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                      -- Kirk Ziadie suspended six years

"Kirk Ziadie, a Florida-based trainer who led the Gulfstream Park spring meeting with 22 wins from 45 starts, has been suspended six years and fined $18,000 for what state regulators said were 18 violations of medication rules over the past four years, according to a copy of the ruling.

Ziadie has not started a horse since this summer, after the state’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering denied his license renewal. At the time, the division said that two horses trained by Ziadie had tested for overages of the regulated painkiller phenylbutazone and another had tested positive for the bronchial dilator clenbuterol during the spring Gulfstream meet.

The division also said that the trainer had pending charges regarding five clenbuterol positives and one phenylbutazone overage in 2012; 13 positives for clenbuterol in 2013; and five overages for phenylbutazone in 2014."

"The agency's order said that the division had proven that horses trained by Ziadie tested positive for clenbuterol and for overages of phenylbutazone for 18 of the 26 alleged violations from 2012-2015.

"The number of repetitions of offenses was significant and indicates a pattern or practice rather than an occasional oversight," the agency’s order stated. "Repeated drug offenses have a direct impact on the integrity of the parimutuel industry.""

"Nobody outside Calder's management knows if its ejection of Ziadie had anything to do with drugs. The track, owned by Churchill Downs Inc., had a reason for not charging him with anything. If it accused Ziadie of a specific offense, the case could drag through racing's legal system for years. Ziadie had been handed a 60-day suspension when one of his horses tested positive in March 2007 for the tranquilizer Acepromazine, but his appeals had kept him from serving the suspension in the 29 months before Calder barred him. Instead of getting bogged down in another such process, Calder opted to use its right (one that has been upheld by the courts) to exclude people from its property by decree.

At the time of his 2007 suspension, Ziadie said he had never administered drugs "to make horses run faster," the Miami Herald reported. He said he did not administer Acepromazine to the horse on the day of the race, though he said he has used it on other horses on race days to help settle them down.

Churchill Downs Inc. has never told anyone, including Ziadie, why he was expelled. The trainer only received a letter citing "business reasons" for his exclusion."