Mullins Receives Another Suspension

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/mullins-receives-another-suspension/

Jeff Mullins, who last year at this time was trying to get the Kentucky Derby morning-line favorite I Want Revenge healthy enough to run in America’s greatest race, was suspended 30 days Wednesday for a TCO2 violation — commonly known as “milkshaking” a horse — in 2008, according to the California Horse Racing Board.

It is the latest in a long line of drug violations for the trainer and violates the terms of his probation from a similar 2006 medication violation and could result in him serving an additional 70-day suspension.

I Want Revenge was scratched the morning of the Derby with a bad ankle. Depositions of veterinarians treating the colt and obtained by The New York Times five months later showed that I Want Revenge’s ankle was injected twice with corticosteroids, anti-inflammatories that can have dangerous consequences, including four days before the Derby at the request of Mullins.

At the same time I Want Revenge was being injected, The New York Times asked the owner or trainer of every horse running in the Kentucky Derby to share their veterinary records. Only 3 of the 20 produced the records.

The New York Racing Association subsequently suspended Jeff Mullins for six months for medicating one of his horses in the Aqueduct monitoring barn hours before a race last April and repeatedly lying about it.

I Want Revenge has yet to return to the races.

Mullins trained Pathbreaking when the horse finished third in the third race at Del Mar on August 3, 2008, according to California officials. Afterward, the blood sample taken from Pathbreaking exceeded the regulatory threshold for total carbon dioxide (TCO2), which is a Class 3 violation. A milkshake is a concoction of baking soda, sugar and electrolytes that is administered by shoving a tube down a horse’s throat and allegedly helps a horse ward off fatigue.

In the spring of 2008, Mullins was suspended for 20 days by California authorities for use of the Class 2 drug mepivacaine. In 2005, one of his horses tested positive for exceeding the limit of of total carbon dioxide, which indicates the horse had a milkshake. His horses were put under 24-hour surveillance for 30 days.

Perhaps it's time to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Knock it off with the short suspensions and probations. He shouldn't be allowed near the track, let alone be training horses. How about a year?

In 2005, he told The Los Angeles Times that his troubles were caused by horseplayers.

“If you bet on horses, I would call you an idiot,” the newspaper quoted Mullins as saying. He later apologized.

I don't get it. What in the world does this have to do with anything?