Rick Dutrow Granted Kentucky Trainer's License

Multiple classic-winning and Breeders' Cup-winning trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. was granted a Kentucky trainer's license May 30 at a meeting of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's License Review Committee. The four-member committee voted unanimously in Dutrow's favor.

"I just want to get my license there, bring some horses there, start racing, start winning and losing, just like anyone else," Dutrow testified by video from New York.

Dutrow stated he has 23 horses in his Belmont Park barn as well as "a bunch of them on farms that I would consider under my care; it's too many to count."

New York and Kentucky are the only states where Dutrow has sought a license, he said. New York State granted Dutrow a license in February, and he has started six horses at Belmont since May 6.

In 2011, New York revoked Dutrow's license for 10 years—an action reciprocated by other jurisdictions—when a horse in his care was found to have traces of painkiller butorphanol in its system after a win at Aqueduct Racetrack. A subsequent barn search also turned up three syringes loaded with xylazine, a muscle relaxer and sedative.

Dutrow, 63, has won 1,812 races from 7,210 starts dating to 1979. He won the 2008 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) with Big Brown  , the 2005 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) with eventual Horse of the Year Saint Liam , and multiple grade 1s with Court Vision  , Kip Deville , and Silver Train .

In the meeting's other Thoroughbred-related item, past owner Francesca A. de la Flor rescinded her application for a Kentucky owner's license after questioning from KHRC general counsel Jennifer Wolsing.