The Maine State Racing Commission today threw out the high TCO2 violation for Douglas Gray today.

When the commission set down at 12:30 this afternoon, the first course of action was to go into an executive session. The commission went into another room and reemerged about 20 minutes later. At that point executive director Henry Jackson made the following remarks:

“Commission members, I am withdrawing my complaint against Douglas Gray, trainer of the horse, Rookie’s Rock for alleged elevated TCO2 violation. I believe that this action is in the best interest for the individual and the industry. We are in the process of reviewing our testing program to ensure scientific certainties are met. This review should increase the confidence of the testing results reported by the new testing equipment and to ensure the utmost integrity of our testing program is maintained.”

There was no discussion and a motion was passed to accept Mr. Jackson’s statement. The commission then went onto other business. Later in the meeting a motion was read by Commissioner Barbara Dresser:

“To have the executive director review on an individual basis, the pending positive TCO2 cases and any cases formerly prosecuted or resolved by consent agreements for infractions in the year 2010 which involve TCO2 positive tests. Recommendations include that if any of the 2010 infraction positive cases or notifications, the executive director shall obtain a release from these individuals and that any pending TCO2 cases can be withdrawn by the executive director at his prosecutorial discretion and if these cases have been noticed for hearing, the executive director shall bring them before the commission for consideration.”

There was no discussion and the motion was passed.

In other business the commission granted a full license to Penn National. Last fall, Penn National was given a provisional license pending an investigative report due to a material change in ownership.

The commission was also notified that Scarborough Downs would like to ask the commission not to race on Sunday, July 17, due a scheduling conflict with a country music concert being held on that day. Scarborough Downs would like to move that date to Friday, December 16. The commission will take up this proposal in a future meeting.

Sire stakes action that was scheduled on that Sunday will be moved forward one day to Saturday. Jackson stated that the commission does not rule on this move as it is the decision of the Sire Stakes Advisory board and that it had been approved by them.