2019 Derby May Be Official After Appeals Court Ruling
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Photo: Skip Dickstein/Tim Lanahan
Maximum Security (pink silks) reached the wire first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby but was disqualified for interference
More than 15 months after the 2019 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), the race outcome, in which Country House was placed first after first-to-the-wire Maximum Security was disqualified for interference, may finally be official.
On Aug. 28—just eight days before this year's delayed Derby—a United States Court of Appeals backed a lower federal court's November 2019 decision to not consider a lawsuit brought by Maximum Security's owners Gary and Mary West that aimed to overturn the stewards' decision.
After the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Lexington dismissed the Wests' case for failure to state a claim, the Wests appealed that court's decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati—asking the appeals court to send the case back to district court to be heard.
On Friday the appeals court ruled that the district court acted properly in dismissing the case.
"What should have been the fastest two minutes in sports turned into over a year of litigation," the appeals court wrote in its 14-page decision. "Neither Kentucky law nor the Fourteenth Amendment allows for judicial second-guessing of the stewards' call. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court in full."
This story will be updated.