Raid Finds 'Significant Amount of Contraband' at Parx

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Raid Finds 'Significant Amount of Contraband' at Parx
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Photo: Bill Denver/EQUI-PHOTO
Horses make their way to the track from the paddock at Parx Racing

A recent raid on the backside of Parx Racing carried out by the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission revealed "a significant amount of contraband," Tom Chuckas, the director of the Thoroughbred Horse Racing Bureau at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, said during a May 25 commission meeting.

Veterinarian Kathryn Papp shared a clip of the meeting, conducted over Zoom, on Twitter.

"We went through the barn area and the tack rooms. We did six total barn searches, six tack room searches. In addition to that we looked at five grooms' quarters and five external tack rooms and 66 out-of-competition tests were performed," Chuckas said during the meeting. "In our enforcement action I can say without getting into too much detail, a significant amount of contraband was discovered, dealing with medications, unlabeled compounded or expired. I regret to say that they were contraband items that have no business on the backside with needles and syringes and some other things that we discovered."

Chuckas said his was confined on the information he could currently share due to active investigations.

"But the fact of the matter is Parx was the first step in this process of going back to our actions that we were conducting pre-COVID and moving forward I think it's fair to say that the other tracks will receive the same enforcement action," he added.