Chief Vet For Kentucky Commission Resigns

Published: September 30, 2008 10:40 am EDT

On Friday, September 26, Kentucky Horse Racing Commission chief veterinarian Lafe Nichols sent in a letter of resignation, yet cited no reasons for the decision.

A report on courier-journal.com states that Nichols' resignation comes days after he said that no testing for milkshaking had taken place during the summer meeting at Ellis Park, a thoroughbred racecourse in Henderson, Kentucky.

"We opted to put our priorities into the ambulance runs that we were making there with the heat conditions and the heat problems, and we opted to keep our staff of three on the track most of the time," the courier-journal.com quoted Nichols as saying in the meeting. "[The testing] requires a designated veterinarian to be in the barn area during race times and we opted, my decision, to keep the veterinarians on the track."

Nichols had also been chief vet for the commission's predecessor, the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, since April 2007. The courier-journal.com states that in July 2007, Nichols admitted to having mistakenly thrown out blood samples of two horses whose trainers were suspected of exceeding limits on anti-bleeding medication. Since there were no samples, the investigations were subsequently dropped.

To read the courier-journal.com article in its entirety, click here.

(With files from courier-journal.com)

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