Canani Blameless
And the van driver really did change the paperwork. This’ll be the last post on the Sweet Catomine debacle for a while, unless some huge news comes out. After all, we have the amazing Bellamy Road and two sure-to-be thrilling Saturday Derby preps to obsess over for the rest of the week.
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I was wondering yesterday why trainer Julio Canani wasn’t included in the CHRB complaint. Turns out, the CHRB determined that,
“I did not have anything to do with it,” Canani said. “[Wygod] wanted to send her over there, and he talked to the veterinarian. I didn’t talk to anybody.”
Marten said: “Everyone that Loop spoke with — vets, farm mangers, security people, grooms — there was no individual that implicated Canani in any way. None of the sworn or written testimony received by Loop pointed toward Canani.” (Daily Racing Form)
Interesting. Also, van driver Dean Kerkhoff says the falsified paperwork was all his idea:
Kerkhoff said yesterday in a telephone interview that neither Canani nor Wygod had instructed him to misidentify Sweet Catomine when she departed Santa Anita.
“Everything that was done was legal and in the best interests of the horse,” Kerkhoff said.
“That was my own doing,” he replied, in acknowledging that Sweet Catomine was identified as a pony. “I wasn’t thinking about the betting public. I didn’t want people in the barn area to know about it. If word got out, more horses might have been entered in the race to run against her.” (New York Times)
