Ontario horse trainer suspended 10 years for buying performance-enhancing drugs: AGCO

A Guelph, Ont.-area standardbread horse trainer has been suspended for 10 years and fined $40,000 after and investigation by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) revealed he purchased performance-enhancing drugs.

Jeffrey Gillis was part of an investigation led by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which saw 27 horse trainers, veterinarians, and others being charged "with offences relating to the systematic shipment and administration of illegal performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to racehorses competing across multiple jurisdictions."

When reached by phone on Monday, Gillis said he had no comment at this time about the suspension.

Gillis is a successful trainer who has worked at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto and Woodbine Mohawk Park in Campbellville, west of Toronto. His biography on the Woodbine website lists a number of wins and purse earnings from 2003 onwards.

Some of his achievements included in 2010 when he saw $2,910,315 in purse earnings and 2013, which marked the fifth consecutive season Gillis' stable earned more than $1 million.

In 2020, he won an O'Brien Award for training the award-winning trotting mare Hey Livvy. Standardbred Canada says the O'Brien Awards "celebrate the absolute best in harness racing over a given year. They are the highest honour the sport bestows upon its heroes in this country."

He also trained Covered Bridge, which won the Gold Cup and Saucer — Atlantic Canada's most prestigious harness race — twice, in 2023 and 2024. The race is held at Red Shores Racetrack in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

The AGCO says records show Gillis purchased illegal drugs, including "a substance held out to be an illegal, blood-boosting synthetic erythropoietin" from U.S.-based veterinarian Seth