Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Asaro
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Mott "Bill" William is a Hall of Fame trainer, deservedly so. His long time assistant in New York is LeAnna Willaford, an outstanding horse woman in her own right. Both of these people, IMO, are people that the industry needs more of.
As a assistant trainer, Mrs. Willaford has many duties in the care of these horses. And one of those duties is overseeing what medications are given to these horse's.
On July 2nd, Mr. Williams accepted and served a 7 day suspension and paid a $1000.00 fine for a drug violation, that happened in New York. In this case I have no doubt that the overage was not intended in any way to try to improve the horses performance, but was simply a error in judging how long the drug would stay in the horses system. This happens to the best of people, but, is still a violation of the rules.
On July 2nd, his assistant, Leanna Willaford was granted her trainers license. Horses from Mr. Williams, that ran in New York during the suspension, were then reported as being trained by her. These horse's did not move, nor was there a change in their day to day training. They simply were able to stay in the same routine they were accustom to. In the week of the suspension, these horse's won over $190,000 in purse monies. And a percentage of those monies will be paid to Mrs. Willaford for being the trainer.
The change was reported in past performance's as follows. If the horse had no starts, Leanna was listed as the trainer, and it appeared that she had been training the horse the whole time. If the horse had a start, a trainer change was listed, and the date of the change was reported as if the change had happened on the date the horse last started. In both cases the information is false and misleading. If you knew that Leanna was Bill's New York assistant, you were not concerned, but if you did not know this, it gave you another factor to weigh in looking at the race.
Since the training facility that the horses were at is owned by Mr Williams, and is also listed as a boarding facility, it would not surprise me that he was able to charge Mrs. Willaford for the boarding of these animals.
So in the end, a trainer is suspended and fined. His assistant is granted a training license, and is allowed to run the horses. And the % of the purse monies won, is then given to the assistant trainer, who was one of the persons responsible for the drug violation in the first place. Then the assistant probably has to pay the suspended trainer, boarding fees.
All of this is perfectly legal under the rules that govern racing in New York.
Horse racing does not police itself, and with the way the rules are written, enables
every trainer to be able to cheat.
