Ruis' Long Road in Court Headed for Hearing

Mick Ruis' legal campaign to set aside Justify  's win of the Santa Anita Derby (G1) remains alive, and the case is finally set for a dispositive hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

On Sept. 14, Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff set a final hearing date in the case seeking court intervention into what Ruis and his attorneys Carlo Fisco and Darrell Vienna say is the California Horse Racing Board's unlawful refusal to follow a regulation requiring Justify's disqualification for a drug overage.

The positive test for scopolamine, which at 300 nanograms per milliliter exceeded the 75 nanogram threshold for the drug under California rules, was first publicly reported by the New York Times 17 months after Justify defeated Bolt d'Oro  , owned and trained by Ruis, by three lengths in the 2018 Santa Anita Derby. Justify went on to win the Triple Crown under the care of trainer Bob Baffert.

The gist of the Times story was that CHRB swept the scopolamine overage under the rug when it voted in an August 2018 closed session not to take any action. Ruis filed suit in January 2020 after his request that CHRB hold a formal hearing was rejected. From there, the case has taken multiple twists and turns.

A settlement of the dispute was announced by Vienna six months after suit was filed whereby stewards would conduct a hearing, followed with a vote by CHRB. Some onlookers took the settlement to fully resolve claims against CHRB, but as things turned out this was far from the end of the matter.

CHRB rule 1859.5, which was in effect during the 2018 Santa Anita Derby, required disqualification of horses testing positive for Class 1, 2, or 3 prohibited substances, and scopolamine was listed among substances in Class 3. Effective on Jan. 1, 2019, after a long administrative process—the Association of Racing Commissioners International had changed its classification of scopolamine to Class 4 in 2016—California rule makers also downgraded scopolamine to a Class 4 substance. Disqualification is not automatic for Class 4 violations.

Pursuant to the settlement agreement, CHRB filed a complaint in August with stewards, who held a hearing the following October after connections of Justify were unsuccessful in asking a Los Angeles court to block the proceeding. Six weeks later, the stewards voted not to take down Justify and stablemate Hoppertunity  , who also registered a higher-than-allowed level of scopolamine after winning a race the day following the Santa Anita Derby.

During the stewards hearing, it was stipulated that the presence of scopolamine in the test samples was "due to environmental contamination (from jimson weed) and that the levels found in each of the tests would have no performance-enhancing effect on either horse" and that "five other horses had detectable levels of scopolamine in April/May 2018 and that no complaints have been filed in those cases." The stipulation does not mention, however, whether those five horses exceeded the allowable threshold.

After a discussion of the applicable scopolamine regulation in its written decision, the stewards appeared to boil down the controlling issue to this: "The question to be resolved by this board of stewards is whether, at the times of the races, scopolamine was a Class 3 or a Class 4 prohibited substance as classified by the CHRB."

That question was resolved against Justify and Hoppertunity. The stewards ruled scopolamine was, at the time of the 2018 Santa Anita Derby, a Class 3 drug.

They took it a step further and wrote, "It is the stewards opinion that had this board of stewards heard the Justify and Hoppertunity complaints prior to Aug. 23, 2018, both horses would have been disqualified."

But having won that battle, Ruis lost the war.

The stewards report continued, "It is also this board of stewards' belief that at the Aug. 23, 2018, CHRB meeting in Del Mar, Calif., the attending commissioners unanimously voted, in executive session, to accept the staff recommendation of (executive director Rick) Baedeker and Dr. (Rick) Arthur and formally declined to move forward with any charges in the Justify matter... Even if this panel were to disagree with the CHRB's decision to dismiss these matters or the way the CHRB handled the situation, it cannot be argued that the CHRB lacked the authority to do so. The law specifically allows such actions to take place and the CHRB followed the law."

In January 2021 CHRB sided with the stewards report. Justify's win was upheld. And that landed the matter back in court.

After several amendments to Ruis' original petition and unsuccessful attempts by CHRB to have the case dismissed, Beckloff ruled he will conduct a hearing on Ruis' complaint. It's scheduled to take place on March 22, 2023.

While several issues will be presented at the hearing, chief among them may be the court's interpretation of Business and Professions Code section 19577(d), which CHRB's general counsel cited to Vienna in 2019 after Ruis first questioned CHRB's 2018 decision to take no action, and upon which stewards also apparently relied.

The code sections says, "Any recommendation to the board by the executive director to dismiss the matter shall be by mutual agreement with the equine medical director. The authority for the disposition of the matter shall be the responsibility of the board."

Such a recommendation by the executive director occurred, and it was with the agreement of the equine medical director, so is that the end of the matter? CHRB says it is. The question raised by Ruis is whether those actions were lawful in light of the regulation calling for mandatory disqualification after a Class 3 drug overage. The decision now is with the courts.