Natalia Lynch, a trainer who has been suspended for the past 14 months, has been reinstated to good standing after reaching a settlement with the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit that frees her to return to training, according to statements and filings in the case. Lynch, who had been suspended four years for a positive drug finding and a charge of possession of a banned substance, reached the settlement with HIWU prior to the hearing of closing arguments in an appeals hearing in front of an administrative law judge appointed by the Federal Trade Commission. The terms of the settlement became official Wednesday, with Lynch’s suspension officially lifted Friday. The ruling is the first to be sanctioned by an FTC official in any case involving HIWU since the agency began enforcing the Anti-Doping and Medication Control program administered by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority in May 2023. An appeal before the FTC cannot take place until a case has already been considered by an arbitrator appointed by HIWU. According to a joint statement issued by the parties, HIWU agreed to drop the positive drug finding and reduced the two-year suspension for the possession charge to “time served,” meaning the 14 months that Lynch had already served. :: Get the Inside Track with the FREE DRF Morning Line Email Newsletter. Subscribe now.  “As of September 20, 2024, Ms. Lynch is fully eligible to participate in activities involving covered horses or taking place at a racetrack,” the statement said. “She is not restricted or limited in any way in her capacity as a trainer under HISA’s ADMC program.” Reached by phone Friday, Lynch said that she has been working with show and carriage horses in Ocala, Fla., and was “trying to stay positive and let the past be the past.” She said she has no immediate plans to return to training Thoroughbred horses, but that she had been “short-listed” by a trainer to potentially receive some yearlings recently purchased at the Keeneland sale. “Training horses is not a really easy start no matter what situation you are facing,” Lynch said. “So I’m back on the ground floor. This has all been kind of sudden and unexpected, so I am going to see where things lead for me.” Lynch had been training for approximately three years at the time she was provisionally suspended by HIWU. She had amassed a record of 21 wins from 214 starts, with $1.5 million in purse earnings, largely by running horses on the tough New York circuit. Lynch was suspended by HIWU after a horse she trained tested positive for altrenogest, a regulated estrus supplement, following a race at Monmouth Park in the summer of 2023. A search of her barn at Belmont Park three days later turned up a container of levothyroxine in the trunk of a car Lynch was using. Levothyroxine is a banned substance that stimulates thyroid function. The two separate two-year suspensions were upheld by the HIWU arbitral panel, which rejected Lynch’s arguments that the filly who tested positive was contaminated by the use of the product on a horse in a neighboring stall and that the levothyroxine belonged to her mother. The car used by Lynch on the day of the search was registered to her mother.  Chris Boehning, who represented Lynch in the FTC appeal after she dropped her previous counsel, said Friday that the terms of the settlement restricted his ability to comment on the case. However, publicly available pre-hearing filings made on behalf of Lynch show that her defense would have focused on the legality of the search of her mother’s car; the behavior of the investigators who served Lynch with her notice of charge and conducted a “coercive interrogation” of the trainer on the same day; and the validity of the confirmatory tests for the altrenogest positive.  “At the hearing, Ms. Lynch will establish that the sanctions [HISA] seeks to impose on her must be set aside because they are the product of an incurably deficient process in which HISA repeatedly failed to abide by its own rules and applicable law,” a pre-trial document contended.  Documents posted by HIWU on the resolution of the case state that two evidentiary hearings were conducted on May 20 and July 16 of this year in front of the FTC judge. However, the parties reached “a full and complete settlement” of the charges after the July 16 hearing “but before closing arguments,” the documents said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.