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CHICAGO (CN) — An Illinois licensed veterinarian filed a civil racketeering complaint against the Hawthorne Race Course and Illinois Racing Board on Thursday, accusing them and several employees of a conspiracy to boost betting numbers at the track.
Christine Tuma, the veterinarian and former joint Hawthorne and racing board employee, claims officials with both organizations dismissed or went around her concerns about the health of over 80 race horses — placing the animals in races despite her marking them as too sick or injured to run.
She implicates Hawthorne Director of Racing Jim Miller, Assistant General Manager John Walsh, and one of the Illinois Racing Board’s state veterinarians, Dawn Folker-Calderon, in the alleged conspiracy among other Hawthorne and racing board employees. She does not name Tim Carey, Hawthorne’s current president and general manager, as a defendant.
Her complaint outlines eight counts for RICO offenses, civil conspiracy, retaliatory termination and violations of the Illinois Whistleblower Act.
The conspirators ran horses they knew were unwell, Tuma claims, to increase the number of race wagers and shore up funds for a planned casino at the 133-year-old racetrack. Hawthorne’s owners, the Carey family via Carey Heirs Properties LLC, already faced millions in unpaid construction contractor liens as of May.
“Beginning on or before March of 2022, the RICO Defendants formed an enterprise, whose criminal activities were intended to enrich themselves, maintain their powerful positions, and generate funds for the construction of a casino at the racetrack,” Tuma writes.
Tuma blames their actions for the deaths of at least 21 horses between 2022 and 2023.
According to the Illinois Racing Board, in [2023](https://irb.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/irb/documents/annual-reports/2023 Ann Rpt Stamped.pdf) gamblers in the state placed a little over $490 million in total race wagers. It’s the lowest dollar amount since 2010 and less than half the amount wagered on horse races in 2003. Other gambling outlets like lottery tickets and riverboat casinos have eaten into the pot, as have online casinos since Illinois eased restrictions on online gaming in 2019.
Tuma also credits the decline to increased public awareness of the animal cruelty endemic to racing. She cites a number of high-profile horse fatalities and health scandals over the last several decades, including trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis’ federal convictions for giving their animals performance-enhancing drugs.
In an effort to alleviate these financial strains, Tuma claims, the Hawthorne and racing board employees didn’t just run sickly horses but also resorted to wire fraud — sending falsified horse health information to federal and state regulators in Illinois and Kentucky.
“Defendants … electronically transmitted the state veterinarian and steward lists (and/or periodic updates to them), with false information, while they certified the accuracy of the lists to state and federal regulators. Instead, these lists were intentionally and fraudulently incomplete, as a result of failing to include the horses that were known to be lame and should have been scratched from races,” the veterinarian writes.
Tuma also claims that she faced retaliation from Hawthorne employees and officials who didn’t appreciate her marking horses as too sickly to run.
In the fall of 2022, she says Folker-Calderon stripped her of her ability to scratch horses from races and instituted a new policy requiring a second veterinary opinion whenever one Hawthorne vet marked a horse as sick or lame during a pre-race exam.
“Then, if the two association veterinarians did not concur on the assessment, Calderon herself would decide in her capacity as State Veterinarian,” Tuma claims.
Tuma says Folker-Calderon and another defendant, Hawthorne vet Beth Beuchler, used this policy change to overturn Tuma’s negative assessments for 30 horses in the fall of 2022. Ten of those died or were euthanized before the end of the year. In 2023 Tuma marked another 50 horses as unfit to run, though Buechler and Folker-Calderon reportedly overturned 48 of those decisions.
Tuma also accuses a Hawthorne horse trainer named Max Quinones of once goading a horse into menacing her in 2022, and later having one of his employees physically attack her.
Walsh informed Tuma she’d been let go in mid-July 2023, over three months after she sent a whistleblower letter to the Illinois Racing Board and federally-backed Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. Walsh reportedly said her termination was a cost saving measure, but Tuma claims it was retaliation. A week earlier, she had gone over Folker-Calderon’s head and sent video of an injured horse named “Dastardly Deeds” — whom Folker-Calderon had cleared to run — to another state veterinarian.
Hawthorne itself fully denies Tuma’s accusations. In a prepared statement the racetrack’s public relations firm Culloton Bauer Luce sent Courthouse News Thursday afternoon, Hawthorne said that “in 2023, economic conditions and economic conditions alone forced Hawthorne to lay off a number of employees, including Tuma, a part-time track veterinarian who had only been hired three years earlier.”
“Tuma’s lawsuit is false and misguided and Hawthorne will vigorously contest it in court. Besides defaming Hawthorne, the oldest family-owned race course in North America with an unmatched record of safety and integrity, Tuma is using the legal system to settle professional disagreements with other, more experienced and accomplished veterinarians at the track and the Illinois Racing Board,” the racetrack said. “These professionals have dedicated their careers at Hawthorne and the racing board to performing with the highest degree of professionalism.”
Domenic DiCera, the Illinois Racing Board’ executive director, also denies Tuma’s accusations. He said in a prepared statement to Courthouse News that the board was aware of her concerns in March 2023 but found no credible evidence of wrongdoing at the time.
“Because we received this lawsuit this morning from the media and not through legal channels, we are currently reviewing the filing. However, we vociferously reject any allegation of unethical conduct and will make our case in court,” DiCera said.
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