Ever since news broke late last week that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ordered California stewards to disqualify Justify from the 2018 Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, readers have been asking us: does this mean he's no longer a Triple Crown winner?
The answer is no. Here's why.
In the fall of 2019, the New York Times reported that the 2018 Triple Crown winner had a positive test for scopolamine after the Santa Anita Derby in April 2018. Scopolamine is used to treat gastrointestinal illness in humans and is thought by some experts to behave as a bronchodilator. It's naturally found in jimson weed, and has been believed to contaminate hay, sometimes resulting in a positive test.
According to the Times, trainer Bob Baffert was informed of the positive test prior to Justify's trip to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, and exercised his right to a split sample test at that time. In August, the California Horse Racing Board – which did not issue a complaint or schedule a public hearing – voted unanimously and privately in executive session not to proceed with the case.
It's true that Justify's win in the Santa Anita Derby earned him enough qualifying points to run in the 2018 Kentucky Derby, which he won. There are no such qualifying requirements in place for the Preakness or the Belmont.
After stewards declare a race official, state racing officials do not have the power to disqualify a horse from his or her placing unless a post-race drug test from that race reveals a substance that goes against regulations. Kentucky regulators could not disqualify Justify after the fact from the Kentucky Derby because he did not have any post-race testing issues there.
Further, Kentucky regulators don't write the conditions of the race that require qualifying points for participation – that is left to Churchill Downs.
In the years since 2018, Churchill put a new rule in place regarding medication violations with respect to Derby hopefuls.
“If the connections of a horse have been notified by a regulatory body about a medication violation from participation in a Road to the Kentucky Derby or Road to the Kentucky Oaks race, and that violation would result in disqualification, any accrued points from the race will be revoked until the matter reaches a legal conclusion,” reads a current section from the Kentucky Derby's website. “Accrued points will be reinstated if the matter is legally overturned prior to the running of the Kentucky Derby or Kentucky Oaks.”
That policy was put in place since the Justify case, however – in all likelihood because of it – and cannot retroactively apply.
Would Justify still have held the Triple Crown title if the stewards had disqualified him from the Santa Anita Derby in a timely manner in 2018?
Probably.
Even if the stewards had decided to disqualify the horse based on the scopolamine positive, they wouldn't have been able to act until the split sample testing came back. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Baffert didn't get the results of the split sample test until May 8, three days after Justify won the Kentucky Derby. There is commonly a delay of weeks or even months between split sample results and a regular hearing (which did not happen in this case). Even if the hearing had been scheduled May 9, 2018, and the horse was disqualified from the Santa Anita Derby, the Preakness and Belmont don't have the same points requirements for entry, so he would have presumably entered and won those races regardless.
With no mechanism for his Kentucky Derby victory to be voided in 2018, he still would have been the winner of all three races.
What about the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority – could this have happened under the current HISA system?
HISA wasn't in effect in 2018, and has no ability to act retroactively on cases that took place before the organization's creation. Under the new national rules, however, scopolamine falls into a category of substances considered “atypical findings” rather than “positives” for controlled or banned substances. With atypical findings, the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit launches an investigation and tries to learn what it can about the source of the substance. If HIWU determines the substance was not administered to the horse intentionally and was probably the result of contamination, it will drop the matter.
It's difficult to say whether HIWU would have dismissed this case, but Justify's stablemate Hoppertunity also came up with a scopolamine positive around the same time. Baffert's hay supplier later produced hay samples that contained jimson weed, though it's unknown whether there was jimson weed in a shipment that went to Baffert. It's possible that under HISA/HIWU, the case would have had no impact on the horse's finish in the Santa Anita Derby, and may not have been publicly disclosed as a positive.
The post No, Justify Isn’t Going To Lose His Triple Crown Title; Here’s Why appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
