Sport · The Record
Racing suspension record denies entry, transfer and sales of all horses owned by Samuel A. Valeriano, pending a hearing
The order reaches past the licensee to the livestock. Two of the three rules it cites, read in their published text, reach a license and a person. Nothing has been adjudicated.
The record
An entry in the public rulings database maintained by the Association of Racing Commissioners International records that horse owner Samuel A. Valeriano was summarily suspended, effective immediately, on July 30, 2026.
The operative language does not stop at his licence. The entry places all horses owned by Valeriano on the stewards list and orders them "denied entry, participation, transfer and sales of any and all horses". The same entry records that he remains suspended pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.
The grounds recited are evidence presented of carmoterol positives in multiple horses and his involvement in unsanctioned racing. Those are recitals in an order, not findings. The standard the entry invokes is that his conduct constitutes an "immediate danger to the public health, safety, integrity and welfare of the horseracing industry".
The authorities it cites
The entry lists three, reproduced here as they appear in it: 16.47.1.8 L. (1)(i)(o); 15.2.1.9 A. (3)(a), (b) Summary Suspension; 15.2.1.9 B.(21)(a)(b) Exclusion.
Two of the three can be checked against published text.
15.2.1.9 A(3), as published by the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, ties the immediate-danger finding to one remedy: where stewards make that determination, "the stewards may summarily suspend the license pending a hearing". A licence.
16.47.1.8, as published by the Cornell Legal Information Institute, is a list of grounds attaching to a person - among them a licensee who "has engaged in conduct unbecoming or detrimental to the best interests of racing". A person.
The third citation, the exclusion provision at 15.2.1.9 B(21), was not available in published form among the records reviewed for this piece. Daily Pol has not read it. It may carry authority the other two do not, and that gap is stated here rather than papered over.
A transfer rule, and what it is not
Elsewhere in 15.2.1 NMAC, as published by the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, a single sentence addresses transfers: moving a horse to a different owner or trainer "to avoid application of a commission or other recognized regulatory organization's rule or ruling" is prohibited unless the stewards permit it. The bar is conditioned on evasion.
That sentence carries no section number in the record reviewed, and it is not among the three authorities the entry cites. It is noted here only because it is the sole transfer-related rule text located - not as one of the order's authorities, because the records reviewed do not make it one.
The paper trail, and one assumption
An assumption is flagged: the database entry as captured names no issuing commission, no jurisdiction and no ruling number. The only link to New Mexico is that its citations are New Mexico Administrative Code sections. Readers should treat the New Mexico attribution as inference from the citations, not as something the record states.
On the New Mexico Racing Commission's own ruling reports page, the commission tells readers what the page is and is not: "All rulings are Initial Rulings. Appeals, Modifications, Final Outcomes, etc; can be viewed by requesting a copy from the Commission." The page also warns that ruling number sequences may contain gaps. A member of the public tracking any New Mexico case to its conclusion is therefore reading initial paperwork and filing a request for the rest.
Analysis
This section is analysis, grounded only in the documents above.
Set the entry's operative language beside the two cited provisions whose published text was read. One authorises suspending a licence pending a hearing. The other lists grounds that describe a person. The order's reach is neither: it runs to property - every horse in the ownership, barred from entry, participation, transfer and sales, before a hearing has been held.
Whether the third cited authority, the exclusion provision, closes that distance cannot be assessed here, because its text was not read. That is precisely the question a disciplinary hearing exists to answer, and it is the reason the distance is worth recording now rather than after the fact.
What is checkable, and when
A falsifiable test, on the commission's own disclosure: as of December 31, 2026, the New Mexico Racing Commission's ruling reports page will still describe its contents as initial rulings only, meaning the final outcome of a New Mexico disciplinary hearing will not be readable there and will have to be requested from the commission. If the page publishes final outcomes by that date, this prediction is wrong.
Carmoterol elsewhere in the record
Daily Racing Form published a report headed "Positive carmoterol tests result in Quarter Horse suspensions in New Mexico", carrying the line "These horses could be sitting in their stalls for a couple of years." The Paulick Report, republished by Yahoo, headed its account of 12 post-race findings on All American Futurity day with the word unprecedented, and carried the line "This is unprecedented in my 53 years in horse racing in any jurisdiction".
The excerpts reviewed here do not identify who said either line, and they do not connect either report to Valeriano. They are included to show what carmoterol enforcement has looked like in published coverage, and for no more than that.
Response
No comment from Valeriano or a representative appears in any record reviewed for this piece, and none had been received at the time of writing. The allegations in the entry are untested: the same record states he remains suspended pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.