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

The lawyer for Bob Baffert said results from a dose test on 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Al Madinah Spirit present that the Equus caballus was non injected with a version of betamethasone, prohibited under the state’s racing rules.

Craig Robertson issued a financial statement tardily Fri even saying results of a do drugs examine ordered by a Bluegrass State justice shew the adrenal cortical steroid entered the horse’s system through and through the utilise of a topical ointment. He added that the colt’s veterinary ordered its use.

In other words, it has at present been scientifically proven that what Bob Baffert said from the commencement was true – Medina Spirit was ne'er injected with betamethasone, and the findings following the Bluegrass State Derby were solely the ensue of the gymnastic horse being treated for a scrape experimental condition past path of a topical ointment,” Oscar Palmer Robertson said.

Seven months ago, Baffert shocked the sports world. That’s when he proclaimed a hebdomad after Medina Spirit gave him his tape seventh Bluegrass State Derby win that the horse time-tested positive for betamethasone. During that initial public press conference, he said the gymnastic horse had never been treated with the substance. But he came out with another financial statement II days later telling the vet’s exercise of a topical unguent that contained the drug to treat a skin status world-class discovered a month before the Derby.

Extra Tests Resulted from Lawsuit

The failed do drugs run has place Al Madinah Spirit’s Derby win in jeopardy, as he faces disqualification. That would also track to Baffert facing punishment, including the possibility of suspension system past the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

After the split up try out also found the anti-inflammatory drug, Baffert and Medina Spirit’s proprietor filed a cause inward June against the KHRC. They requested additional testing of the stock split piss taste taken from the Equus caballus after the Derby.

In that case, John Hope Franklin Circuit Judge Dylan Thomas Wingate ordered Baffert and Zedan Racing Stables to catch 20 milliliters of the stock split sample, which was to be used at a science laboratory of their choosing, to ascertain if the substance was betamethasone valerate, the spring of the dose used in the ointment. The charge received quint milliliters positive whatever was leftover.

Baffert and Zedan Racing selected a laboratory black market past Dr. St. George 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 utilisation of drugs in gymnastic horse racing has been highly criticized for years past animal welfare advocates. Racing operators and regulators took additional steps to trim dose usage. That’s after as 37 horses died inwards races and during training sessions at Santa Anita Mungo Park from Dec 2018 to Nov 2019, racing operators and regulators took additional steps to bound dose usage.

In April 2020, the KHRC unveiled unexampled guidelines for 2-year-olds racing that year and for horses inward all stakes races – ilk the Kentucky Derby – start in 2021. Those rules included a two-week “stand downwardly period” for any intra-articular injection of betamethasone.

The limen for the dose is 10 picograms per milliliter of blood. Both the initial try out and the for the first time mental test of the split up try found to a greater extent than duplicate that limit.

Robertson and Mark Wayne Clark Brewster, a attorney for Zedan Racing, pointedness to that language as clearing Baffert and the horse.

“Now in that location is zero in dubiety that the 14-day harness some thought mightiness make been violated past the earliest less specific testing is revealed as untimely judgment,” Brewster said inward a statement. “That groundless charge is without scientific merit.”

Robertson said that his client has been the target area of “an unjust rushing to judgment” and that the mental testing results should maintain Medina Spirit’s victory.

We asked all on that everyone waiting until the facts and science came to light,” he said. “Now that it has been scientifically proven that Mr. Baffert was truthful, did non erupt any rules of racing, and Medina Spirit’s triumph was due solely to the nerve and power of the gymnastic horse and nothing else, it is time for all members of racing to amount unitedly for the upright of the sport.”

It may non necessarily follow that cutting off and dry, though. The same KHRC guidelines tolerate for the utilisation of topical products as ointments. Those can be applied to “up to the scheduled paddock time,” which is just 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 charge cannot commentary on on-going inquiries.

Baffert Still Suspended past Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill Downs

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

After Medina Spirit’s drug test, First Duke of Marlborough Downs Incorporated suspended Baffert for deuce years from its tracks. In doing so, John Churchill officials also banned any Baffert-trained Equus caballus 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 inward shoemaker's last month’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar Racetrack.

The New House of York Racing Association, which operates triad tracks in that state, also looked to occupy activeness against Baffert after the failed test. However, the trainer won an injunction in federal court inward July that plugged an straightaway suspension.

That vitrine continues, as a federal jurist inwards New House of York allowed NYRA to hold its possess auditory sense against Baffert in the thing – a tread NYRA did non occupy before unilaterally issuing the suspension.

On Nov. 19, Baffert’s attorney filed an amended complaint in the case, noting that any suspension system imposed past NYRA is essentially a hiatus from racing in New York. That’s since the system is the only when entity allowed to control purebred tracks inward the state.