Bob Baffert’s Lawyer Says Latest Drug Test Clears Trainer and Kentucky Derby Winner
The lawyer for Bob Baffert said results from a drug test on 2021 Kentucky Derby victor Al Madinah Spirit demo that the gymnastic horse was not injected with a variant of betamethasone prohibited below the state’s racing rules.
Craig Oscar Robertson issued a financial statement tardily Fri eve saying results of a dose test ordered past a Bluegrass State justice turn out the corticosteroid entered the horse’s system of rules through and through the use of a topical ointment. He added that the colt’s vet ordered its use.
“In other words, it has at present been scientifically proven that what Bob Baffert said from the offset was confessedly – Medina Spirit was never injected with betamethasone and the findings following the Bluegrass State Derby were solely the outcome of the horse beingness treated for a tegument status by way of life of a topical ointment,” Oscar Robertson said.
Seven months ago, Baffert shocked the sports reality when he proclaimed a hebdomad after Al Madinah Spirit gave him his record book seventh Bluegrass State Derby win that the horse well-tried positive for betamethasone. During that initial printing press conference, he said the Equus caballus had ne'er been treated with the substance, but he came come out with another statement II days later telling the vet’s utilize of a topical ointment that contained the do drugs to care for a skin stipulation first off discovered a month before the Derby.
Extra Tests Resulted from Lawsuit
The failed do drugs examine has set Medina Spirit’s Derby win in jeopardy as he faces disqualification. That would also lede to Baffert facing punishment, including a opening of temporary removal by the Bluegrass State Horse Racing Commission.
After the stock split sample also found the anti-inflammatory drug, Baffert and Medina Spirit’s proprietor filed a suit inward June against the KHRC requesting additional testing of the stock split pee sample taken from the horse after the Derby.
In that case, John Hope Franklin Circuit Judge doubting Thomas Wingate ordered Baffert and Zedan Racing Stables to acquire 20 milliliters of the split up sample, which was to follow used at a laboratory of their choosing, to mold if the substance was betamethasone valerate, the constitute of the do drugs used inwards the ointment. The direction received fivesome milliliters positive whatever was leftover.
Baffert and Zedan Racing selected a laboratory run past Dr. George Maylin that conducts tests for the New York State Gaming Commission’s Equine Drug Testing Program.
Is Injection Only Against the Rules?
The usage of drugs in horse racing has been highly criticized for years past fauna welfare advocates, and as 37 horses died in races and during preparation sessions at Santa Anita Mungo Park from December 2018 to November 2019, racing operators and regulators took additional steps to curtail dose usage.
In Apr 2020, the KHRC unveiled new guidelines for 2-year-olds racing that yr and for horses inwards all stakes races – like the Bluegrass State Derby – kickoff in 2021. Those rules included a two-week “stand mastered period” for any intra-articular shot of betamethasone.
The threshold for the do drugs is 10 picograms per ml of blood. Both the initial trial and the 1st run of the split taste found more than two-fold that limit.
Robertson and Clark Brewster, a lawyer for Zedan Racing, dot to that linguistic communication as glade Baffert and the horse.
“Now in that respect is cypher incertitude that the 14-day regulation some thought mightiness hold been violated past the earliest less specific testing is revealed as untimely judgment,” Brewster said inwards a statement. “That groundless charge is without scientific merit.”
Robertson said that his client has been the target of “an unfair cannonball along to judgment” and that the psychometric test results should uphold Medina Spirit’s victory.
We asked all along 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 come apart any rules of racing, and Al Madinah Spirit’s triumph was due solely to the heart and power of the Equus caballus and nothing else, it is clip for all members of racing to come together for the unspoiled of the sport.”
It may not needfully be that emasculated and dry, though. The same KHRC guidelines earmark for the utilization of topical products as ointments. Those canful live applied to “up to the scheduled paddock time,” which is just transactions before a race. However, the topical practical application cannot “contain steroids, anesthetics, or any other prohibited substances.”
KHRC Executive Director told the Thoroughbred Daily News on Fri that the charge cannot remark on ongoing inquiries.
Baffert Still Suspended past Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill Downs
Baffert has been punished at least 20 times in his career past racing boards, according to ThoroughbredRulings.com. That includes a disqualification of Gamine, who ruined thirdly in the 2020 Kentucky Oaks. Baffert was fined $1,500, and the filly was disqualified from her third-place goal with her owners forfeiting their part of the prize money from ane of the top of the inning races in the country for 3-year-old fillies.
After Al Madinah Spirit’s dose test, John Churchill Downs Incorporated suspended Baffert for II years from its tracks. In doing so, Duke of Marlborough officials also prohibited any Baffert-trained 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 in last month’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar Racetrack.
The New York Racing Association, which operates trine tracks inwards that state, also looked to take activeness against Baffert after the failed test. However, the trainer won an enjoinment in federal court inwards July that plugged an straightaway suspension.
That caseful continues as a federal try in New York allowed NYRA to contain its own auditory modality against Baffert in the matter – a stone's throw NYRA did non use up before one-sidedly issuing the suspension.
On Nov. 19, Baffert’s attorney filed an amended complaint inwards the case, noting that any suspension imposed past NYRA is essentially a temporary removal from racing inwards New House of York since the organisation is the only if entity allowed to run pureblood tracks inwards the state.
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