Nine standardbred racehorses, with seated drivers steering each speeding animal, thundered around Georgian Downs, near Barrie, in early June of 2015.Heathers Shadow won the mile-long event and the $3,500 first-place purse money. Magic of Brussels picked up the pace after a slow start to finish runner-up, her driver Lyle MacArthur recalled.“She raced good,” MacArthur said of Magic’s hustle.Heathers Shadow, however, failed a post-race drug test, was disqualified and forfeited all prize money as the rules of racing dictate. Her trainer appealed. Racing officials dismissed it. Magic was moved up to winner and earned her co-owners — three experienced horsewomen with full-time careers outside the sport — an extra $1,500: the difference between first and second place.Tammy Aspden said she, Linda Wellwood and Anne Shunock soon forgot about that race after Magic’s additional winnings arrived by cheque in February 2016.“We never put any more thought into Heathers Shadow or the positive test,” said Aspden, 51, who operates a Niagara lawn care business with her husband.“As far as we were concerned, the case was closed.”For about another year, it was. It blew open when the provincial horse racing regulator, Jean Major, concluded that based on new science, four positive drug tests from 2015 were not actually positive after all — an unprecedented decision that included Heathers Shadow’s results — and ordered prize money returned and original placings restored. Magic’s owners challenged the unusual order. Major, as Registrar of Ontario’s Alcohol and Gaming Commission, responded by chasing the women all the way to Ontario Superior Court when they defied him and refused to return that $1,500.Along the way, the trio would be suspended from racing, denied disclosure documents for months and rack up $75,000 in legal fees during the two-year showdown with the government agency tasked with overse ...
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