WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D7
BY JOHN PYEmelbourne, australia — Five
years and five long sets later,
five-time Australian Open run-
ner-up Andy Murray finally has
won another match at the season-
opening Grand Slam tournament.
The former top-ranked Mur-
ray, playing thanks to a wild-card
invitation as he continues his ca-
reer comeback from hip opera-
tions and thoughts of retirement,
beat 21st-seeded Nikoloz Basilas-
hvili, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, on
Tuesday to reach the second
round at Melbourne Park.
He lost a five-setter in the first
round in 2019 — a match he and
everyone else thought might have
been his last in Australia — after
he missed the 2018 edition with
an injury. He missed the 2020
tournament with a pelvic injury
and last year’s event because of
the coronavirus.
“It’s been a tough three, four
years. Put in a lot of work to get
back here,” Murray said in his
post-match TV interview at John
Cain Arena, which was formerly
known as Hisense and is parochi-
ally referred to as the People’s
Court. “I’ve played on this court
many times. The atmosphere is
incredible. This is the one where I
thought I’d played my last.
“Amazing to be back, winning a
five-set battle like that. Couldn’t
ask for more.”Murray beat Basilashvili in a
three-hour three-setter last week
in Sydney, where he reached the
final of the tuneup tournament.
This one went almost four hours.
When the 34-year-old Murray
clinched the win on his third
match point, he turned to the
back of the court, closed his eyes
and pumped his fists to celebrate.
After walking over to his court-
side chair and dropping his rack-
et, he returned to the court,
punched the air and yelled “Let’s
go!”
It was Murray’s 49th win in an
Australian Open singles match,
moving him ahead of Andre Agas-
si and Ivan Lendl into fifth-place
all-time. According to the Inter-national Tennis Federation, it’s
the most match wins at a G rand
Slam tournament without win-
ning the title, surpassing Lendl’s
48 at Wimbledon.
Murray’s wasn’t the only dra-
matic five-setter that finished in
the early evening on Day 2.
Ninth-seeded Felix Auger-
Aliassime fended off Emil Ruusu-
vuori, 6-4, 0-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, and
Maxime Cressy overcame 20 dou-
ble-faults to upset fellow Ameri-
can and 22nd-seeded John Isner,
7-6 (7 -2), 7-5, 6-7 (7 -4), 6-7 (7 -4),
6-4.
Second-seeded Daniil Medve-
dev, one of the biggest potential
beneficiaries of Novak Djokovic’s
deportation, had a much moreroutine first round.
Nine-time champion Djokovic
was already back in Serbia — two
days after he lost his legal chal-
lenge to stay in Australia despite
being unvaccinated against the
coronavirus — when Medvedev
went into Rod Laver Arena for a
6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) win over Henri
Laaksonen.
On Wednesday, Ashleigh Barty
was front and center when the
Australian Open celebrated its
inaugural First Nations Day.
Albeit not for very long. The
top-ranked Barty has Indigenous
heritage, and her second-round
match at Melbourne Park’s main
stadium was among the features
of a program dedicated to theAboriginal and Torres Strait Is-
lander people of Australia.
She was on and off the court
quickly, beating 142nd-ranked
qu alifier Lucia Bronzetti, 6-1, 6-1
in 52 minutes.
“Really cool.... Nice for me to
be a part of it in a way I feel most
comfortable,” Barty said. “On a
day when we’re bringing culture
together... it was really nice for
me to go out and enjoy that.
“I was really fortunate to be
able to play today.”
Barty extended her streak of
service holds to 48 games and
moved into the third round at
Melbourne Park for the sixth con-
secutive year.
— Associated PressAUSTRALIAN OPEN
For Murray, emotional five-set win in opening round was worth waiting for
sought to distance himself from
Navarro, saying he interacted
with the trainer “for a t otal of less
than one hour” and that he “was
probably one of the least in-
volved vets in the Navarro —
whatever they want to call it —
conspiracy.”
Another wiretapped conversa-
tion quoted Fishman referring to
a “mimetic” for Epogen, a banned
performance-enhancer. In an in-
terview, Fishman suggested he
was looking after the welfare of
the horse. “If I’m providing a safe
alternative to what’s in use — and
will be used unless I provide a safe
alternative — I believe I’m prac-
ticing sound medicine.... And the
fact that they may or may not be
able to test for it as easily, I don’t
know how that makes it a crime.”
In decisions rejecting several of
Fishman’s motions, Vyskocil re-
ferred to such arguments as “un-
persuasive” and stated: “The evi-
dence of Fishman’s criminal ac-
tivity is extensive.”‘My number got punched’
Fishman’s depiction of himself
as a sort of racetrack St. Francis of
Assisi is strikingly at odds with
the government’s version. To
prosecutors, he is a chemical tin-
kerer who has preyed on horse
racing’s ineffectual patchwork
re gulatory system.
That includes dodging a state
investigation in Delaware after
his drugs were alleged to have
killed a racehorse, which Fish-
man denies. And though Fishman
may pride himself on taking one
for the team of veterinarians,
court records show that a fellow
vet in Kentucky was among the
confidential sources who led to
Fishman’s indictment.
In December, as the trial ap-
proached, prosecutors attempted
to have Fishman’s bail revoked
after they found drugs he had
manufactured since his arrest,
including batches of a substance
called “HP Bleeder” that adver-
tised that it had no “testable”
ingredients. Fishman denied do-
ing anything illegal and was ulti-
mately allowed to remain free
after agreeing no longer to manu-
facture any drugs and substances
besides those he uses to treat his
own health conditions.
Between the negative momen-
tum in court and the feds clamp-
ing down on his revenue, Fish-
man at times swings into feelings
of doom about his odds at trial.
In a n interview Friday, the day
before his flight from his home in
Florida to New York to face trial,
Fishman said he stopped corre-
sponding with people he knows
because he doesn’t want to ex-
plain his predicament. “My num-
ber got punched,” Fishman said.
“So it’s either real corrupt people
trying to make an example out of
me or God really hates me that
much that it’s, ‘H ey, it ’s my lottery
ticket to die.’ ”
[email protected]lectively eliminating the competi-
tion” at his track. “His idea of a
level playing field is that you level
the field with all the people you
don’t want and then you just keep
the people on the field that you
want.”
Joseph Faraldo, chairman of
the U.S. Trotting Association, har-
ness racing’s version of the Jockey
Club — and a longtime nemesis of
Gural — said the close association
between hired investigators and
the government has meant that in
practice, “Gural and minions will
dictate who gets prosecuted.”
In an interview, Gural disputed
that claim, maintaining that he
has insisted on being kept in the
dark about who 5 Stones or feder-
al investigators target. But he
doesn’t hide his pleasure at
watching the indictments wreck
former rivals. Gural laughed at
Fishman’s chances at trial, re-
marking of federal prosecutors: “I
was told they lose about 3 percent
of the time.”
Gural also said he plans to
attend the upcoming sentencing
for Chris Oakes, a harness-racing
trainer he has feuded with for
years. “I’m probably going to go to
the courthouse to hear that,” Gu-
ral said, “because it’s an individu-
al I particularly dislike.”
Neither Cote nor 5 Stones chief
David Tinsley returned messages
seeking comment. A representa-
tive for the Jockey Club declined
to comment. Federal prosecutors
have said in filings that though
agents met with members of the
Jockey Club “on occasion,” the
federal government “made inves-
tigative and charging decisions
enti rely independently of any
nongovernmental source of infor-
mation.”
In filings in Fishman’s case, his
attorney previously argued that
industry influence not only got
him indicted but also tainted his
shot at a fair trial. Fishman
moved to have U.S. District Court
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who
oversees his and other horse-dop-
ing cases, recuse herself for past
links to the racing establishment,
including being a former member
of a breeders association and hav-
ing a former law partner who was
in the Jockey Club. Vyskocil de-
nied the motion as “patently friv-
olous,” stating that her “impar-
tiality is not in question.”
Fishman’s other legal argu-
me nts have fared similarly. The
indictments rely on Depression-
era statutes that address “mis-
branded” products, including
substances that aren’t otherwise
illegal or even banned from rac-
ing. Fishman has pointed out in a
wiretapped conversation cited by
prosecutors, the impressive drug
Navarro said Fishman gave him
was “something with amino acid.”
Fishman’s lawyer described that
as an “organic substance,” pre-
scribed to treat Navarro’s horse
after it “clamped up.”
In an interview, Fishmanment of racehorses. Agents in
Miami had heard about him from
a New Jersey state trooper who
had investigated doping at the
Meadowlands, a harness racing
track there. According to an FBI
report, Fishman admitted that he
“sold drugs to David Brooks to be
used in shots for ‘prerace’ dop-
ing.”
Fishman now claims the agents
misconstrued his words. “You
don’t hear me talking about drugs
to enhance performance or any-
thing,” Fishman said. “I talk about
medicine of therapeutic value.”
Fishman ended up not testify-
ing against Brooks, who was con-
victed anyway and died in prison.
Brice Cote, the trooper who initi-
ated the first investigation
against him, retired from the
state police and got a job leading
security for Meadowlands. And
that, Fishman claims, is how his
current trouble began.A sport in peril
For years, horse racing has
faced a growing existential crisis,
threatened by a spate of high-pro-
file horse deaths, dwindling re-
ceipts and growing disenchant-
ment with the integrity of the
sport. The 2020 indictments and
congressional interest they trig-
gered appeared to signal that the
government had taken a sponta-
neous interest in cleaning up the
sport.
But court filings show that fed-
eral prosecutors are prickly about
the origins of the investigation.
Starting around 2015, the Jock-
ey Club, the powerful thorough-
bred group whose members in-
clude descendants of famous
horsemen and the Sheikh of
Dubai, hired a Miami-based pri-
vate intelligence company called
5 Stones to target cheaters in the
sport. The intelligence outfit is
run by a former DEA agent and
has millions of dollars in federal
contracts, and Jockey Club lead-
ers have acknowledged the goal
from the beginning was to bring
about indictments.
And though the private investi-
gators started in thoroughbred
racing, they found more business
in harness racing. Several of those
in harness racing who were even-
tually indicted were among tar-
gets of Meadowlands track owner
Jeff Gural, who helped fund the
5 Stones doping probe, and Cote,
his track detective.
Since The Post first reported on
5 Stones’ involvement last year,
several defendants have argued
in court that the federal probe
was guided by the industry’s pri-
vate investigators, records show.
Lawyers have argued that 5
Stones investigators provided the
FBI with confidential informants,
joined agents for interrogations
and — in one alleged instance —
threatened a potential witness to
cooperate or face the revocation
of their state license.
Fishman accused Gural of “se-approached to refute prosecutors’
portr ayal of him as a ruthless
horse doper obsessed with win-
ning races.
He’s an animal lover, he insist-
ed. He maintained that his drugs
are solely therapeutics and that
the charges against him are
trumped up, using obscure stat-
utes criminalizing the adminis-
tration of benign drugs needed to
ease the suffering of animals used
in a punishing sport.
Fishman claimed that the real
motive of those seeking regulato-
ry reform was to make the sport
more palatable for bettors by
eradicating any foreign substanc-
es — at the expense of the animals.
“I don’t think the veterinary
world should have to answer to a
gambling product that seems to
be getting more and more cor-
rupt, not less corrupt,” Fishman
said. “The animals’ needs need to
be put before the gamblers’
needs.”
And Fishman said that he and
other defendants had been hand-
picked for sacrifice by racing’s
elite, who had spared others with
more clout, to create an illusion of
reform that can distract from
more entrenched corruption.
Fishman said he has Stage 3
thyroid cancer and no children,
which is why he feels comfortable
rolling the dice at trial, declaring:
“I’m going to take one for the
team of veterinarians.”A solution for everything
Always a caretaker for animals
but not much of a studier, Fish-
man, who grew up in suburban
New York, found that his only
option for a veterinary degree was
on the island of St. Kitts. Later
court testimony would reference
Fishman’s cocaine habit around
this time, which he downplayed
in an interview.
“I was living in an island where
it was legal,” Fishman said. “Well,
I shouldn’t say legal, [but] if you
want to get cocaine, you buy it
from a police officer.”
Upon graduation, Fishman
headed to Florida, where he ini-
tially sought to rehabilitate race-
horses. He connected with David
H. Brooks, a body armor tycoon
whose many expensive passions
included harness racing, the
niche version of the sport that
uses Standardbred horses instead
of thoroughbreds.
Brooks hired Fishman to care
for his horses, and soon the vet
got his first experience navigating
a high-profile federal prosecu-
tion. Brooks was indicted in 2007
for fraud. Fishman flipped on his
boss, court records show, telling
authorities that Brooks urged
him to use his pharmaceutical
know-how to create a pill that
would erase the memory of a
potential key witness against
him.
The Brooks investigation
showed that the FBI had long had
an interest in Fishman’s treat-the feds had a more traditional
means in mind: wiring the veteri-
narian for sound to bring down
his alleged horse-doping cronies.
“To make them happy I would
have had to violate two of the Ten
Commandments,” Fishman said
in an interview with The Wash-
ington Post, referring to lying and
bearing false witness: “Just say
for biblical reasons I couldn’t do
it.”
And so in March 2020, federal
prosecutors for the U.S. District
Court in Manhattan unsealed in-
dictments against Fishman and
more than two dozen others in the
racing industry, including promi-
nent trainers, accusing them of
concocting and administering
performance-enhancing drugs
designed to evade regulators.
An indictment described Fish-
man as running a boutique dop-
ing operation since at least 20 14
in which three subordinates, who
were also charged, manufactured
the drugs to his specifications and
then helped distribute them.
Among his alleged clients: Jorge
Navarro, a top trainer whose
horses earned roughly $35 mil-
lion over the course of a decade.
Prosecutors attributed that suc-
cess to a ruthless cheating regi-
men they referred to as the “Na-
varro Doping Program.”
After Navarro’s horse X Y Jet
won $1.5 million in a Dubai race,
Fishman congratulated him via
text message, court records show,
to which Navarro responded:
“Thank u boss u are a big part of
it.” X Y Jet dropped dead of an
apparent heart attack the follow-
ing year.
Other court filings referred to a
powerful painkiller known as
“F ishman Pain Shot.” “Don’t kid
yourself: If you’re giving some-
thing to a horse to make it better
and you’re not supposed to do
that... that’s doping,” Fishman
told a prospective client about his
products in a wiretapped call,
according to the indictment. “You
know, whether it’s testable, that’s
a different story.”
The indictments generated na-
tional headlines. That made them
a powerful political tool, just as
some of the wealthiest people in
the sport had envisioned when
they hired private investigators to
drum up criminal leads for feder-
al agents to follow. Those power
brokers were then able to secure
congressional support for federal
regulatory reform they had strug-
gled to sell for years.
In the two years since, 10 of the
defendants have pleaded guilty or
had their prosecution deferred.
Among them is Navarro, who was
sentenced to five years in prison
and ordered to forfeit more than
$25 million. But on Wednesday,
the first holdouts against the gov-
ernment will go on trial: Fishman
and his alleged distributor, Lisa
Giannelli. Fishm an is charged
with two counts of conspiring to
misbrand drugs. Each count car-
ries a potential five-year prison
sentence.
For the industry, the trial’s
stakes are also high. The state of
racing has only gotten more cha-
otic since the indictments, with
2021’s Kentucky Derby winner,
the Bob Baffert-trained Medina
Spirit, testing positive for a
banned substance and later dying
during a workout.
Meanwhile, the legislative re-
form partly spurred by the indict-
ments appears to have stalled,
with thoroughbred racing’s newly
formed governing authority fail-
ing to reach an expected agree-
ment with the U.S. Anti-Doping
Agency to provide enforcement.
Criminal defendants rarely
speak to the press until after trial.
But Fishman, 50, a part-time
Bangkok fight promoter who vac-
illates between optimism that he
could save the industry and ex-
treme fatalism, doesn’t have
much use for convention. Against
the advice of his attorney, he
spent several hours on the phone
with a Post reporter as his trial
VET FROM D1
As case goes to trial, vet decries sport’s corruption
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
High-profile deaths and growing disenchantment with the integrity of the sport have led to a years-long existential crisis in horse racing.ASSOCIATED PRESST his was always Jacqueline
Cruz-Towns’s favorite game, when
her family could gather to watch
her son play the New York Knicks
at Madison Square Garden.
She died of complications relat-
ed to covid-19 in April 2020, but
Karl-Anthony Towns’s father, sis-
ter and other friends and family
were in the arena Tuesday night.
He gave them a great memory —
and the Minnesota Timberwolves
a big victory.
Towns converted a go-ahead
three-point play with 29 seconds
left, and the Timberwolves edged
the Knicks, 112-110.
Towns, who grew up nearby in
New Jersey, looked up toward the
roof on his first trip to the free
throw line, a way of remembering
his mother.
His last trip to the line ended up
winning the game.
“I told my dad everyone’s going
to get a chance to have their Madi-
son Square Garden moment, and I
felt that was for me tonight. That
was the biggest m oment that I’ve
had in MSG,” Towns said. “Great
crowd, great atmosphere, great
energy, and I got to silence every-
body, so th at makes it even b etter.”
The Knicks got a strong game
from Kemba Walker in his return
from a nine-game absence with a
sore left knee and nursed a l ead for
most of the fourth quarter.
But the Timberwolves rallied
and then held on when Alec Burks
missed a three-pointer that would
have won it for New York.
“I de finitely wanted to win, but
we’ve got to keep grinding it out,”
Walker said. “This league is hard.
It’s hard to win games in this
league.”
Anthony Edwards scored
21 points and Towns had 20 for the
Timberwolves, who won for the
sixth time in eight games to level
their record at 22 -22. D’Angelo
Russell added 17 points.
Evan Fournier scored 27 points
and Julius Randle had 21 for the
Knicks, who lost for the second
straight day and dipped back be-
low .500 at 22-23. Walker scored 17
of his 19 points in the second half.
“It was a hard-fought game and
didn’t get it done down the
stretch,” Knicks Coach Tom Thibo-
deau said.Pacers’ Turner sidelined
The Indiana Pacers expect cen-
ter Myles Turner to miss at least
the next two weeks with an in-
jured left foot.
Team officials said the 6-foot-11
Turner was examined by multiple
specialists who diagnosed him
with a stress reaction. Turner will
get treatment and be evaluated in
two weeks, the Pacers said.
He has been one of the league’s
top shot-blockers since the Pacers
selected him in the first round of
the 2015 draft.
This season, Turner is averag-
ing 12.9 points, 7.1 rebounds and
2.8 blocks in 42 games.NBA ROUNDUPTowns is
big late on
emotional
evening
WIZARDS’ NEXT THREEvs. Brooklyn NetsToday7NBCSWvs. Toronto RaptorsFriday8NBCSWvs. Boston CelticsSunday3:30 NBCSWRadio: WTEM (980 AM)
or WJFK (106.7 FM)TIMBERWOLVES 112,
KNICKS 110