Former head of UK equine testing lab drops defamation lawsuits
The fired director of the University of Kentucky equine testing laboratory has withdrawn two lawsuits alleging defamation by university employees and horse racing organizations, according to court documents.
Scott Stanley, the former director of the Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab at UK, alleged multiple UK employees, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unity and its parent organization, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, worked together to “carry out the defamation and false light injuries,” resulting in his firing from UK and the removal of his tenure. A separate lawsuit filed last year alleged the assistant director of the lab made false statements to UK and the horse racing groups to damage his reputation.
Both lawsuits were voluntarily withdrawn by Stanley and dismissed by the Fayette Circuit Court this month, according to court records.
Stanley was removed as the director of the lab in March 2024 after an investigation into his practices in the lab. UK’s investigation 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.
This September, UK fired Stanley from his role as a professor and revoked his tenure status — a rare move in higher education — citing violations of ethical standards and university and industry regulations.
“After careful consideration, Dr. Stanley has elected to withdraw his claims for reasons unrelated to their merits,” said Cristina Keith, Stanley’s lawyer. “The decisive factor is the substantial, long-term financial commitment required to litigate a case of this complexity. At this time, he is choosing to conserve resources and focus on other priorities.”
Stanley has filed the first lawsuit in 2024 against Cecily Wood, who was the assistant director of the lab, alleged defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In that suit, Stanley said Wood “knowingly made false statements” to Stanley’s supervisor at UK, HISA and HIWU “for no purpose other than to tarnish Dr. Stanley’s professional reputation.”
A second lawsuit filed earlier this year included 15 people and organizations, including 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.
That lawsuit said the investigation and audit released by UK included findings “that they knew were either false or intentionally misleading,” resulting in damage to his professional reputation.
At the time of his tenure removal hearing, Stanley said in a statement through his lawyer the process was “deeply flawed and fundamentally unfair.”
UK investigated Stanley and laboratory
Stanley has denied the allegations against him, calling them “baseless” in a statement made through his lawyer last year.
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 between 8,000 and 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.
The audit from UK found that in at least one case, Stanley told HISA that his lab had found no Erythropoietin — a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production — in a sample received on Nov. 9, 2023, but the lab had not tested for the substance. His UK lab wasn’t 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, renamed it Equine Integrity & Anti-doping Science Labs and appointed a new director.