by Jenny Kellner

Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. said on Friday that he accepts responsibility for the recent clenbuterol overage on one of his horses but attributed it to a barn mistake and said he does not understand what all the fuss is about.

“It’s just a mistake that happened, but it’s not as big a deal as everyone is trying to make it out to be,” said Dutrow, addressing members of the media in a wide-ranging, informal session outside Barn 10 at Aqueduct. “The last time I had a clenbuterol on some filly [2004], no one cared.

“I guess it’s because we won a big race with Big Brown. I just don’t understand it. It’s not a big deal for a horse to come up with an overage of clenbuterol.”

Salute the Count, who finished second in the Aegon Turf Sprint (G3) at Churchill Downs on May 2, was found to have about double the amount of clenbuterol, a bronchodilator, in his system than the amount permissible in Kentucky.

“It’s just a mistake this thing went through. It happened at a bad time, just like everything with me,” Dutrow said. “It’s nothing that I’m not going to get through and everything will be beautiful in the future.”

Dutrow said he was appealing the suspension because of the timing. He has a number of horses set to run in major stakes races in the coming weeks.

“I got Big Brown I’ve got to deal with, Benny the Bull is going to Calder, Kip Deville is going to be running next week, I got a filly in a Grade 1 coming up in ten days, tomorrow we have this horse running in a Grade 1 … I just have too many things that are important for me to be here at the barn,” he said. “Since everyone is giving me the opportunity to appeal it and to postpone it, that’s what I’m going to be doing until I can’t postpone it any more.

“If I had three or four horses and I wasn’t looking to run anything right now, I’d do the suspension right now,” he added.

Michael Dubb, the owner of Salute the Count, said he supports Dutrow.

“Rick Dutrow is all about his horses; he cares for his horses immensely,” Dubb said. “Apparently what happened with Salute the Count is that he was administered a legal—and I reiterate legal—amount of the medication too close to race day. It was during Big Brown mania. Rick is a phenomenal horseman and a poor administrator, and that is how this occurred.”

Dutrow said that Michael Iavarone, co-president of owner IEAH Stable, initially was upset at the positive because it came at the same time IEAH announced that it was going to be completely drug free by October 1, but he also said that everything “seemed beautiful” in his last two conversations with the owner.

Dutrow said he supports a uniform national medication policy and would embrace a move to make all medications illegal.

“If they stopped all [the] veterinarians from coming in that gate, our stable would soar,” he said. “[If] every state would have the same rules, I would love it. If everything has the same playing field, we’re [going to] do as good if not better than everybody.”

Dutrow went on to explain in detail why he did not attend a recent congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.

“I know they wanted me to go down Washington and ask me a bunch of questions,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling on top of my game. If I had a gun to my head I would have went, but no one put a gun to my head.
 
“They wanted to talk about breakdowns. Now everyone looks at me as a drug kind of guy. If you’re a drug kind of guy, you’re gonna go out there and watch your horses break down. I want anyone here right now to tell me the last time they [have] seen any one of my horses break down in the afternoon.

“You’re not going to be able to find it because I’m safe, I’m sound, I protect my horses,” he said. “I remember Lake Pontchartrain broke down in Boston eight or nine years ago, and I can’t remember another time one of my horses broke down in the afternoon. That has to count for something.”
 
Dutrow said Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Big Brown, who was eased in the Belmont Stakes (G1), has been training each day. The colt is set to gallop Saturday morning for the first time since the Belmont and could breeze on Tuesday.

“I’m not sure [about Tuesday], but he’s ready,” Dutrow said. “He got his little break, he’s jogging every day, so, you know, he’s ready to roll.”

Dutrow said he is still operating under the impression that something was wrong with Big Brown in the Belmont.

“When you pull a horse up in a race, something is supposed to be wrong with the horse, so I’m still looking for that,” he said. “Once we gallop him, if Michelle [Nevin] tells me he’s great, I’ll be feeling good. Once we breeze him and she says he’s the same horse, I’ll be feeling very good. He still has this test to pass.”

Dutrow said he still has not been able to figure out what exactly went wrong in the Belmont.

“I think the first half mile of the race, the trip that he got was just one of the worst trips you would ever want to see in a horse,” he said. “After that, I cannot explain anything.”

Dutrow said in a perfect world, Big Brown would return to the races in the $1-million Haskell Invitational Handicap (G1) at Monmouth Park on August 3, run in the $1-million Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course on August 23, and finally in the Breeders’ Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) on a synthetic surface on October 25 at Oak Tree at Santa Anita.

“But it’s my world, and it’s not perfect,” he said.

Jenny Kellner is a New York-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent