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Trainer Jonathan Wong has been suspended for two years and fined $25,000 for a post-race metformin positive from last June after a Jan. 9 hearing before the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's arbitration panel.

The two-year period of ineligibility retroactively starts July 1, 2023, when Wong's initial provisional suspension was first imposed.

He will also pay $8,000 of HIWU's share of the arbitration, in addition to his own arbitration fees.

As the maximum possible sentence for such a violation, the ruling marks the latest twist in a case that became entangled in the evolving rules of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act's (HISA) enforcement efforts. Several Metformin cases have called into question whether or not possible environmental contamination should be treated the same way that other positives are treated.

The case also appears far from over. In a short statement, Wong wrote that he had appealed the ruling which could now go before the Federal Trade Commission, head to federal court, or both. Wong also explained that he would seek a temporary injunction against the ban.

“By the time this new story breaks, we will have already filed or will be filing our appropriate appeal, whether in Federal Court or with an Administrative Law Judge through the Federal Trade Commission. It is entirely possible we will dual-path this situation and file in both. In all instances, we will seek an Emergency Order with Injunctive Relief.  The facts and merits of the case will be heard,” Wong wrote, in a joint statement with his long-time owner, Brent Malmstrom.

Wong-trainee Heaven and Earth (Gormley) broke her maiden at Indiana Grand June 1 but subsequently tested positive for the prescription drug Metformin, a type 2 diabetes treatment that HISA has classified as a banned substance.

As a matter of protocol at that time, HIWU initially provisionally suspended Wong at the beginning of June when the A sample returned a positive finding for Metformin.

The HISA Authority subsequently announced that it had modified the rules surrounding provisional suspensions. Under the revised provisions, responsible parties who request B Sample confirmation following a positive test for a banned substance would no longer face a provisional suspension until the B sample findings are returned.

In Wong's case, he was notified on Aug. 9 that the B Sample confirmed the Metformin positive.

Though Wong was technically permitted to return to training for a brief period while the B sample was being processed, he explained at the time that his owners did not wish to transfer the horses back with the B Sample results expected imminently, and effectively has not trained since July 2.

Metformin ranks as the nation's third-most-prescribed human medicine, according to the consumer healthcare website Healthgrades, with more 20 million patients taking it. As a banned substance under HISA, a metformin positive comes with a possible two-year suspension and $25,000 fine.

Because of the possible severity of the sanctions and its ubiquity in the environment, metformin has been at the heart of several cases since HISA's anti-doping and medication control program went into effect that have led some to question whether HIWU is deploying too strict an enforcement approach to the drug.

In justification of its stance, HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus told the TDN last month that “we do have intelligence that metformin is being used intentionally to enhance performance.”

Furthermore, in October HIWU announced that internal reviews of its six contracted laboratories uncovered different limits of detection in blood for metformin, triggering a process of testing harmonization in blood across the labs for the drug. Until that point, all the metformin positives originated from just the one lab.

The Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) has posted a detailed explainer of the ruling on its website.

The report details how the A sample was sent to the HIWU-accredited Industrial Laboratories in Denver Colorado, while the B sample was sent to the Chicago Analytical Forensic Testing Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois, for confirmatory analysis.

According to the report, the Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, conducted “Further Analysis” on the A blood sample “received from Industrial,” and on the “remainder of the B urine sample” received from the Chicago lab.

“Apparently, they can swing till they're happy,” said Malmstrom, when asked about that development.

Though Wong mentioned only his appeals process in his statement, he has detailed in the past the impacts from the ongoing case on his personal and professional life.

“It brings a lot of stuff into perspective,” he said, last August. “I've a wife, a 13-year-old, a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old. I miss so much of their life by putting work first and them second, for it all to be literally thrown away in a day over something I didn't even do.”

The TDN has reached out to HISA and HIWU for comment.

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The post Wong Suspended Two Years and fined $25,000, Says He’ll Appeal appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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