University of Kentucky equine testing lab director terminated

This story has been updated to add comments from Scott Stanley.

A federal horse racing agency alleged it received falsified test results related to a potential banned substance from a University of Kentucky lab. That was just the beginning of the lab’s issues.

Now, more than 18 months after the allegation, the University of Kentucky terminated the former director of the equine testing lab.

The University of Kentucky announced Sept. 11 it terminated former Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab (EACL) Director Dr. Scott Stanley, a tenured faculty member following “a serious breach of ethics and policy violations related to misconduct and mismanagement” of the institution’s former lab, according to a press release.

The EACL provided drug testing for the equine industry, including tests by the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), which performs post-race and out-of-competition testing for most thoroughbred races in the nation, on behalf of Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA).

The announcement comes a year after UK announced that it was beginning the process to revoke Stanley’s tenure as a faculty member.

“The termination of a tenured faculty member is rare but is permissible under Kentucky Revised Statutes for reasons of incompetence, neglect of or refusal to perform duties, or for immoral conduct,” the university stated in the press release.

UK’s Board of Trustees held a special session on Sept. 11, questioning both Stanley’s attorney and the university’s attorney before subsequently voting to revoke his tenure and dismiss him from university employment, according to the release.“At the University of Kentucky, we are committed to advancing Kentucky through research and service of the highest quality,” said UK Board Chair Britt Brockman in a statement. “We must uphold the highest ethical standards and comply fully with university and industry regulations. Any violations of these policies are taken seriously and addressed to maintain the integrity of this work — the work of thousands of people across this institution.”

In a statement provided by his attorney on Sept. 29, Stanley called the process of revoking his tenure “deeply flawed and fundamentally unfair.”

He also denied the university’s allegations and disputed the findings of both an internal audit by the university and an investigation by HIWU.

“Despite repeated requests, he was never granted access to the underlying evidence, data, or witness notes, only the reports that, he says, ‘confuse speculation with proof,'” his attorney, Cristina Keith, said in the statement.

“I have devoted my career to science, integrity, and transparency,” Stanley said in the statement. “Tenure exists to protect due process, yet that principle has been disregarded. I am considering all legal remedies to ensure fairness is upheld.”

The Courier Journal requested comment from HIWU, HISA and UK’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. HISA and the university did not respond to a request for comment.

HIWU said it had “no comment on this matter.”

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Falsified results from the UK’s equine lab

The university also released a 32-page internal audit investigation that found Stanley falsified test results, failed to disclose outside work and mismanaged lab operations.

The UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment began investigating Stanley’s mismanagement of the lab in February 2024 after being notified by HIWU that a test result out of the lab, personally communicated to HIWU by Stanley, had “actually never been performed,” according to the audit.

The audit found the lab was supposed to have tested for the banned substance Erythropoietin but “was found to have never been analyzed, as 100 percent of the sample remained untouched in the lab.” Four of 240 samples the audit team selected for administrative testing “lacked results documentation” in a laboratory information management system.

“While results for two of the four, which had adverse results, were found to have been communicated to HIWU by Dr. Stanley, (the audit team) was unable to locate any documentation for the remaining two samples,” the audit summary said.

The audit also found “weak internal controls” that allowed all lab staff “unrestricted access to data at every stage in its testing workflow and, for investigations, gave Dr. Stanley the ability to control the communication of results.”

Two relationships that could constitute a conflict of interest were also documented in the audit. The first was a consulting agreement with Thermo Finnigan LLC, a subsidiary of Thermo Fisher Scientific, a publicly-traded biotechnology company. The audit stated that Stanley disclosed the consulting agreement “only once during the scope period.”

The second conflict involved “a personal relationship with a woman” that Stanley created a position for in the university’s Student Temporary Employment Program. The audit found he orchestrated her hiring.

HIWU’s 2024 allegations

In March 2024, HIWU began investigating the performance of the lab under HISA’s Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. By that September, the federal agency released its findings in a nine-page report.

Beginning in November 2023, HIWU asked Stanley if the lab could perform “targeted confirmatory analysis” of a blood sample that another lab in HISA’s program suspected contained Erythropoietin, a banned substance in horse racing.

Across the next two months, HIWU said it requested status of the anaylsis from Stanley in person, via email and over the phone.

In late December 2023, HIWU said Stanley reported the sample was analyzed and the banned substance was not confirmed. The lab would “repeat the analysis to ensure the result was accurate,” according to the HIWU report. In January 2024, Stanley notified HIWU that the substance was not detected in the sample.

On Feb. 23, 2024, a HIWU staff member asked the lab how much of the sample was left because the agency was considering having the sample analyzed by yet another lab in HISA’s anti-doping program.

“Later that day, HIWU was advised by (lab) staff that the sample at issue had never been analyzed and, in fact, had never even been opened,” the report said. “It was still sealed in (the lab)’s storage refrigerator.”

That report found UK’s equine lab:

did not comply with HIWU-mandated testing specifications and instructions, including standard operating procedures and analysis methods;
misrepresented both its ability to test for specific prohibited substances and the completion of analysis for certain prohibited substances;
and failed to perform confirmatory analysis on 91 samples whose initial screening showed the potential presence of a prohibited substance and therefore required such analysis, instead reporting the samples as negative at the direction of Stanley

Now known as the Equine Integrity & Anti-doping Sciences (EQIAS) Labs, the lab is now owned by Eagle Diagnostics. The university announced the transition in April.

The lab appointed Travis Mays as the new director. Mays previously worked at Texas A&M’s Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab, overseeing daily operations of drug testing and toxicology selections, per a press release from university.

Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative sports reporter. Reach her at skuzydym@courier-journal.com or on social at @stephkuzy.

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