Report: Baffert’s Lidocaine Findings Not Likely A Sign Of An Effort To Mask Injury

Now that the results of split sample tests are back on Bob Baffert trainees Charlatan and Gamine, both of whom won races at Oaklawn Park in early May, Baffert's attorney has confirmed the positive tests were for lidocaine. Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director and COO of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, told The Blood-Horse this week that it seems unlikely a trainer would use lidocaine intentionally to mask a lame horse before a race.

Lidocaine has a number of accepted therapeutic uses — as a topical numbing agent, it can be deployed before a veterinarian puts in stitches to a wound, or can be helpful to relieve pain or swelling from a bug bite or other skin issue in a spot that's hard to bandage. It can also be injected as a temporary nerve block as part of a standard lameness exam. In order to isolate the source of a lameness, veterinarians will carefully apply short-acting nerve blocks to work out, by process of elimination, which structures are responsible for a horse's gait abnormality and then target their diagnostic imaging from there.

It seemed unlikely to Scollay that someone would numb a horse with lidocaine before a race to mask a problem or gain a competitive advantage because it's well-known as a substance easily detected in drug tests.

Still, Scollay told writer Eric Mitchell, she's of the opinion that horses should be disqualified in the case of medication violations, because not doing so unfairly disadvantages the horse that finished second with no medication overages. In the case of Charlatan and Gamine, Arkansas guidelines would allow for disqualification and reallocation of purse money if the commission determines a violation occurred.

Baffert's attorney told media Monday the overages were the result of a pain patch a member of Baffert's staff was using to relieve back pain, and that he intends to defend the cases before the commission.