Two days after one of his horses tested positive for the Class 1 drug aminorex, the reality is only starting to hit standardbred trainer Ben Wallace.
He could face a suspension of at least one year, perhaps as much as five. In two weeks, he faces a deadline for making stakes payments that would total $15,000 for some promising colts he trains. It's a conundrum, because right now, although he is not under suspension, the 58-year-old trainer cannot race a horse in Ontario or perhaps anywhere else.
Yet Wallace won't change the stance he has always taken; he's glad the industry is cracking down on horsemen who use drugs. He is mystified about how aminorex got into the system of an $8,000 claimer that he raced at Flamboro Downs on Feb. 23. He doesn't dispute the validity of the test or accuse the commission or the tracks of any wrongdoing. He's found himself in the middle of one of the biggest drug busts going on and he has no understanding of how it's occurring or where the drug is coming from.
"This case has got a big asterisk beside it,'' he said. "I want that asterisk fully explored.''
Wallace's filly earned a purse of $2,600 on Feb. 23. Was it worth risking a positive test for a Class 1 drug? Wallace was chosen trainer of the year in Canada, the year he guided Blissful Hall to win the U.S. pacing Triple Crown and earnings of more than $1.3-million.
Technically, Wallace is not yet suspended. He's persona non grata until the Ontario Racing Commission finishes its investigation. He knows of a number of trainers now afraid to race because of the rash of mysterious positive tests, all wondering if the drug may be found in something as basic as the hay.
"There is a big black cloud out there,'' Wallace said. "I don't feel WEG [Woodbine Entertainment Group]is wrong [in not accepting entries]'' he said yesterday. "And I don't feel the [Ontario Racing Commission]is wrong. I don't feel downtrodden about that.
"Just because now I am caught up in this whirlwind, I'm not about to change my hat . . . This game has cried out for something like this. If we had been so proactive 15 years ago, we wouldn't be here now and the plethora of drugs that's in the game would not be here.''
Wallace says he had never heard of aminorex before the first Canadian positive test popped up on Feb. 8. He said he was aware of the first three positives on Feb. 20. On Feb. 23, he heard of three more. Later, on Feb. 23, he raced the filly, Sweet Notion, at Flamboro Downs. She was a 4-to-5 favourite to win, but won only by a nose.
"If I actually had pre-raced her with aminorex, I would have scratched her or I wouldn't have raced her,'' he said. "It would be ludicrous for me to have used a Class 1 drug on an $8,000 claimer after I knew six other people had tested positive . . . I've got way too much on the table to worry about an $8,000 claimer at Flamboro Downs.''
Wallace-trained horses almost never test positive for anything. Wallace remembers a two-week suspension for a Class 4 drug several years ago, but the Wallace name is not one that normally echoes through the hallways of the Canadian Pari Mutuel Agency, which conducts the doping tests for race horses in this country.
Hugh Mitchell, general manager of Western Fair Raceway in London, Ont., known for his stance on integrity in the sport, said he was shocked to hear of Wallace's positive test. "In my view, he's a professional, a great horseman and a good ambassador for our sport," he said. "He's the last one I would think would have a positive of any kind, never mind a Class 1. I'm really perplexed by that.''
Wallace was the eighth positive test within about two weeks in Ontario. "I sincerely believe there's something going on here that's different from your normal positive test,'' he said. "I hope the commission can say we have a serious contamination problem, like they did in Pennsylvania,'' he said.
Wallace said he hasn't been informed yet about how much of the banned substance was found in his filly or whether it was significant enough to affect the horse's performance.
He hopes the commission has big enough shoulders to say there is a problem with the aminorex positives.
To get to the bottom of the mystery, Wallace said he has sent any medication, feed supplement or additive used by his filly to an independent laboratory to see if aminorex shows up. He said one of the substances given to the filly before the race is a legal medication called Tramisol, a sheep wormer that horsemen have discovered also seems to boost a horse's immune response. Wallace's filly had been ill in recent weeks.
Dr. David Goodrow has been saying on a harness website that he believes the test procedure is picking up Tramisol and confusing it with aminorex. Not all of the horses that have tested positive for aminorex in Ontario have shown Tramisol as well. Tramisol comes in the form of a syrup put in feed.
Wallace said he doesn't know if there is a connection with Tramisol, but the filly was given it 36 hours before the race.
Wallace said the industry is under siege right now, and it got worse on Monday. The Ontario Racing Commission scratched two horses trained by Bill Robinson from races at Western Fair Raceway and seized the trailer in which they arrived.
Yesterday, John Blakney, head of the Ontario Racing Commission said investigators found a vial containing a substance, some powder and five syringes that contained substances. They are currently trying to investigate what the substances are. Robinson, who was not with the horse van, has not yet been charged.
Robinson, one of the leading trainers in the sport several years ago, has had a history of suspensions for multiple drug tests. He served a 27-month suspension that ended on July 19, 2006, and fines of $125,000.
Mitchell said the Canadian federal drug control program and its protocols and procedures are considered the best in North America and perhaps even the world. Because it's a federal program, there is uniform testing across the country, something that does not happen in the United States, in which each state has its own system.
"As long as I've been in this game - three decades - I can't recall an error in a class 1 or class 2 medication test,'' he said. "The more we expose it, the better. In the short term, that may bring problems for us, but I've got to believe in the long run, it's the only way.''