'Black Shot' and gone: Stallion's death after libido injection raises questions

Tim Sullivan

Laoban had bred with 126 mares last year when he seemed to lose interest in mating.

The WinStar Farm stallion mounted three mares on May, 22, 2021, and failed to finish his job with any of them, according to insurance documents. The following day, presented with two more potential partners, Laoban was again unable to perform.

So at 6:37 a.m. on May 24, in an effort to increase his energy and enthusiasm for breeding, Laoban was injected with a cocktail of four vitamins and minerals called the “Black Shot.” Within minutes, he was dead.

The North America Specialty Insurance Company (NAS) found that three of the four substances had been administered after their expiration date — one of them by nearly nine years — and said the “acts, errors and omissions” of attending veterinarian Dr. Heather Wharton constituted a failure to provide proper care and entailed risks not covered by its policies.

Part-owners Cypress Creek Equine and Southern Equine Stables filed suit in December in Fayette Circuit Court seeking to compel the insurance company to pay claims for which it has denied liability. North American Specialty Insurance Company filed a notice of removal in January to move the case to U.S. District Court. The Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners, meanwhile, has declined to investigate in the absence of a filed complaint.

Nearly 11 months after his abrupt demise, Laoban’s death raises questions about priorities and procedures in the breeding industry, about the vigilance of state regulators and about the wisdom of breeding limits the Jockey Club imposed but later rescinded under pressure from the Kentucky legislature. What happened to Laoban?

Laoban was 8 years old, the winner of Saratoga’s 2016 Jim Dandy Stakes and, at last count, the sire of 219 registered foals and another 49 live foals born this year. Fifty-six of Laoban’s progeny sold at auction in 2021 for a total of $3,646,500, with 18 of his mares in foal bringing another $1,445,000. One of his offspring not offered at auction, Keepmeinmind, finished seventh in last year’s Kentucky Derby.

Though he was neither WinStar’s most popular stallion nor its Laoban works out at Keeneland. Coady Photography priciest, Laoban was a steady source of income with a published stud fee of $25,000, later raised to $40,000. According to the Jockey Club’s breeding statistics, only five of WinStar’s 22 stallions bred more frequently than did Laoban in 2021.

How much effort to maximize his earning potential contributed to his death is conjecture, but Laoban had never bred to as many as 126 mares in four previous years at New York’s Sequel Stallions and, as Wharton acknowledged under oath, was not considered to be in pain, distress or “in any condition that death would occur” at the time he was injected.

High-demand stallions often experience decreased libido late in the breeding season, and the Jockey Club’s efforts to limit stallions’ breeding to 140 mares annually were abandoned earlier this year in the face of threats from the Kentucky legislature. Because of their financial interest in fertility, breeders tend to rely on medication rather than rest to treat underperforming studs.

“Certainly, this loss of interest is not unusual,” said Dr. Cynthia Cole, the veterinarian who directs the University of Florida’s racing laboratory. “One of the things you can do is give him some time off. But there’s always the issue of having an unhappy client.”

What was in the 'Black Shot' given to Laoban?

Investigating Laoban’s death for NAS, attorney Harvey Feintuch found Wharton had admittedly administered the “Black Shot” cocktail without reading the labels on its four ingredients and concluded Wharton had used them in at least 10 different ways contrary to label instructions. According to a 29-page document Feintuch authored last August, vitamins intended to be administered intramuscularly were instead injected intravenously; expired Vitamin B12 was administered at five times the recom- mended dosage; and expired Vitamin B Complex was administered despite a warning about the risk of anaphylactic shock.

One of the ingredients, Iron Hydrogenated Dextran, carried an expiration date of July 2012, and was indicated only for iron deficiency anemia in baby pigs.

“It’s terribly egregious that anyone would use any kind of substance that's been expired for nine years on any horse for any reason,” said Marty Irby, executive director of Animal Wellness Action. “I’ve been around horses for my entire life. I’ve never heard of anyone using medication nine years old. That’s just insane.”

Kathy Guillermo, vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said her organization will be filing complaints with both law enforcement and the Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners.

"The racing industry is culpable, too," she said. "It should take a hard look at itself and the greed that leads it to breed these horses beyond what is healthy."

Wharton did not respond to interview requests from The Courier Journal. WinStar Farm chief executive officer Elliott Walden declined to be interviewed, confining his response to a prepared statement.

“WinStar has been in the thoroughbred business for over 20 years," Walden said. "Laoban’s passing was a traumatic experience and felt by everyone at the farm. As we stated at the time, insurance companies in general have a self-serving interest in denying claims and blaming others. We resolved by mutual agreement any concerns that were brought to us and closed the chapter of this tragic loss a long time ago.”

Who is at fault for Laoban's death?

Prior to The Courier Journal obtaining a copy of Feintuch’s letter, quiet settlements prevented the matter from attracting significant scrutiny from the media, animal welfare activists or, apparently, state regulators. Dr. Steven J. Wills, chairman of the Kentucky Board of Veterinary Examiners, said in a statement the board “does not have any recent or current grievance cases against licensees involving the stallion Laoban,” but declined to answer additional questions.

Dr. Katie Flynn, the Kentucky state veterinarian, declined to comment.

“You can look at the last 25 years of thoroughbred breeding,” said Chauncey Morris, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association. “There have been circumstances where similar things have happened and you just have to wait for the courts to sort something out.”

Sequel Stallions’ owner Becky Thomas, who retained partial ownership of Laoban after WinStar became its syndicate manager in October 2020, described the stallion’s death as a “very unfortunate accident.” She confirmed she had settled with WinStar. Investors Tony Pettograsso and JR Young declined comment, citing non-disclosure agreements.

Attorney Escum Moore, who filed suit last month claiming Cypress Creek Equine and Southern Equine were wrongfully denied mortality insurance coverage, also declined comment.

According to Feintuch, Wharton claimed to have “likely” injected thoroughbreds with the “Black Shot” 50 times or more while working in California, albeit sometimes with a different mix of ingredients, and that she believed it to be safe.

Feintuch said video of Laoban’s death showed Wharton injecting the horse’s jugular vein and then leaving the stall less than 25 seconds later. He describes Laoban abruptly jolting toward a wall approximately 58 seconds after the injection, then rolling around violently for 10 seconds “before collapsing in a corner of the stall with his limbs flailing.”

Contacted en route to her office, Wharton returned to the stall and attempted to revive the stallion with steroid injections, to no avail. She attributed his death to anaphylactic shock. The University of Kentucky’s Dr. Laura Kennedy concluded a “presumptive diagnosis of anaphylactic shock can be made with a reasonable degree of medico-legal certainty” based on the horse’s clinical history, post-mortem findings and the elimination of other possible causes of death.

Cole said she would be wary of combining multiple ingredients in a single syringe, in the efficacy of expired substances and, in particular, about the risks of administering iron dextran intravenously.

“The iron itself can cause an anaphylactoid reaction,” Cole said. “Something about the iron triggers an inflammatory reac- tion. Literally, it’s so quick the horses collapse within 30 seconds to a minute of being administered the drug.

“It may not be related at all to the expiration of the product, though I would say administering something intravenously that has been expired for that long a period of years would be very concerning to me as a veterinary pharmacologist. You don’t know how the product has been stored (or) if it’s still sterile.”

Feintuch said Wharton attempted to shift some of the blame for her failure to read labels to the staff of WinStar’s pharmacy, quoting her as saying, “It’s not my responsibility to go through our drug cabinet.”

Dr. Natanya Nieman, WinStar’s resident veterinarian, told Feintuch she was upset she had not been consulted about the shot and had never injected an adult horse with a vitamin, much less a mixture of vitamins that also included iron dextran.

“I was mad that if something had happened differently, he may not be dead,” she said.

Hannah Lochner

Many owners blanket their horses during the winter months for warmth, cleanliness, or in an effort to decrease hair length. While previous studies have evaluated the effect of blanketing on a horse's surface temperature and hay intake, none have assessed the impact of blanketing on a horse's coat. Therefore, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls evaluated changes in hair coat length and diameter of horses with or without medium-weight blankets during winter.

The study was conducted with 16 adult horses (9 ± 3 years of age) that had an average body condition score of 5.5 ± 0.5. Two Arabians, two Quarabs, two Thoroughbreds and ten stock type horses were included in the study. Medium-weight (220g fiberfill) blankets were placed on eight of the horses when temperatures were below 5° Celsius for two days (October 27, 2019). Each month, through March 2020, hair samples were taken from the neck and hindquarters using tweezers. Hair length and diameter were measured using a digital caliber and micrometer, respectively.

Blanketing did not affect body weight or body condition score of the horses. For all horses, hair length was shortest in October and March, and longest in January and February. Similarly, hair coat diameter was smallest in October and March, and largest in January and February.

The length of hindquarter hair did not differ between blanketed and non-blanketed horses. However, neck hair length was greater for non-blanketed horses (58 and 47 mm) compared to blanketed horses (43 and 35 mm) in January and February. These differences were not observed for the month of March. When looking at hair coat diameter of the neck and hindquarter, no differences were found between blanketed and non-blanketed horses.

The results of this study provide evidence that blanketing can affect hair length in areas not covered by a blanket, such as the neck. But the effects are only short-term, where blanketed and non-blanketed horses had similar hair coat lengths when shedding their winter hair coats. However, the effect of blanketing on hair coat length will likely vary based on timing of blanket use.

For more information on this research, view the abstract published in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Sciences at https://www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/abs/pii/ S0737080622003276?via%3Dihub.