Baffert-Medina Spirit stewards listening to receives no rapid choice
Trainer Bob Baffert took questions from his legal professionals and from stewards Monday in his bid to preserve the late Medina Spirit’s 2021 Kentucky Derby victory in the confront of a favourable drug test.
But immediately after a Zoom listening to that was claimed to have lasted about 3 several hours, the 3 stewards who will come to a decision whether to disqualify Medina Spirit more than 9 months just after his victory did not arrive at an fast conclusion.
Relevant: Here was what we understood just before the hearing.
In accordance
to one particular of Baffert’s attorneys, there was no indicator when a selection would be
coming.
“We
requested them that direct problem,” Kentucky dependent-law firm Craig Robertson instructed Horse
Racing Nation in a phone discussion Monday night. “They did not want
to put a time body on it.”
“All
went extremely very well,” texted Clark Brewster, Baffert’s other lawyer who flew back
and forth in between his Oklahoma house foundation and the conference based in Lexington,
Ky. “We gave them much to consider.”
A
spokeswoman for the Kentucky Horse Racing Fee, which executed the assembly,
did not return e-mails and telephone calls from Horse Racing Nation before
and afterward looking for information and facts about the hearing, which was held by using Zoom
and shut to the general public. Even nevertheless Baffert and his attorneys also have been in
Lexington, they ended up not allowed to be in the identical space as the stewards who
were being claimed to have cited COVID limitations.
A
spokeswoman for Churchill Downs Inc., which was represented by steward Tyler
Picklesimer, mentioned she did not have any information about the assembly, which was
known as to listen to group Baffert’s facet.
The
scenario centers on a post-Derby drug check very last May that discovered a trace amount of
betamethasone in Medina Spirit’s process.
“Bob
spoke, and Dr. Steven Barker testified as very well,” Robertson stated, referring to the
retired chemist who invested 29 decades as director of the Equine Treatment Surveillance
Laboratory at Louisiana Condition University.
Robertson
said Baffert and Barker just about every supplied about 20-25 minutes of testimony that integrated
issues from the 3 stewards listening to the circumstance.
“I
appreciated the engagement of the stewards and their time,” Robertson mentioned. “They
have been examining matters that we presented to them. They had been listening to the testimony.
They requested superior inquiries. All that is appreciated.”
Baffert,
who flew from California to be a part of Brewster in Kentucky, did not respond correct
absent to a texted concern following the hearing.
The
crux of Baffert’s argument is that Medina Spirit’s betamethasone favourable was
brought on not by an injection but by a topical ointment that was made use of to address a
skin condition. The medicine is authorized in Kentucky as very long as it is out of a
horse’s technique by race working day.
Baffert
and his attorneys have maintained that, simply because the corticosteroid was rubbed on the
colt rather than injected, it was authorized under state racing laws that they
say make a apparent distinction involving the two purposes.
“The
Kentucky rules and all other jurisdictions limit only betamethasone acetate
or sodium phosphate,” Brewster reported in a statement emailed to the media by a
spokeswoman Thursday night time. “These formulations are injectable alternatives into a
horse’s intra-articular joint. Medina Spirit was under no circumstances injected with
betamethasone, and the proof presented (Monday) proved that conclusively.”
Robertson
mentioned affidavit testimony also was furnished by Dr. George Maylin, director of
New York Equine Drug Tests and Study where Medina Spirit’s urine sample
was sent by the Baffert crew previous year for a next belief.
“Given
the points and the definitive, scientific conclusion of Dr. Maylin proving that
this was an ointment and not the injection, we proven that there was no
rule violation,” Robertson claimed.
In
its disagreement, CDI banned Baffert from racing his horses at its tracks for
two many years, retaining him out of the 2022 and 2023 runnings of the Kentucky Derby.
It also cited a betamethasone constructive for Gamine, a Baffert filly who was
disqualified from her third-spot finish in the 2020 Kentucky Oaks.
Robertson
stated the hearing did not require anybody representing the other facet.
“The
stewards just relied on the lab studies from the authentic screening,” he reported.
“That’s what we experienced to respond to. People lab experiences had been not formally
introduced by opposing counsel.”
With
a the vast majority vote, Picklesimer and KHRC stewards Barbara Borden and Butch Becraft
ultimately will make your mind up no matter if Medina Spirit keeps his Derby victory or is
disqualified to previous area. That would make runner-up Mandaloun the 2021 Derby
winner, though these kinds of a final result would arrive with a most likely charm by Baffert. That
would deliver the situation to an administrative legislation choose.
“I
don’t want to make a statement exactly where I’m generating some prediction about what I
feel they’re likely to do,” Robertson explained. “I guess I’ll say I am cautiously
optimistic.”
“We
are now remaining to believe in that the stewards will use the uncontroverted information to
the Kentucky racing guidelines as they are created,” Brewster stated in his statement,
later adding, “The false narrative concerning this situation was sprung early and
spread broadly by uninformed or malevolent accusers and distribute by careless
reporting. Upon an truthful and fair-minded critique, Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit
will be thoroughly exonerated.”
If
the stewards’ ruling lets Medina Spirit’s victory keep on being intact, Baffert is
expected to contact on Churchill Downs to rescind his Derby ban. If Medina Spirit
were being to be disqualified, Baffert would have 10 days to phone on the KHRC to have
the situation listened to by an administrative law decide.
Medina
Spirit died Dec. 6, seven months soon after the Derby, immediately after collapsing at the end
of a 5-furlong workout at Santa Anita. A necropsy unveiled no evident result in
of dying, the California Horse Racing Board announced Friday.
Coincidence
or not, the KHRC has a on a regular basis scheduled assembly Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. EST.