they're making millions of dollars at these horse races.
So what is a couple thousand dollars?
It's a drop in the bucket.
It's not a deterrent.
Medina Spirit, the horse that won the Kentucky Derby,
has failed a drug test.
Drape: In 2021, Medina Spirit,
trained by Bob Baffert,
won the Kentucky Derby and later was disqualified.
Baffert says, once again,
he never gave that drug to Medina Spirit.
Baffert: This is gonna just do me in.
It's just bullshit, and I'm--
I don't-- I don't know what to say to you guys,
but somebody made a mistake-- in the lab or whatever.
Betamethasone. We don't touch that.
We don't use any ointments. This is just-- I'm in shock.
I cannot believe I have to go through this crap again.
♪
Hoppert: When Medina Spirit tested positive,
Churchill Downs had just been fed up.
They just had enough.
I don't believe there had been a positive test
in the Derby since 1968.
We needed to take action because we actually run a racetrack.
We have to make sure that our product
is fair and that it's safe.
Man: Churchill Downs cracking down, releasing a bombshell.
The best-known name in the sport of horse racing
is now suspended for two years from the Louisville track.
Baffert: You know, I think it was just a knee-jerk,
"cancel culture" kind of reaction.
Now I have to fight this in the public.
Drape: When Churchill Downs suspended
Bob Baffert for two years,
this was probably the two most powerful figures
in horse racing going head to head,
and Churchill basically decided it was their racetrack
and he was not welcomed back.
Seven months after Medina Spirit won the Derby,
he dropped dead at Santa Anita Park.
Nobody knows why.
♪
Man: And Bob Baffert is back at the Preakness
for his first Triple Crown race in two years.
Woman: Bob, we're really glad to have you back here.
What does it feel like to be back here in Maryland
for the Preakness? Oh, I love Baltimore.
Hoppert: This year's Preakness was Bob's big return
to the Triple Crown stage.
Preakness is a loose vibe.
It's way looser than the Derby.
It's known for the infield
and the large concerts with big stars.
It's a big party, and people want to come here, have fun.
Hoppert: So it was supposed to be a great day for him
in the eyes of, like, "I'm back. Like, Bob is back."
He's got a very fast colt named Havnameltdown
in one of the undercard races.
Havnameltdown. He's a sprinter.
I mean, I took him to Saudi.
He ran hard. He drew the 1. He's an extremely fast horse.
Woman: Thank you so much. That's all I need.
Okay. We got it. Thank you.
We're back on Stakes action in the grade-3 Chick Lang.
Talk about Havnameltdown.
Perry: This horse is probably the nicest horse in the race.
Man: Pimlico race 6!
They are off and r-r-r-r-acing!
Announcer: Havnameltdown is right alongside the 2 path,
and Super Chow is tracking that speed from third.
Bristol Channel is next.
[ Saez speaking Spanish ]
Announcer: 2.23. Into the far turn they go.
And-- Oh, losing the rider. Havnameltdown.
Saez down on the ground there.
- Oh, man! - Oh, no!
Oh, man! He's hurt!
Oh, no! That's Saez! That was Saez!
Announcer: Havnameltdown has pulled up here out of the race.
♪
Hoppert: Havnameltdown clearly suffered
a catastrophic injury.
He's still running.
These horses, they're born to run.
That's all they know. And so they keep running.
And you could tell he was in pain.
♪
And you wait to see-- is there a tarp, is there no tarp?
And then the tarp goes up, and you know
they're putting the horse down.
♪
Unfortunately, Havnameltdown
suffered a-- an injury of his left front ankle
to such an extent that they couldn't do anything for him
and he had to be humanely euthanized.
Man: Not the news that anyone wanted to hear.
[ Bell rings ]
Announcer: They're off in the Preakness!
It was a very good start for National Treasure today.
Mage came out pretty well...
Drape: Last year, Havnameltdown gets euthanized.
A couple races later,
Baffert wins the main event, the Preakness Stakes.
Announcer: And they're into the sprint!
It's gonna be National Treasure!
And Bob Baffert has won his eighth one!
Drape: Horse racing can move on quickly.
One minute, you can have a horse be euthanized on the racetrack,
and an hour or two later, you have jubilation
after you've taken down a big purse.
[ Laughter ]
You know, that isn't great optics
for a sport that is under siege right now--
and properly so-- for how they care for their athletes.
To win this, it's--
Losing that horse today really hurt.
But it's been a very emotional day.
♪
I was sad, but I know that I was very proud of...
how strong he was.
♪
I'm still sad, you know,
but it's-- it's something that happens.
♪
So...
No, I've never had it happen before,
but I'd never run with the big boys like this, you know?
And I think, in my heart of hearts,
I knew that's what he loved to do.
Like, that was his everyday thing, you know,
to get out of his stall and go run.
♪
So I was good until I picked it up and smelled it.
Then I just cried.
It smells just like him. Yeah.
♪
Bob called me.
You know, he was like, "I'm so sorry."
He goes, "We are all, like, distraught.
Like, we're devastated."
It's a hard conversation to have.
You know, you don't want that to happen to your horse,
but who are you gonna blame?
You can't blame that trainer.
It was an accident!
It's just things that happen.
Man: This tape was recorded on location
at the 46th Annual Convention
of the American Association of Equine Practitioners.
Baffert: And we were always told,
I know as a young age--
that when you-- when you cortisone'd a horse,
injected their joints or whatever,
it was, like, super taboo.
I mean, you do that, you're gonna ruin your horse.
When you start competing at that higher level,
you don't have the convenience of,
"Well, we're just gonna give him a couple of weeks off."
You have to go, go, go, and this is when the trainer
and the veterinarian have to have this bond.
Realize that, you know, if done properly,
you can keep these horses around for a long time.
♪
[ Indistinct conversations ]
Papp: That's good.
Hoppert: Horses are athletes, and athletes require care.
♪
They have sore bodies. They have injuries that pop up.
Every horse has to get medicated,
whether it's antibiotics for a wound,
whether it's bute, which is like an aspirin.
You're alright.
The question is,
how much medication is too much medication?
He's good.
Arthur: The drugs have proliferated.
This culture of pharmaceuticals has evolved.
When I was a teenager, I worked for a veterinarian.
The trainers would give me their drug orders
without doing an examination,
and then we would administer these drugs to these horses.
Drape: The use of drugs in horse racing
really picked up in the '80s,
and it was largely because of the money.
Purses were exploding.
Stallion rights were exploding.
And you saw more horses dying.
There are about 40 so-called therapeutic drugs
that they give them.
The drugs are perfectly legal.
The most common is phenylbutazone, known as bute.
The trainers say that with the demands of the racing season,
bute is the only thing
that will get the sore horses out on the track.
Lyons: By treating these horses continuously
with different anti-inflammatory and painkilling medications,
you will have masked injury
for days or weeks before a horse races,
and then it puts the horse at high risk
for significant injury when it runs.
Woman: Some studies show a significant increase
in breakdowns since the pre-race use of phenylbutazone
became legal in 19 states.
Lyons: One of the most abused drugs today is aspirin.
Some horses are on this 365 days a year.
It's almost being fed as if it were a supplement.
♪
Today I think we have a system
where the right hand of the trainer is the veterinarian--
not to make sure that they're healthy and sound and happy,
but in order to use their tools
to get those horses to the races.
It's not putting the horse first.
It's putting the interests
of getting that horse over to the races,
over and above
the horse's safety, its well-being.
♪
Hoppert: There's two types of medications
that you give a racehorse.
There's controlled medications which are allowed within
a certain time frame of a race and at certain limits.
And then there's banned substances--
essentially doping.
Papp: So, this is a selection of
performance-enhancing medications,
some of which are completely prohibited.
Others are commonly still used but do not test positive.
This here is the blood doper Epogen.
It's what Lance Armstrong was using.
It's very difficult to detect
and can take a racehorse and make them compete
beyond their normal physiological capacity.
Drape: Over the years, I've seen everything tried.
Cancer medicines, diabetes medicines,
cobra venom, frog venom,
cayenne pepper on their genitals.
Cocaine. Viagra. You name it.
Hoppert: Everybody's looking for an edge in this game.
Everybody.
You make money when you win,
so you got to keep your percentage up.
You got to keep winning.
If you're not winning, you're not getting the best horses.
Your shots of winning again are going down.
It's a cycle.
♪
Drape: One of the metrics that you judge performance
in horse racing on is winning percentage.
Hall-of-fame trainers win at 15% or 20% per year.
Now we have folks out there with 30%.
And that raises eyebrows.
♪
Janney: The Jockey Club was founded in 1894,
and basically, in those days, there was no other regulation.
So the Jockey Club stepped in to--
to bring some degree of regulation into the sport.
Later, there was a court case
that said that was something
the state should do and not the Jockey Club.
♪
Essentially, horse racing was governed
on a state-by-state basis,
without any coordination, any national oversight.
♪
Janney: Probably 20 years ago,
I started to become concerned about whether races
were being won with horses that had been treated with drugs
that shouldn't be in them on race day.
I think, unlike some other sports,
yes, we were doing more testing
in terms of actual number of tests,
but the tests were not testing for that many drugs,
and we were doing no real checking to see
whether the labs were doing the job that they should be doing.
♪
Lazarus: Laboratories weren't harmonized.
So you could have a program where you're,
you know, you're giving your horse various treatments
and you might test positive in Kentucky
but negative in Ohio.
Janney: Too often, the states were looking for
the least-cost alternative.
And that is not necessarily
how you find people that are cheating.
♪
In the fall of 2015,
we went out and hired an independent investigative group
that were ex-FBI, DEA.
The only particular guidance that we gave them
was we're really interested in understanding
whether there is corruption at the higher levels of the sport.
And they came back in about three weeks
and said, "Well, you know,
we think we found at least one of the big fish."
That was Seth Fishman,
a vet and a compounder.
He had a rather checkered past and, in our opinion,
that he was obviously interested in supplying drugs
to both the trotting and thoroughbred part of racing.
♪
Drape: In 2015, The Jockey Club found enough evidence
that was actionable to take it to the FBI.
Richards: I had spent 21 years
as a Russian organized-crime investigator
in the New York City field office.
You follow murder for hires,
guns, drugs, public corruption,
that type of genre.
We were familiar with sporting-type cases
throughout the years.
We knew that this wasn't gonna be an easy investigation,
just to get plugged into the culture that is around racing.
♪
Seth Fishman was a person of interest.
He had been in the business for 20 years,
and he had branched out into thoroughbreds, standardbreds,
different countries.
So it was-- it was very, very significant and very large.
But we were not able to start off on his doorstep.
We were three, four, five steps removed.
There is no statute at the federal level
for doping of a racehorse.
So we needed a statute that we can pursue criminally--
mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering.
Had to figure out how the money moved within the industry.
Eventually, we were fortunate enough
that there were a couple sources
where we could actually gather evidence
and start to build out the case.
Drape: The FBI was watching Seth Fishman
and the trainer, Jorge Navarro.
And Jorge Navarro was pretty notorious for how much he won.
Man: You're on a mission this year, aren't you?
Navarro: Oh, he's on a mission.
[ Chuckles ] Listen. I do what I have to do.
Yes, there's always a question. Have I done enough?
Right? I guess that's every trainer question.
Drape: Navarro completely dominated racing in New Jersey.
He didn't really hide what he was doing.
He called himself the "Juice Man."
He had these Crocs that said "Juice Man" on them.
In 2017, Navarro was caught on tape
on a racetrack bar with one of his owners
referring to juicing his horses.
Man: Is that a Navarro? Is that a Navarro?
The "Juice Man" tape was unbelievable.
One individual makes a statement, you know--
"Is that a Navarro? Is that a Navarro?"
as he's winning.
You're looking at it, and you're thinking,
"Are these guys really that stupid
to be caught like that out in the open?"
And then the whole undertone with that is,
"Well, nobody cares.
It's just racing.
Just the way it is."
Drape: The FBI had inside information,
so in order to prove their information was correct,
they went undercover and took samples of all these horses.
I would come in as a Race Commission employee,
and we would designate what horses we wanted to test,
we'd draw the samples, and send them off to Hong Kong
and started getting results.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club was explained to me
as the number-one lab in the world for this type of testing.
The level of accreditation was at the top.
They had the ability and the money
that was needed to do that type of testing.
The labs in the U.S.
were very capable of finding certain substances
as long as they know what they're looking for.
But if they didn't have a test
that was made for the substance,
there's no way they could find it.
Our test results, we came back
with positives approximately 40% of the time.
Those tests were proof of concept.
As the investigation was proceeding,
we were able to listen to conversations amongst themselves
talking about the scheme.
Janney: These people were caught on wiretap
discussing exactly what they were doing
and how effective they thought it was.
Needless to say, these wiretaps were fruitful.
The FBI investigation began in 2
and lasted more than three years.
Drape: The wiretaps were revelatory.
Trainers were talking about how they were using drugs,
what they were using,
and how they were evading and gaming the system.
Richards: I can remember a conversation
where, you know, they're talking about
pumpin' and dumpin', fumin' horses.
I wasn't shocked about the behavior.
What was shocking to me was the efficiency
and the ability for them to dope horses and get results.
Richards: What I had seen that was most effective,
or consistently displayed, was "milkshaking."
Man: Milkshaking is a simple and quick way
of giving a horse more stamina.
By mixing together baking soda and sugar
with water and electrolytes...
that's shot up through a long tube
inserted through a horse's nostril,
straight down into its stomach.
Richards: I'm not a scientist.
I don't know what the detrimental effect
of milkshaking would be on the animal,
but I wouldn't want to ingest a half a pound
or a pound of baking soda myself.
They had other substances
where they put cobalt into a substance
which essentially poisons the horse
and builds the blood that way.
They also had antidepressants.
[ Horse neighs ]
Nobody believed anybody was going to jail for this behavior.
Man: More than two dozen racehorse trainers,
veterinarians, and others
have all been charged in a massive horse doping bust.
Today, we announce criminal charges
against racehorse trainers
Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis,
as well as nine other trainers, seven veterinarians,
and nine drug suppliers and distributors.
The FBI charged over 30 people
in the horse-racing industry,
and Jason Servis is probably the most prominent
because he won the Kentucky Derby in 2019
with Maximum Security.
Announcer: Maximum Security wins the Kentucky Derby!
♪
Man: Trainer Jason Servis was charged
with administering performance-enhancing drugs
to the champion horse Maximum Security.
Man #2: Trainers, veterinarians, and drug distributors
are also among those indicted.
Janney: I can remember federal people carting folks off
from various tracks across the country,
and so it was a very big deal in the industry.
It's a terrible black eye for our sport.
Man: A transcript reads,
"You know how many horses he killed and broke down
that I made disappear?"
As the U.S. Attorney says,
they believe at least 20 horses died
in connection with the doping cases.
Hoppert: I went to Jason Servis' sentencing.
He said he was sorry to his family.
He was sorry for what he did.
But he did not say sorry to the horses.
And I thought that that was--
that kind of was telling, in a way.
♪
Richards: The fact that people were going to jail
and were going to jail for significant time...
was a major statement to the industry.
Now, we should expect to see some reform changes
with these drugs because currently the drugs listed
in that indictment can be found online.
Janney: The federal government never said to us,
"We're going to find everybody in your sport
that's done anything wrong."
What they said was, "We're gonna come in,
we're gonna start a process that's gonna be very meaningful,
but it's very important that you all understand
that the job is not complete."
Richards: I used to talk about, "If we do our job right
in this investigation, there's this legislation
that they've tried before to get passed that keeps falling short.
And if we do this right,
we might just be able to help push that across the line."
♪
Janney: The Washington Post wrote an editorial
that said that horse racing
had outlived its time and should go away.
♪
That was something that Senator McConnell read,
and I think it focused his attention on the fact
that this was a big problem, not a small problem.
Arthur: I think it brought home to him
what we've been trying to do for the last 30 years.
And I think, as a consequence,
he was able to get Churchill to go and support this.
If we don't get rid of the drugs and thugs,
they're gonna get rid of us.
♪
Arthur: In the early '90s, I gave a speech in Arizona
at a racing forum...
and said that we need to get rid of drugs and thugs
because they're gonna ruin the business.
And I must say that it met with a cold shoulder
from pretty much everybody.
Big people in the industry said, "That's just not practical.
Nobody's cheating. Nobody's doing anything."
But it was the truth.
I went to Senator McConnell maybe four or five times
over the last 30 years.
I've known him. He had a date with my sister back in 1968.
He said, "If you come up here to Washington
and you want to get something done,
you have to have industry consensus.
Until you can get Churchill Downs on board,
I can't help you-- because they're my best client."
Janney: Churchill Downs was very concerned
about how opposed the horsemen in Kentucky were.
There is no need for the federal government
to reinvent the wheel
by establishing a new regulatory structure
where the state structure is already working well.
Horsemen and owners and people
on the backstretch of America's tracks,
they like the status quo.
The feeling is the industry would rather police itself
than have Congress do it for them.
Arthur: The Racing Commissioners
are all appointed by the governors
because they gave the governor, you know,
a good contribution and all that.
And a lot of them didn't even know
the front end of a horse from the back.
Janney: We had very little success in those early years,
but then the federal government indicted 30 people.
Man: All involved in the cruel and systematic doping
of racehorses across the United States
and indeed around the world.
Janney: That really changed a lot of people's minds
about whether you could continue with the status quo
or whether you had to have a different kind of solution.
Carstanjen: You don't see that a lot in American business,
where an industry raises their hand and says,
"You know, we want to be regulated more intensely
by the federal government."
Today I'll introduce the
Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act
to recognize a uniform national standard
for thoroughbred racing.
Lazarus: Senator McConnell and everyone
was just really incentivized to get something done
because they felt that it was necessary
to really secure horse racing's future.
Woman: Last night, Congress passed an act in support
of creating a centralized authority
for the horse-racing industry.
Man: One set of rules for drug testing and penalties.
Lazarus: I took over in February of 2022.
We launched on July 1, 2022,
on all of our racetracks, safety program initiatives,
and then we didn't launch the anti-doping program
until May of 2023.
Under HISA's anti-doping program,
we have what we call an umbrella term,
which is prohibited substances.
One category is called banned substances,
and those are doping substances
that should never be in a horse's system.
The second category is called controlled medications.
That's kind of your Advils, your Tylenols.
We want to make sure that they don't have any of those
substances in their system when they go to race.
I want to just turn him just a little bit that way.
♪
Alright.
Lazarus: We narrowed it down to six laboratories
to test the level that we needed.
The penalties range from a $500 fine
for using something like an ibuprofen
to two-year suspensions, four-year suspensions,
and much more serious fines in the $20,000-$30,000 range.
♪
Finley: I think, with HISA,
the whole industry has had a restart.
Arthur: A new sheriff is in town,
and this sheriff means business.
Devall: I think what it's doing is protecting our horses,
and it's getting rid of the bad people in this industry
because they can't hold on.
HISA regulates the racetrack
and the horses currently running,
but they don't regulate breeding and sales,
where a lot can go wrong and has gone wrong.
Hoppert: What happens from the time a horse is born
to the time that horse gets on the racetrack
is completely unregulated.
So drugs, surgeries. It's the Wild West.
♪
Janney: When I got into the business 35 years ago,
only about 20% to 25% of the horses
would go through a sale.
Now more than 75% of horses go through a sale.
And that means that people that are selling them
need to produce certain characteristics.
♪
You want the best mares, and you want the best stallions.
Man: Now, the big money, of course, with thoroughbreds
is not necessarily from the racing, but from the breeding.
Certainly great money to be made on the racetrack,
but the real money is really made in the breeding shed.
We bought Flightline for $1 million at Saratoga in 2019.
Announcer: It is Flightline!
He won it by eight lengths to the wire!
Finley: Right after the Breeders' Cup in 2022,
we sold a 2.5% share in Flightline
for $4.6 million,
which comes out to a total valuation of $184 million.
I also said, "Wow."
Hoppert: He's, like, the biggest superstar that no one's ever heard of.
He was pulled off the racetrack to go into the breeding shed
after only six starts.
He stands for $200,000.
So, this year, he bred 152 mares.
I don't say it in an arrogant way,
but you can do the math.
People couldn't wait to send their mares to them.
Drape: In this chase for money,
the breeding gene pool has shrunk a great deal.
[ Horse neighs ]
Janney: We've gone from stallions
typically breeding 50 mares a year
to well past 200 mares a year.
♪
Geneticists would agree
that a breed that's particularly healthy
is one that has a pretty broad number of stallion lines,
and we are in danger of not having that.
Papp: Also, breeding has started tending
towards speed versus distance.
That's not doing anything good
for longevity and bone density long-term.
So the more we breed for these spindle-legged,
really fast horses
instead of durable, long-distance horses,
the more problems we probably will be having.
Man: Two horses died today
Seven deaths seems like a lot.
Literally within the last few minutes, Fred,
track officials saying another horse,
Chloe's Dream, has died.
It happened just behind us here on the first turn.
♪
Lazarus: To see things unfolding in the Derby
the way they did was obviously extremely upsetting
to both me and my team.
Janney: Since 2009, we've seen the rate
of catastrophic injury go down by 35%,
but sometimes you get clusters of injuries
because of one circumstance or another.
Carstanjen: When we started to see the breakdowns,
we just went factor by factor
and tried to make our event as safe as possible.
Our obligation is to get to the bottom of it.
♪
Lazarus: The investigation
into the fatalities at Churchill Downs
involved a number of components.
The first component was very significant testing
of the racetrack surface.
We brought in experts that are not employed by Churchill Downs,
and they didn't find anything that they believed
had any connection or nexus to the injuries.
The second piece is we do a very comprehensive veterinary review
of all of the veterinary records.
We also obviously reviewed the necropsies.
Of the 12 horses that passed away,
9 were musculo-skeletal,
and those are the ones that interest us.
Lyons: When I reviewed the necropsies from Churchill Downs,
the orthopaedic breakdowns,
what I found was that these horses
had significant pre-existing injury.
♪
Not only on the limb that broke down,
but in other limbs, as well.
Also, the necropsy reports did not have drug history.
♪
It's really, really rare for a necropsy
to really have a smoking gun.
A lot of these illegal drugs, they're undetectable.
The drug tests are only as good
as the next drug that's being developed.
Lyons: We don't even know whether
these horses were running
with legal therapeutic medications.
If a horse gave the ultimate price,
we want to learn what contributed to that
and make changes.
Man: Havnameltdown, one of Bob Baffert's horses,
has been euthanized.
I did review the necropsy report
for the horse called Havnameltdown.
I have never even heard of a horse
having the type of pathology that this horse had.
♪
Havnameltdown had lesions in each fetlock.
It occurs when there's been this repetitive injury...
so that the cartilage has been worn away.
But you didn't only have it
in the leg where this fracture occurred.
This horse had it in all four limbs.
♪
This is easily diagnosed.
X-ray equipment
in every track practicing vet's vehicle,
it would take 10 minutes.
In previous vet examinations,
they detected a decrease in range of motion,
choppy or abnormal gait.
And these reports are available
both to the trainer and to the horse's veterinarian.
So how it was never red-flagged,
uh, just baffles me.
There were all sorts of notes by the regulatory veterinarians,
but all of them concluded that the horse was racing-sound,
even though there were abnormal findings.
Announcer: Ryvit. Havnameltdown is right alongside the 2 path.
Lyons: Havnameltdown had corticosteroid
and hyaluronic acid
injected into both hocks and both stifles.
If you inject a fetlock
that has significant pathology
with corticosteroids,
that horse could be able to race and train
in a way that it couldn't without that medication.
Announcer: ...outside.
Havnameltdown kept it all together!
Havnameltdown makes short work of the competition.
Havnameltdown gives Juan Fernandez another stakes win!
Lyons: Havnameltdown's death
could have been prevented, in my opinion.
Bob, congratulations.
Horse maybe took a step slow
coming out of the gate but recovered quickly.
Was it the rail you think might've had something to do with it?
Papp: This horse was a disaster waiting to happen.
It was only a matter of time.
Havnameltdown should not have been racing that day.
Absolutely not. Under any circumstances.
Devall: It had an injury. It was an accident!
It had nothing to do with what he did.
What he put in those joints
was hyaluronic acid and Celestone.
You know, that's only to make those joints better
and to help them last.
Horses that run hard like that,
they're gonna have little things.
That's just how it is.
Continuing to train and race a horse
that has significant pathology
in one or more joints is abusive.
Trainers have a conflict of interest when it comes to that
because they make money by winning races.
Havnameltdown didn't just have bone lesions everywhere.
The horse had full adult roundworms.
Drape: While this isn't unheard of in young horses,
there's no deworming treatment included
in Havnameltdown's medical history,
which indicates that he may not have gotten the most basic care.
Papp: Baffert is the main caretaker for this horse.
In my opinion, he is the responsible party
for what happened.
So, we are absolutely looking at the necropsy.
But Preakness was also "pre" our anti-doping program.
It actually launched, like, the Monday after the Preakness.
So we don't have the authority on the anti-doping side.
Drape: The sport can do all the necropsies they want,
but they don't do anything about it.
Until they hold people accountable
for basically poor horsemanship,
this is probably gonna go on.
♪
Arthur: When I was a boy back in the '50s and '60s,
horses would race all spring and summer.
They'd bring them to farm in the fall
and give them about two months off
and then send them back to South Carolina or Florida.
♪
They don't do that anymore.
They stay in that stall all year 'round
trying to squeeze the lemon dry.
Janney: People do put horses in races
that they shouldn't.
And not every time
does the track veterinarian catch what's going on.
And it is very difficult sometimes to figure out
whether the horse should race or not
because of drugs that may mask an injury.
Announcer: Closing stages...
Arthur: It is regulated differently in America
than anywhere else in the world.
Japan, Australia, France, England,
Ireland, Germany-- everywhere.
Papp: In Australia and the Melbourne Cup,
those entries actually have to undergo CT scanning
prior to approval for them to race in that race.
In Hong Kong, they have
an on-site pharmacy on the racetrack,
so no medications are pulled out of private veterinarian trucks.
They all have to be logged and prescribed for a reason.
Arthur: They have strict rules,
and they don't have near as many breakdowns as we do.
Announcer: They're off...
Hoppert: Generally, racing is safer overseas
because they race on turf predominantly.
Horse racing is a lot safer on turf than on dirt.
And also it's more transparent.
If there's medication violations,
the public knows about it.
Arthur: Willie Nelson said, "Greed is a terminal disease,"
and I think you see a lot of that in this business,
in every aspect of it.
Lyons: There's a push from so many different directions--
from the impatient owner,
from the trainer who doesn't want to lose that owner
by saying,
"Your horse isn't ready to run. He needs more time."
The only way to reduce these catastrophic injuries
would be early detection.
Lazarus: We have to look at machines like PET scans
that can assist us to sort of see what's going on with the horse.
We have to look at veterinary protocols.
We have to look at surfaces, good breeding.
And I think if everyone holds true to their commitments,
that we'll make really meaningful progress.
We've been in place for four months.
We've had about 112 positive tests that have come through.
About 38% are banned substances,
and the other are controlled medication.
Drape: The impact of HISA has been immediate.
They've caught a lot of people.
But they're gonna have to fight through resistance
every step of the way.
Even though there's been legislation
to start improving things,
we're also now still fighting about the same thing
we fought about 50 years ago.
And the people involved in day-to-day racing
saying horses are still dying, there's still breakdowns.
♪
Lazarus: We saw another cluster of fatalities,
which was truly unexpected,
so that was, like, incredibly heartbreaking for me.
We will look very carefully at the necropsies.
We will look at all of the veterinary histories.
We'll look at the surface. We'll also look at weather.
♪
Drape: I don't know if HISA is gonna to solve the problem.
You know, it's ultimately up to the people
in the sport themselves.
They're either gonna play right, have integrity,
quit cheating, and care for their animals...
or the sport of horse racing is gonna go away.
Man: Baffert has been suspended for two years
after Medina Spirit's disqualification
for a drug overage in 2021.
Man: Looking back, what, if anything,
would you have done differently?
Baffert: I probably wouldn't have done anything different
because everything that we were doing was legal.
We didn't break any rules because the rules is...
Carstanjen: We decided to continue with Bob Baffert's suspension
for another year because he hasn't
accepted responsibility for what happened.
Woman: Bob Baffert likely won't have any horses
run in the next Kentucky Derby next year.
Churchill Downs announced this afternoon
it is extending his suspension through the end of 2024.
Carstanjen: It's about the game and the product as a whole,
and it's about ensuring to the public
that they can rely on what they see being fair and safe.
The rules have to apply to everybody.
Janney: If you want to be the most
prominent part of the industry,
then you should make sure that your conduct
is something that all in the industry can be proud of.
♪
Motion: I love what I do.
This sport has given me everything I have.
But, personally, I don't want to be part of it
if we can't clean up our act, right?
Antonucci: It is a privilege to do what we do.
It is not a right. We've made so many mistakes.
But we continue to learn and evolve and try and do better.
♪
Papp: I only want to be involved
with thoroughbred racehorse industry
if it makes the change for the better
and the horse welfare comes first.
Not people trying to make a quick buck.
The future of the sport is very uncertain.
The littlest wind blow
can knock it over and finish it at any point.
♪
Devall: All four shoes. Yep.
And he wrote "Havnameltdown."
And he sent them to me.
I just want to say I miss him. I do.
But I'm gonna raise another one.
Can't give up. It's too much fun.
♪