Horse trainer Jeff Mullins suspended 30 days, fined for 2008 drug violation

Trainer Jeff Mullins suspended for 30 days

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Horse Racing Board has suspended trainer Jeff Mullins for 30 days and fined him $2,500 for a drug violation that occurred in 2008.

The board said Wednesday that the suspension violates the terms of Mullins’ probation from a 2006 medication infraction and could result in him serving an additional 70-day suspension.

Mullins trained Pathbreaking when the horse finished third in a race at Del Mar on Aug. 3, 2008. A blood sample tested at the University of California, Davis laboratory showed the horse exceeded the allowable limit for total carbon dioxide, or TCO2, a performance-enhancing alkalizing agent known as a “milkshake.”

A hearing officer sent his decision to the racing board in March, and it accepted the recommendations this month.

Mullins was on probation for a prior mepivacaine violation at the time of Pathbreaking’s violation. He had served 20 days of a 90-day suspension in that case. The remaining 70 days were stayed subject to the condition of his probation, which required that Mullins have no further violations.

Pathbreaking was disqualified and the purse money was redistributed.

In October, Mullins was barred for six months by the New York Racing Association from Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga for violating its barn rules by giving one of his horses an unknown substance and then providing conflicting information about it.

Mullins is based in California. He previously trained I Want Revenge, last year’s morning line favorite for the Kentucky Derby who was scratched the day of the race because of a leg injury.