Baffert, Zedan File Motion to Stay KHRC Ruling

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and Amr Zedan's Zedan Racing Stable asked a Kentucky circuit court Feb. 28 to grant a temporary injunction to stay a recent ruling by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission that gave the trainer a 90-day suspension and fined him $7,500.

The flurry of court filings in Franklin Circuit Court not only look for a stay of the penalties associated with a betamethasone positive test in Medina Spirit , who crossed the wire first in last year's Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), but also asks to allow Baffert and Zedan to amend their complaint against the racing commission. In its ruling, the KHRC also disqualified Medina Spirit and made Mandaloun  the official winner of the Derby.

The trainer and owner previously sued the commission for the right to have additional testing done on the horse's urine sample to prove the colt was not injected with the corticosteroid but rather tested positive because of a topical ointment used to treat a skin rash. Judge Thomas Wingate granted the additional testing that was overseen by Dr. George Maylin, director of New York Equine Drug Testing & Research Laboratory.

"Those supplemental test results confirmed Plaintiffs' contention—the betamethasone in Medina Spirit came from a topical ointment and not from the injectable form of betamethasone," states a memorandum requesting time to file an amended complaint. "Again, this is critical because the KHRC regulations only prohibit the injectable form of betamethasone if administered within 14 days of a race.

"Nevertheless, the KHRC Stewards, with no explanation, rejected the scientific evidence and issued ruling numbers 21-009 and 21-0010, which disqualified Medina Spirit as the winner of the Kentucky Derby and imposed a 90-day suspension and $7,500 fine on Baffert," the memorandum continued.

Baffert asked the KHRC last week for a stay from the penalties while he appealed its decision but that request was denied, which the Feb. 28 memorandum characterized as "an extremely unusual step" and one that defied KHRC's "standard procedure" when someone who has been sanctioned is seeking an appeal.

"Thus, Plaintiffs are forced to seek leave to amend to reflect these new factual developments and to add additional counts (1) appealing the KHRC's denial of Plaintiffs ' request for a stay pursuant to KRS 230.320 and (2) seeking a temporary injunction barring the KHRC from enforcing the Stewards' proposed penalties," the memorandum states.

In Kentucky, betamethasone is a penalty Class C substance, a level considered to have "a lesser potential to influence performance" compared with the performance-enhancing effects of drugs in Class A or B. The penalties assigned by the stewards are in line with Kentucky's recommended sanctions for such a finding.

Those recommendations call for the horse owner to be penalized through a disqualification of the horse and loss of purse money. As for the sanctions of Baffert, they are in line with a Class C finding but appear to have included the trainer's four failed drug tests in the 12 months leading up to the Derby as mitigating circumstances. Penalties recommended for Class C for three or more offenses call for a suspension of 30-60 days and a $2,500-$5,000 fine absent mitigating circumstances.

While Baffert's legal team has argued for a distinction between betamethasone acetate, which is found in the injectable drug, and betamethasone valerate, which is found in the ointment Otomax, with which Medina Spirit was treated, the KHRC has indicated state regulation does not make such a distinction.

In June during a court hearing in Kentucky before the urine sample was sent to New York, Jennifer Wolsing, general counsel for the KHRC, said the betamethasone prohibition is "not differentiated" between creams and injections in the regulator's list of prohibited substances.

At that time of the hearing regarding additional testing on the urine sample, Wingate also questioned whether the different types of betamethasone would matter, recalling what he viewed as a similar case that proceeded through his court and the legal system where sanctions were ultimately upheld.

The hearing on the motion for a temporary injunction will be scheduled "as soon as counsel may be heard," according to court documents.