New Jersey Racing Commission Strikes Down Cobb

Trainer Amber Cobb was handed a seven-year suspension and an $11,000 fine June 7 by the New Jersey Racing Commission for medication/drug violations that continued a litany of offenses dating to 2021. Cobb was served notice Feb. 14, for a March 20 hearing, for which she failed to appear. It took place in her absence, where evidence and testimony were presented by four observers of the trainer's malicious behavior and care. The stewards found Cobb to have trained horses from January to March in 2021 while not having secured a required NJRC license. For this infraction she was handed a six-month suspension and a $1,000 fine. Cobb also was found to be in possession of hypodermic needles and syringes at Westampton Farm in southwest New Jersey. She was given another six-month suspension and fined an additional $2,500. She also possessed six vials of injectable foreign substances, found to be the prescription drugs dexamethasone, betamethasone, flumethasone, flunixin, phenylbutazone, nikethamide, and bromhexine on the property of the off-track stabling facility. An additional year of suspension and a $2,500 fine were handed down. On or about March 12, 2021, Cobb was found to have acted "in a manner detrimental to the sport of horse racing and adverse to the health, safety, and well-being of a Thoroughbred racehorse under her care and custody as a trainer by approaching said horse, which was tied to the grate of the stall window frame, and struck said horse with a pitchfork, causing the horse to rear up and flip over on its back, leaving the horse in distress and unable to move." For these actions, she was suspended for an additional five years and fined an additional $5,000. The suspension began May 13, 2023, and will run through May 12, 2030, the date by which Cobb's fines must be paid to the NJRC.