CHRB Continues to contradict Itself

CHRB Executive Director, Ingrid Fermin, in a Blood-Horse article is quoted as saying on one hand there will be a review of the drug violation debacle "to see if any mistakes were made and if our understanding of the facts is correct." However, she also says the violation would not be grounds for a purse redistribution. If the Board hasn't yet determined if they even have all the facts and they have not yet determined if mistakes were made, how can she conclude that there should not be a purse redistribution? Again, she is drawing conclusions before the questions are even asked, much less answered.

Ms. Fermin also states that owners are not entitled to an appeal, a process that could require a purse redistribution, because an appeal must be filed within 72 hours after the original ruling was made public following the CHRB meeting on 10/15/05. This differs from her earlier assertion that an appeal must come within 72 hours of the race.

In the ruling neither the race nor the horse is named, making it impossible for an owner to know if the ruling was related to a race in which they had a horse. When I noted this to Mike Marten, CHRB Public Information Officer, he checked with Roy Minami, Assistant Executive Director, who said there was no lapse in that the ruling mentioned neither the horse nor the race because the horse was not cited. Rather, the cited party was the veterinarian, and not the horse. This calls into question Ms. Fermin's position that owners are not entitled to an appeal after the 72 hour deadline, which began when the ruling was made public in mid-October. Essentially, owners did not have notice, constructive or otherwise, because neither the race nor horse were made public.