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Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. watches as Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown is
walked around the shed row by exercise rider Michelle Nevin at Belmont Park (AP).
walked around the shed row by exercise rider Michelle Nevin at Belmont Park (AP).
Big Brown’s Connections Continue to Court Controversy
With a lead owner who engaged in shady practices on Wall Street, a trainer who injected his horses with illegal drugs, and a sponsorship by Hooters, Big Brown’s connections are a far cry from those of popular Triple Crown contenders in the past.
30-Second Summary
As recent Triple Crown hopefuls Funny Cide and Smarty Jones prepared to chase history in the Belmont Stakes, they carried the hopes and dreams of many Americans with them, due in part to their likable connections.
In sharp contrast, as Big Brown tries to complete the Triple Crown in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, his owner and trainer are fielding questions about their dubious pasts. A low-brow sponsorship with Hooters has infuriated many in the horse racing world and is only the latest controversy surrounding the horse’s connections.
Big Brown’s owner, Michael Iavarone, claimed to be a successful investment banker while raising money for IEAH Stables, a hedge fund that invests in racehorses. A recent disclosure of his past, however, reveals that he was actually a penny-stock trader who was fined and suspended for making unsanctioned trades while working for a “bucket shop” that was criminally prosecuted for defrauding investors. He also has been taken to court for failing to pay his incomes taxes and for horses he bought at auction.
Iavarone’s IEAH Stables was involved in an illegal bookmaking and horse doping scandal in 2003, but it was cleared of all wrongdoing.
Big Brown’s trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr., has been suspended many times for deceiving bettors, using recreational drugs and injecting horses with illegal, performance-enhancing drugs.
At one point living in the tack room of his barn, Dutrow turned his career around after the murder of his daughter’s mother, and is now helping to raise the girl. Some observers demonize him, while others view his story as a tale of redemption.
He made headlines the day before the Preakness Stakes when he stated that he injects his horses once a month with the steroid Winstrol. Though the drug is legal in all three Triple Crown states, Dutrow received criticism for drugging his horses without understanding the potential damaging effects. He later denied that Big Brown is on Winstrol, saying that he hasn’t injected the colt since April 15.
Horse racing is in need of good publicity, especially following the death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby. Triple Crown contenders have traditionally drawn a great amount of positive coverage.
Big Brown, however, may draw negative publicity as his connections represent, to some, the unseemly side of horse racing.
The dean of American racing writers, Andrew Beyer, sums it up by saying that if Big Brown wins, “the only admirable figure in the Belmont winner’s circle will be Big Brown.”
In sharp contrast, as Big Brown tries to complete the Triple Crown in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, his owner and trainer are fielding questions about their dubious pasts. A low-brow sponsorship with Hooters has infuriated many in the horse racing world and is only the latest controversy surrounding the horse’s connections.
Big Brown’s owner, Michael Iavarone, claimed to be a successful investment banker while raising money for IEAH Stables, a hedge fund that invests in racehorses. A recent disclosure of his past, however, reveals that he was actually a penny-stock trader who was fined and suspended for making unsanctioned trades while working for a “bucket shop” that was criminally prosecuted for defrauding investors. He also has been taken to court for failing to pay his incomes taxes and for horses he bought at auction.
Iavarone’s IEAH Stables was involved in an illegal bookmaking and horse doping scandal in 2003, but it was cleared of all wrongdoing.
Big Brown’s trainer, Rick Dutrow Jr., has been suspended many times for deceiving bettors, using recreational drugs and injecting horses with illegal, performance-enhancing drugs.
At one point living in the tack room of his barn, Dutrow turned his career around after the murder of his daughter’s mother, and is now helping to raise the girl. Some observers demonize him, while others view his story as a tale of redemption.
He made headlines the day before the Preakness Stakes when he stated that he injects his horses once a month with the steroid Winstrol. Though the drug is legal in all three Triple Crown states, Dutrow received criticism for drugging his horses without understanding the potential damaging effects. He later denied that Big Brown is on Winstrol, saying that he hasn’t injected the colt since April 15.
Horse racing is in need of good publicity, especially following the death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby. Triple Crown contenders have traditionally drawn a great amount of positive coverage.
Big Brown, however, may draw negative publicity as his connections represent, to some, the unseemly side of horse racing.
The dean of American racing writers, Andrew Beyer, sums it up by saying that if Big Brown wins, “the only admirable figure in the Belmont winner’s circle will be Big Brown.”
Headline Link: Hooters to sponsor Big Brown
Sponsorship of horses is rare, but Big Brown now has two sponsors. He was named in honor of UPS and, this week, his owners signed a deal with the Hooters restaurant chain. “I think that you can cross the line a little bit,” said owner Michael Iavarone, “The regulatory side of racing will start to be a little more stringent. I can't say I have a problem with Hooters.” Several Hooters models posed with the horse for photos but, contrary to a Hooters pronouncement, there will be no Hooters girls allowed into the winner’s circle.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Background: Iavarone and Dutrow
Michael Iavarone
In 1999, Iavarone was fined $7,500 and given a 10-day suspension by the National Association of Securities Dealers for unauthorized trades he made while working for brokerage firm A.R. Baron. In 2003, Keeneland Association of Lexington sued him for more than $500,000 after he didn’t pay for five horses he bought at auction. The following year, the IRS obtained a $130,000 lien against Iavarone for unpaid income taxes in 2002.
Source: Bloomberg
Iavarone was the mastermind behind IEAH, a hedge fund that invests in horses rather than stocks. He is now looking to raise $100 million to buy horses. For a minimum of $500,000, investors can buy into IEAH and share in the prize money won by IEAH’s stable of horses.
Source: The Washington Post
IEAH Stables has made a meteoric rise since it was created in 2003. Its early success, however, was tainted by a doping scandal involving Greg Martin, a trainer who trained many of IEAH’s horses. Martin, who was involved with an illegal gambling ring, was found to have injected IEAH horse A One Rocket with a performance-enhancing “milkshake” mixture before a December 2003 race. IEAH was not investigated or accused of any wrongdoing.
Source: ESPN
Richard Dutrow Jr.
Dutrow has a reputation in the horse racing community for drug use and dishonest dealings. At the Queen's Plate in Woodbine, Dutrow—while serving a drug suspension—hid the fact that his horse, coming off a 10-week layoff, had several workouts that went unrecorded. He and his friends bet heavily on the horse, which won at inflated odds because other bettors didn’t know about the workouts. “It was offensive,” Woodbine CEO David Willmot said. “My reaction was: ‘You come up here and use our most important race for a betting coup?’ It was outrageous.”
Source: London Free Press
Dutrow has been suspended many times for marijuana use, injecting illegal substances into his horses and other infractions. In 2005, he was given a 60-day suspension for giving a horse an illegal anesthetic called Mepivacaine, which he denies. Before the Preakness, he admitted to giving his horses Winstrol, a steroid that is legal in Kentucky, Maryland and New York. “If (the authorities) say I can’t use it anymore, I won’t,” he said. He later admitted ignorance about the drug’s effects: “You’d have to ask the vet what the purpose of that is. I don’t know what it does. I just like using it.”
Source: Baltimore Sun
On June 4, Dutrow told the New York Times that he hasn’t given Big Brown a steroid injection since April 15. “The horse had been doing so good, and is doing so good, I don’t want to screw things up,” Dutrow said. “I haven’t changed any routine.”
Source: New York Times
For some, Dutrow is a tale of redemption. His father, legendary horse trainer Richard Dutrow Sr., disowned his son because of his hard-partying and lack of ambition. Dutrow Jr. abused illegal drugs and ended up living in the tack room in his barn. He says the turning point in his life was when his former girlfriend, mother to their then two-year-old daughter, was murdered during a burglary. Dutrow is now one of the most successful trainers in America, and he and his late girlfriend’s mother are jointly raising his daughter, now 13.
Source: USA Today
Opinion & Analysis: The stain on horse racing
The Washington Post’s Andrew Beyer says that Iavarone’s past “underscores the weakness of the sport's regulatory system” and calls Dutrow an “uncomfortable reminder that successful trainers use drugs—including anabolic steroids—that may do them harm.” He adds that, if Big Brown wins on Saturday, the horse will be the “only admirable figure in the Belmont winner's circle.”
Source: The Washington Post
The Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs believes that steroid use taints Big Brown’s potential Triple Crown, even if it is legal. He writes that when Dutrow “says he doesn't know what Winstrol's for and he just likes giving it, it's beyond discomforting. It's embarrassing.”
Source: Hartford Courant
Related Topics: Secretariat, Funny Cide and Smarty Jones
In 1973, Secretariat became the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 25 years. His owner was Penny Tweedy, a strikingly attractive and endlessly gracious woman who became America’s sweetheart. In a recent interview, she bemoans the changes in horse racing since 1973: “Grand Daddy and his associates were all people of tremendous integrity and love of the horses. Back then they knew it wasn’t a money making industry. They hoped to make money but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to race horses and enjoy the great beauty of the sport,” she said.
Source: 9News.com
In 2003, Funny Cide, a blue-collar gelding bred in New York, surprised many when he won the Derby and ran away with the Preakness. Horse racing fans fell in love with his owners—a group of high school buddies who called themselves the “Sackatoga Six” and traveled to the races in a yellow school bus—and his trainer Barclay Tagg, a straight-talking curmudgeon who had paid his dues. Even after a four-length loss in the Belmont, “the cheering never stopped for Funny Cide.”
Source: Sports Illustrated
Smarty Jones overcame a near-fatal injury as a two-year old and became the “people’s horse” after winning the 2004 Derby and Preakness. His owners were adorable, infirm septuagenarians, and his low-profile trainer and jockey handled themselves with class and aplomb. After Smarty Jones fell short in the Belmont, the winning owner, famed socialite Mary Lou Whitney, was moved to apologize for her horse’s defeat of Smarty Jones. Sports Illustrated wrote, “Smarty Jones surged across demographic boundaries with a series of implausible stories—not just the ailing owner but also the hard-luck jockey, the journeyman trainer and the colt’s ghastly starting-gate accident last summer. On Saturday fans chanted his name, papered the paddock railings with posters and bought thousands of $2 win tickets as keepsakes.”
Source: Sports Illustrated
Reference: Horse Racing and Belmont guides
The findingDulcinea Web Guide to the Belmont Stakes has information on the history and traditions of the Belmont and includes tips for those attending it. It also links to the best sources for news and handicapping analysis of the Belmont and to findingDulcinea's previous coverage of the Triple Crown.
Source: findingDulcinea
The findingDulcinea Web Guide to Horse Racing explains everything you need to know about the sport. It features links to racing history and news, plus information on betting and getting involved in racing.
Source: findingDulcinea
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