UPDATE: License Revoked from Trainer Who Gave Winning Racehorse Coke

Posted on: April 24, 2025, 05:18h. 

Last updated on: April 25, 2025, 10:18h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

UPDATE: The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday revoked the horseracing license of Alvaro Torres, the trainer who drugged a horse with cocaine, for five years.

EARLIER: After The Saime Pro won the second race of the Elko County Fair on Aug. 24, the horse was submitted for a routine drug test that identified cocaine in its urine. As a result, the horse’s $7K purse was forfeited and its trainer, Alvaro Torres, given the maximum penalty possible by Nevada’s horseracing steward.

That penalty was a $1,000 fine and a 180-day suspension of the trainer’s state horseracing license, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), which oversees horseracing in the state, doesn’t consider it steep enough for this offense.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the NGCB voted on Wednesday to recommend the steward’s appeal to have Torres’ license revoked for five years — along with a $5,000 fine — to the Nevada Gaming Commission.

The gaming regulator will vote on the recommendation at its April 24 meeting.

Galloping Mad

NGCB members were incensed by the case while deliberating over it, according to the R-J.

“This is outrageous!” exclaimed board member George Assad. “Drugging a horse with cocaine, he could have killed the horse. That’s just unacceptable. I have no tolerance for people who abuse animals like that.”

Chair Kirk Hendrick suggested that other investigations may stem from the case.

“I don’t know how Mr. Torres obtained cocaine, but you’re not supposed to be in possession of cocaine, so that could be actually a matter to be turned over to the law enforcement authorities in the jurisdiction of how he obtained and administered cocaine to this poor animal,” he said, according to the report.

Nevada Deputy Attorney General John Michaela, who presented the case, added that horseracing stewards have been able to appeal for greater penalties for at least 30 years, yet this was the first time one ever had.

Torres attended neither the NGCB meeting nor an earlier evidentiary hearing, the newspaper reported.

The Elko County Fairgrounds is one of only two active horseracing venues in Nevada. The other is the White Pine County Fairgrounds in Ely. None are in Las Vegas, though the town has hosted the sport in the past.

NGCB officials also disclosed that it may hear a second racehorse-doping case in May.