HIWU has issued a final decision in trainer Phil Serpe’s contested clenbuterol case, imposing a two-year suspension and race disqualification with purse forfeiture for the positive test detected in his filly following her August 2023 Saratoga victory.
The ruling against the 66-year-old trainer notably excluded any monetary fine, despite ADMC Rule 3223 allowing penalties up to $25,000 for such violations.
The drug was detected in Fast Kimmie‘s urine after her Aug. 10, 2024 win. In an unusual move, HIWU informed Serpe via letter on Apr. 23, 2025 that it would not pursue any fine at his arbitration hearing — a significant departure from how the agency handled a dozen other clenbuterol cases since the ADMC program began in May 2023.
Serpe’s legal team has argued in Florida federal court that HIWU’s sudden abandonment of the monetary penalty represents an attempt to undermine his October 2024 lawsuit claiming denial of his Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
HISA asserted in court documents that the absence of a fine “moots Plaintiff’s Seventh Amendment claim and removes any risk of cognizable harm with respect to it.” Serpe’s civil complaint cites a Supreme Court ruling that federal regulatory agencies seeking civil monetary penalties must do so in federal court, subject to Seventh Amendment protections.
According to HIWU’s online portal, 12 of 15 adjudicated clenbuterol cases resulted in fines of at least $15,000. Two violations were withdrawn, and one was dropped when the split sample failed to confirm the presence of the drug.
When questioned about this apparent policy shift, HIWU Communications Director Alexa Ravit explained: “HIWU was directed by HISA to not pursue a fine against Mr. Serpe based on the facts and circumstances of his specific case. It is not indicative of a broader policy to stop pursuing fines for potential ADMC Program violations.”
Bradford Beilly, Serpe’s attorney, told TDN on July 14 that the non-pursuit of a fine appears to be an attempt to avoid federal court jurisdiction over a constitutional issue.
“It appears that HIWU has followed HISA’s direction to not seek a fine to attempt to moot the federal court’s jurisdiction over Serpe’s Seventh Amendment claim,” Beilly said. “It appears that HISA’s representation to the court that it does not control HIWU is not an accurate statement.”
U.S. District Court Judge David Leibowitz denied Serpe’s request for a preliminary injunction on May 29, but left open the opportunity for Serpe to refile his Seventh Amendment claim after the HIWU arbitration process concluded.
Arbitrator Jeffrey Benz only mentioned “fine” once in his 16-page decision, noting that “HIWU could have also sought its legal fees and the fees of the Arbitrator and the arbitration institution as well as the statutory fine permitted for these cases, but it declined to do so.”
[Spoiler Alert] The post-race test showed Fast Kimmie‘s clenbuterol concentration at 27 picograms per milliliter in urine, while her blood sample tested negative. Serpe, a licensed trainer since 1984 with a nearly violation-free record, denied authorizing any veterinarian to administer clenbuterol to the filly.
Serpe’s defense highlighted that Fast Kimmie had undergone out-of-competition testing eight weeks before her Saratoga win with no prohibited substances detected. Another OOC test four months after her positive Saratoga test showed negative results in both blood and hair samples.
Benz rejected Serpe’s arguments, writing: “Mr. Serpe’s position must be rejected. First, while hair is an acceptable sample matrix in testing for the Presence of Banned Substances, the ADMC Program is a single-matrix regime whereby a single split urine sample is sufficient to establish an AAF [and] no supplemental testing in another matrix–hair, blood, or otherwise-is required.”
The arbitrator emphasized that the ADMC Program doesn’t require demonstration of intent or fault to establish a violation, and that clenbuterol is not a threshold substance, making the quantity detected irrelevant.
“Mr. Serpe’s defense hangs entirely on the bald assertion that inadvertent exposure to Clenbuterol may have resulted from cross-contamination,” Benz wrote. “The evidence adduced by Mr. Serpe falls well short of establishing on a balance of probabilities the source of Clenbuterol.”
Benz concluded: “Despite the findings of this Arbitrator, no one should read this decision as determining that Mr. Serpe is a cheater. The only determination that can be taken from the findings in this Final Decision is that Mr. Serpe was unable to meet his burden and standard of proof under the applicable rules.”
Fast Kimmie, owned by WellSpring Stables, was disqualified from her Saratoga win and was off for eight months. The five-year-old has raced twice this spring in New York, most recently winning a $17,500 claimer at Aqueduct on May 24.
