Former equine lab head sues UK employees, horse racing groups for defamation
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Former lab head Scott Stanley sues UK staff, racing bodies for defamation.
- Stanley contests findings of misconduct, seeks damages and trial by jury.
- UK fired Stanley in 2024 after an audit found falsified equine drug test results.
The former head of the University of Kentucky equine testing laboratory has sued several university employees and horse racing organizations, alleging they collaborated to defame and illegally fire him.
Scott Stanley was removed as the director of the Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab at UK in March 2024 after an investigation into his practices in the lab. UK said Stanley had falsified and misrepresented test results, and demonstrated a lack of internal controls in the lab. The university also accused him of having conflicts of interest and improper hiring practices.
Earlier this month, UK fired Stanley from his role as a professor in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and revoked his tenure status — a rare move in higher education.
Now, Stanley alleges that multiple groups, including UK employees, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unity and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, worked together to “carry out the defamation and false light injuries” against him. The lawsuit said the investigation and audit released by UK included findings “that they knew were either false or intentionally misleading.”
As a result, “Dr. Stanley has suffered irreparable harm to his professional reputation, has lost the esteem of his colleagues, has had his personal standing in the very close-knit equine community dimished, and has had his employment and tenure terminated, and is unemployable due to the nature of the ‘conclusions’ and findings contained in the Audit and the HIWU report,” the lawsuit said.
Included in the lawsuit, filed Sept. 16 in Fayette County Circuit Court, are 15 people and organizations, including: Joseph Reed, chief accountability officer and audit executive at UK; multiple employees of UK’s internal audit office and legal counsel; Nancy Cox, the former dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment; the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit and several employees of Drug Free Sport; and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.
Stanley is requesting a jury trial, monetary damages in connection to the alleged defamation and his attorney fees and costs, and an order preventing all defendants from “further publishing or republishing the false and defamatory statements” about him.
“We are reviewing the contents of the lawsuit,” UK said in a statement Tuesday morning. “The university terminated this individual following serious policy violations, findings affirmed by his peers, the equine industry and our Board of Trustees. Our investigation into this matter and the process to terminate followed strict protocols in accordance with the university’s Administrative Regulations. As this is pending litigation, we don’t have further comment at this time.”
UK’s investigation published last fall
UK announced last September it had removed Stanley from his position in the lab, and was moving for his removal from his role at the university, after an investigation showed he’d falsified test results for a banned blood-doping agent called Erythropoietin, and at least four other results from his lab were called into question, according to an audit released by UK last year.
Stanley has repeatedly denied the allegations against him in statements made through his lawyer.
Last year, Lisa Lazarus, CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, said federal law enforcement officials were investigating Stanley.
Under HISA, the private anti-doping regulatory agency created in 2020 by Congress, racing has moved toward uniform standards in drug testing across the country. UK’s lab was one of six in the U.S. accredited by HISA to drug test samples for horses.
UK tested samples for HISA for eight months, from May 22, 2023, to February 2024. In all, HISA sent the university 8,000 to 9,000 samples from Kentucky and Florida.
But in March 2024 — the same month Stanley was removed from his administrative role at the university — the national racing authority dropped UK’s testing lab from its accredited list, meaning drug tests could no longer be performed there for state regulators.
Stanley was head of the lab, which also performed drug tests for the U.S. Equestrian Federation, beginning with the lab’s formation in 2019. And in 2022, the lab began performing racing drug testing for the state of Kentucky.
The audit from UK found that in at least one case, Stanley told HISA that his lab had found no Erythropoietin in a sample received on Nov. 9, 2023, but the lab had not tested for the substance. His UK lab wasn’t even equipped to do that kind of work, according to the audit. It is unclear what state or horse was involved.
According to UK, in four cases, all of which were used in racing investigations, the samples “lacked results documentation,” meaning no results were recorded in the university’s system, even though in two of the cases Stanley emailed results to racing officials.
The audit could not substantiate any additional falsifications but found that the lab’s internal systems were inadequately controlled and that “there were numerous opportunities in the (lab’s) standard workflow that could potentially allow for sample tampering or records to be changed,” including “unfettered access” by Stanley to samples and to records.
Earlier this year, UK announced it had sold the Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab to Eagle Diagnostics, and renamed it Equine Integrity & Anti-doping Science Labs. Travis Mays, who worked in a similar lab at Texas A&M University, was appointed the new director.
Reporter Janet Patton contributed to this story.