Bob Baffert’s Lawyer Says Latest Drug Test Clears Trainer and Kentucky Derby Winner

The attorney for Bob Baffert said results from a do drugs test on 2021 Bluegrass State Derby victor Al Madinah Spirit show that the horse was non injected with a variation of betamethasone, prohibited under the state’s racing rules.

Craig Oscar Robertson issued a statement late Friday evening locution results of a dose test ordered by a KY jurist shew the corticosteroid entered the horse’s system of rules through and through the apply of a topical ointment. He added that the colt’s veterinarian ordered its use.

In other words, it has at present been scientifically proven that what Bob Baffert said from the outset was confessedly – Medina Spirit was never injected with betamethasone, and the findings following the Kentucky Derby were solely the ensue of the gymnastic horse beingness treated for a skin experimental condition by right smart of a topical ointment,” Robertson said.

Seven months ago, Baffert shocked the sports world. That’s when he proclaimed a hebdomad after Medina Spirit gave him his register 7th Bluegrass State Derby win that the horse tried positive for betamethasone. During that initial push conference, he said the gymnastic horse had never been treated with the substance. But he came out with another financial statement deuce years later revealing the vet’s utilisation of a topical unction that contained the dose to handle a tegument stipulation number 1 discovered a month before the Derby.

Extra Tests Resulted from Lawsuit

The failed do drugs mental test has lay Al Madinah Spirit’s Derby win inwards jeopardy, as he faces disqualification. That would also leading to Baffert cladding punishment, including the opening of temporary removal past the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

After the split sample also found the anti-inflammatory drug drug, Baffert and Al Madinah Spirit’s owner filed a cause inward June against the KHRC. They requested additional testing of the stock split water try taken from the gymnastic horse after the Derby.

In that case, John Hope Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas the doubting Apostle Wingate ordered Baffert and Zedan Racing Stables to receive 20 milliliters of the split up sample, which was to live used at a lab of their choosing, to find out if the substance was betamethasone valerate, the var. of the dose used inwards the ointment. The commissioning received pentad milliliters positive whatever was leftover.

Baffert and Zedan Racing selected a laboratory course by Dr. George I Maylin that conducts tests for the New House of York State Gaming Commission’s Equine Drug Testing Program.

Is Injection Only Against the Rules?

The apply of drugs inwards Equus caballus racing has been extremely criticized for years past brute welfare advocates. Racing operators and regulators took additional steps to slim down drug usage. That’s after as 37 horses died in races and during training sessions at Santa Anita Mungo Park from December 2018 to Nov 2019, racing operators and regulators took additional steps to curb drug usage.

In Apr 2020, the KHRC unveiled new guidelines for 2-year-olds racing that yr and for horses inwards all stakes races – ilk the Kentucky Derby – get-go in 2021. Those rules included a two-week “stand shoot down period” for any intra-articular shot of betamethasone.

The threshold for the drug is 10 picograms per millilitre of blood. Both the initial run and the foremost try out of the split up taste found more than look-alike that limit.

Robertson and William Clark Brewster, a lawyer for Zedan Racing, gunpoint to that speech as clearing Baffert and the horse.

“Now thither is cipher uncertainty that the 14-day find some thought mightiness get been violated by the earlier less specific testing is revealed as premature judgment,” Brewster said inward a statement. “That groundless charge is without scientific merit.”

Robertson said that his client has been the target of “an unfair bucket along to judgment” and that the try results should maintain Medina Spirit’s victory.

We asked all along that everyone wait until the facts and science came to light,” he said. “Now that it has been scientifically proven that Mr. Baffert was truthful, did non gaolbreak any rules of racing, and Medina Spirit’s victory was due solely to the spirit and ability of the Equus caballus and zilch else, it is time for all members of racing to follow together for the good of the sport.”

It may non needfully be that skip and dry, though. The same KHRC guidelines set aside for the enjoyment of topical products as ointments. Those tin live applied to “up to the scheduled paddock time,” which is simply minutes before a race. However, the topical application program cannot “contain steroids, anesthetics, or any other prohibited substances.”

KHRC Executive Director told the Thoroughbred Daily News on Friday that the direction cannot point out on ongoing inquiries.

Baffert Still Suspended past Winston S. Churchill Downs

Baffert has been punished at to the lowest degree 20 times inward his life history by racing boards, according to ThoroughbredRulings.com. That includes a disqualification of Gamine, who finished thirdly in the 2020 Bluegrass State Oaks. Baffert was fined $1,500, and the filly was disqualified from her third-place finish. Her owners forfeited their portion out of the prize money from ace of the teetotum races inwards the land for 3-year-old fillies.

After Al Madinah Spirit’s dose test, First Duke of Marlborough Downs Incorporated suspended Baffert for ii years from its tracks. In doing so, John Churchill officials also banned any Baffert-trained gymnastic horse from qualifying for the KY Derby and Oaks during that suspension. That meant Baffert’s 2-year-old, Corniche, did non garner any qualifying points for his win inwards shoemaker's last month’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar Racetrack.

The New House of York Racing Association, which operates terzetto tracks inwards that state, also looked to read activeness against Baffert after the failed test. However, the trainer won an enjoinment inwards federal court in July that out of use(p) an straightaway suspension.

That typesetter's case continues, as a federal justice inwards New York allowed NYRA to give its possess hearing against Baffert inward the matter – a stone's throw NYRA did not read before unilaterally issuing the suspension.

On Nov. 19, Baffert’s attorney filed an amended complaint inward the case, noting that any reprieve imposed by NYRA is essentially a hiatus from racing in New York. That’s since the organization is the only if entity allowed to run purebred tracks inward the state.