On one of the horseracing forums, someone suggested I’d have more credibility if I interspersed my defense of trainers who have been caught up in a system that often places justice behind punishments, with stories of trainers who are unquestionably guilty.

I will freely admit I don’t care about the trainers who tried to gain an edge, got caught and got punished. The played with fire and got burned. I’m unashamedly looking at small folks who seemed to get shafted in one way or another by the system. I’m not about being balanced in this way – one story about a trainer who got screwed, followed by one trainer who is a cheating bastard. Oh, give me an interesting story that accompanies the drug positive for the cheating bastard and I’m sure I’d be happy to write it. But if you want “commission nails another one” stories, I’d advise you to follow Ray Paulick. He’s quite good at taking the one-sided commission press release and turning it into another story where the racing commission got a heinous cheat.

The small problem is all stories have two sides, and if you are only reporting one side the world takes on a different hue. If you never talk to the person who was convicted, they all look pretty guilty. That’s where I come in. I give you both sides. The complete story. And you can make up your own mind if justice was served. I’m amazed at how many instances there are of commissions that do incomplete or poor investigations, or just decide that some trainer needs to be gotten. I’m certainly not running short of material. And let me make this absolutely clear. I haven’t taken a dime from anyone on either side. I scrupulously maintain my independence.

The fascinating thing has been the number of horsemen who tell me I’m the only one telling their side of the story, and that is reason enough for me to keep telling horseplayers what really goes on when some – not all, but some – trainers get targeted by racing commissions. That’s my practice. I perform a service for horseplayers who want to know what goes on behind the scenes.

A few months ago I got a call from Sheri Norris. Her husband, Mike Norris, had been cited by the Indiana Racing Commission for five violations of the drug hydrocrtisone succinate, marketed as Solu-Cortef. The story isn’t about whether he gave his horses SoluCortef. He did. The story is about how they are facing loss of livelihood, impending bankruptcy, and almost complete ostracism by the sport.

This is part of what appeared in the article about the Norrises’ conviction in the June 22 Paulick Report:

Norris did not help his own case. In his report, [Administrative Law Judge] Pylitt wrote, “Throughout the hearing, Norris was sending text messages, was rude, disrespectful, and disrupted other witnesses’ testimony by making outbursts on numerous occasions.”

He also wrote, “Through the entire investigation, and during the hearing before ALJ Pylitt, Norris provided inconsistent and contradictory testimony in an effort to support his changing version of the events…Norris has not been honest about the circumstances surrounding the positive tests.”

Specifically, Pylitt noted that Norris “changed his story” about how the Solu-Cortef wound up in his horses’ systems, first saying “it just blows my mind that it’s in there,” then suggesting that a substance called Wind Aid spiked with Solu-Cortef was the likely source. Later, Norris suggested contamination through urine-soaked hay was how the drug was ingested.

Sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it? The only problem is that it may be more interpretive than factual. Let’s start with why the Solu-Cortef was in the horse’s system. Hydrocortisone succinate is therapeutically used to treat the hives, which Mike Norrises’ horses got from a bad batch of hay. I’ll go into detail about why the Indiana commission thought the use of that drug was heinous in my investigative article.

Notice in the second paragraph from Paulick’s story above, Administrative Law Judge Pylitt seems to refer to himself in the third person. There is a reason for that which I’ll also talk about.

Did Norris change his story? Well, to start with it depends on how you interpret “it just blows my mind that it’s in there.” Norris said it alright, but consider this. Your horse has a positive for some medication but you believe you dosed the horse with sufficient withdrawal time to clear the system. You then say, it just blows my mind that it’s in there, meaning the drug had plenty of time to clear the horse’s system, not I never gave the horse the drug. Pretty slick on Indiana’s part, eh?

Then you say you administered the drug in an oral solution with Wind Aid, which was the case. Your expert witness, Dr. Steven Barker, under questioning, says it was even possible that the horses ingested the drug (well after it was administered) by eating urine soaked hay contaminated by the horses that were legally dosed.

So did they really change the story or did Indiana take three statements and come to the conclusion that made the Norrises look the worst? I’m sure the state’s attorney is experienced enough to know that it is not uncommon for a defense expert to offer alternative theories of how a horse tested positive for a respective substance.

I’ll talk about Norris “disrupting other witnesses’ testimony by making outbursts.” You’ll get to read exactly what happened, and not just the Indiana press-release version.

Over the next few weeks I will be meticulously documenting how the Norrises’ found themselves in Joe Gorajec’s crosshairs and how Gorajec and the state’s attorney Holly Newell made sure they were severely punished. I will explore the question of what merited the severe punishement they were given. It just may have been something beyond the Solu-Cortef positives.

You’ll read about the connection between Joe Gorajec’s desire to get rid of veterinarian Ross Russell and the Norris case. You’ll read about Ross Russell’s assistant, Libby Reese, (who was fired by Russell) and what part she played in the efforts to punish the Norrises’.

There is a lot more to this story than has been made public so far. It’s time the public learned the full story.