Via Bill Finley
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) denied coach Bob Baffert’s request for a 90-day suspension made to him earlier this week for testing positive for Medina Spirit (Protonico) betamethasone during the Derby. GI Kentucky in 2021. KHRC also rejected the decision to knock Medina Spirit out of first place in last year’s GI Kentucky Derby.
The Louisville Courier Magazine and Daily race form was one of the first to report the story. In most cases, after a coach or owner has appealed the racing committee’s decision, suspensions are a formality and they remain in place throughout the appeals process. Craig Robertson, one of two attorneys who worked on the Medina Spirit case for Baffert and owner Amr Zedan, told Courier Magazine that denying a request to stay is “unprecedented in my experience.”
KHRC’s decision will force Baffert’s legal team to go to the courts to attempt to obtain a temporary restraining order that could force KHRC to suspend the suspension.
“The denial of stay is consistent with the arbitrary and capricious manner in which management has ignored facts and law in this way,” said Baffert’s other attorney, Clark Brewster. “Fortunately, we will soon eclipse the procedural and biased actors of rule of law rather than human arbitrators.”
According to DRF, a letter signed by Marc Guilfoil, KHRC’s chief executive officer, was sent to Brewster and Robertson, in which Guilfoil wrote: “I have found no good reason to allow the stay.” Guilfoil also writes: “Your customer has the right to petition for a review of this decision.”
Currently, Baffert is on a suspension that prevents him from entering any horses in the Derby or any other race at the tracks owned by Churchill Downs and Churchill Downs. His status at the NYRA racetracks remained in place as the NYRA has allowed Baffert to testify, which may have set the stage for it to also suspend him. A decision in the NYRA matter has yet to be announced.
But the Churchill ban and the potential NYRA ban are not mutually exclusive and need not be recognized by other racecourses. Before he was suspended by KHRC, nothing stood in the way of Baffert playing at GI Preakness S. or in games against Derby at Oaklawn Park, Santa Anita and elsewhere.
But if his lawyers can’t ask the court to go against the KHRC’s decision, then Baffert’s stables will have to close completely, with the moratorium set to begin March 8.
There is little doubt that KHRC is determined to play hard against Baffert. Although it took nine months to hold a hearing on the matter, once the wheel was up and running, Baffert was quickly suspended and given 90 days instead of a lighter penalty. KHRC based a 90-day suspension on Baffert for having committed four drug offenses in a 365-day period. In making their decision, managers representing the KHRC rejected Baffert’s argument that betamethasone entered the horse’s system through an ointment, which, they said, did not break the rules. The refusal to stay is the latest sign that the KHRC will not back down.
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This story was posted in Top News and tagged Amr Zedan, Betamethasone, Bob Baffert, Churchill Downs, Clark Brewster, Craig Robertson, Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, KHRC, Medina Spirit, NYRA, Suspensions.
