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Red Mile announces it has

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March 20, 2009

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The Red Mile has issued a press release in which it announced that it has "resolved all differences with Jan Johnson, Bob McIntosh, Jim Arledge and Joe Seekman," and that each of the trainers plans to race horses at the historic track this year.

The Red Mile's press release issued Friday, March 20, states: "The Red Mile is glad that a resolution could be reached and wants to make sure that there is no question regarding the conduct of these four trainers.

"The Red Mile has reviewed the laboratory reports from the University of Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratories for the horses for each of the four trainers whose horses were involved and confirmed that each of the reports was negative. The Red Mile has concluded and is pleased to report that none of the trainers� horses had any illegal substances in their blood.

"Based upon these findings, there should not be any suggestion that any of the trainers were involved in any wrongdoing. Jan Johnson, Bob McIntosh, Jim Arledge and Joe Seekman have been respected and successful trainers of Standardbred horses for many years and will be welcome back to The Red Mile in 2009. Each of the trainers has confirmed their plans to return to Grand Circuit racing in 2009 and we look forward to their participation."

During last fall's Grand Circuit four horses trained by Johnson, McIntosh, Arledge and Seekman tested positive for blood doping�or EPO/DPO�under The Red Mile�s out-of-competition testing policy, which was first used during this year�s fall Grand Circuit meet. All four trainers immediately denied that their horses could have tested positive for a blood-doping agent or anything else and retained Tom Miller, a Lexington attorney who handles equine cases in the Bluegrass.

Miller and the trainers requested that the split samples on their horses be sent to the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratory, and the trainers agreed to pay the $1,500 charge per test.

The four horses which tested positive were Find A Happy Place (trained by Arledge), Annieswesterncard (trained by Seekman and scratched from the $89,320 International Stallion Stakes because of the initial positive), Tresbien Volo (trained by Johnson), and North Country Fair (trained by McIntosh).

The initial positive tests were the result of an Elisa test, which is commonly used for screening for many different types of drugs in equine testing. Dr. Scot Waterman, executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC), said that because an Elisa test is a screening test, �and by definition is not 100 percent accurate because it is a screen, there are going to be false positives�.�

In August 2006, the Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Lab, which is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania�s famed New Bolton Equine Center, announced it had become the first lab to use a definitive test for EPO and DPO. Today the Pennsylvania test is still considered the gold standard in testing for EPO and DPO.

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