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Horseplayers Sue Baffert, Zedan Racing Over Medina Spirit Drug Test

Four horseplayers have filed a class-action lawsuit against trainer Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit's owner, Zedan Racing, over the results of the May 1 Kentucky Derby in which Medina Spirit finished first but now is in jeopardy of being disqualified after Baffert revealed the horse failed a post-race drug test.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by 2012 National Horseplayers Championship winner Michael Beychok of Louisiana; Justin Wunderler of New Jersey (known on Twitter as frequent Baffert critic @SwiftHitter); Michael Meegan of New York; and Keith Mauer of California. They allege they were denied winning bets on the Kentucky Derby in amounts ranging from $100 to as much as $100,000 because of Baffert's “multiple and repeated acts of doping and entering horses into Thoroughbred races, including the Kentucky Derby” that the complaint said constitutes “racketeering activity” under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and laws of the state of California, where Baffert and his stable are based.

Their bets were placed on Mandaloun and other horses in various wagering pools, but were deemed losers when Medina Spirit crossed the wire first and was declared the “official” winner. Eight days after the Derby, Baffert revealed that the 3-year-old Protonico colt tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone and Churchill Downs issued a statement immediately suspending Baffert from racing at the Louisville, Ky., track while the matter is being investigated. While only stewards representing the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission may disqualify horses, the track's statement said Medina Spirit would be disqualified from his Derby win if a split sample confirms the presence of the drug.

The suit was also filed on behalf of “all others similarly situated,” more specifically, “All Kentucky Derby bettors who would have won their bets and winnings had Medina Spirit been properly prohibited from competing in the Kentucky Derby…or competed without the aid of an illegal drug.”

Betamethasone is a legal therapeutic medication used to treat various maladies in horses but its presence is not permitted at any level in post-race drug tests. Baffert first claimed the horse or test sample were contaminated with betamethasone and days later said the positive test may have been caused by a prescription ointment, Otomax, that includes betamethasone as an active ingredient. Baffert said the ointment was used to treat dermatitis after Medina Spirit raced in the Santa Anita Derby on April 3.

In addition to allegations that Baffert violated the federal RICO Act through an enterprise with Zedan Racing “engaged in activities affecting interstate commerce,” the plaintiffs also claim they and the class members were defrauded by a “misrepresentation” by Baffert in November 2020 after a series of medication violations that he was retaining Dr. Michael Hore to “ensure rule compliance” for his stable. A news report earlier this week claims that did not happen.

The plaintiffs are asking the suit to be certified by the court as a class action case and seeking damages that include monetary relief for attorney fees and other expenses, injunctive relief “enjoining the Baffert defendants from engaging in any further racketeering acts,” Imposition of “reasonable restrictions” on Baffert's future activities in Thoroughbred racing, payment to the plaintiffs and class members for money they would have won “but for the illegal doping of Medina Spirit,” plus treble and punitive damages.

Craig Robertson, attorney for Baffert, said the lawsuit was “completely frivolous and without legal merit.”

Read the complaint here

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The Friday Show Presented By Uptowncharlybrown Stud: The Lowdown On Betamethasone

Dr. Kate Papp is an equine veterinarian in Pennsylvania who, in 2012, told a Congressional hearing that “the overuse and abuse of medication is rampant at our Thoroughbred racetracks and training centers.”

Her testimony was prescient. One year later, the FBI arrested a number of trainers, veterinarians and racing officials in a federal probe into doping and corruption at Penn National race course in Grantville, Pa.

Dr. Papp, who operates Hillcrest Meadow Equine and devotes considerable time and resources to the paracehorse.org rehoming, rehabilitation and rescue aftercare program, joins Paulick Report publisher Ray Paulick and editor-in-chief Natalie Voss to discuss the topic of the week – betamethasone, the drug found in the post-race sample of Medina Spirit after his first-place finish in the May 1 Kentucky Derby.

Bloodstock editor Joe Nevills drops by for his weekly Toast to Vino Rosso, a look at one of the first-crop foals by Spendthrift Farm's Breeders' Cup Classic-winning son of Curlin.

Watch this week's show, presented by Uptowncharlybrown Stud, below:

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THA’s Alan Foreman Joins All-Baffert Controversy Writers’ Room

Normally, the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland aims to touch on a wide variety of industry issues every week. But there was only one story worth discussing this week, so the writers broke down every angle of the explosive controversy surrounding Bob Baffert and the failed drug test of GI Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit. They also welcomed Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association Chairman and CEO and prominent industry lawyer Alan Foreman as the Green Group Guest of the Week to talk about what happens now for Baffert from a legal standpoint.

“I think it's important for people to understand that there are two layers here,” Foreman said about the fallout of this week. “This is a state regulatory matter and the regulation is done by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. What Churchill Downs did [banning Baffert from the entry box] was more of a public relations stand to protect the Kentucky Derby brand that they covet. Tracks have the common law right to exclude anyone they want, but when you're dealing with licensees, it isn't as broadly based as you would think it is. There's quite a body of law with respect to the exclusion of licensees and what should be appropriate circumstances. The question here legally would be if Bob Baffert and his team wanted to challenge it, whether Churchill Downs really has the right to do so under the circumstances. This is a routine medication violation. If they're going to ban Bob Baffert, do you ban every horseman who has some medication violation?”

Asked about the frequent public appearances by Baffert to talk about a situation that's still being litigated, particularly his revelation Tuesday that Medina Spirit was treated with a cream that contained betamethasone, Foreman said, “I don't know what their strategy is. I don't know if this is what Bob wanted to do or if he was under advice to do it. The information that came out [Tuesday] changes the whole landscape. The first thing that you do if you're a trainer and you're notified of a positive test, is ask your personnel and veterinarian, do we have betamethasone in the barn? You would know that fairly quickly, you wouldn't know it 48 to 96 hours after the fact. You certainly wouldn't go on television and say, 'I don't use the stuff. We don't have it in the barn. I don't know how it got there. It's everybody else's fault.' That's basic stuff. So the strategy makes no sense to me and I certainly wouldn't counsel my clients that way.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, the Minnesota Racehorse Engagement Project and new sponsor Legacy Bloodstock, the writers called out the decisions and behavior that led to the embarrassment this past week has brought racing, debated what can be done now and reacted to the decision to allow Medina Spirit's entry in the Preakness. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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About That Connection Between SGF-1000 And Dexamethasone

When news broke last weekend that Medina Spirit had tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone, Paulick Report staff received several questions from readers asking about a phone conversation intercepted by federal agents. Court documents from the federal indictments of March 2020 recalled a conversation between trainer Jason Servis and veterinarian Dr. Kristian Rhein in which they were discussing a substance called SGF-1000, which prosecutors say was one of the misbranded or adulterated drugs at the heart of the case. Rhein told Servis that the substance could sometimes create a false positive for “dex,” widely believed to refer to dexamethasone, and Servis asked Rhein to alter his veterinary records to make it appear as though horses had been treated with dexamethasone in case of a positive test.

Read more about SGF-1000 in this Paulick Report feature.

Since both dexamethasone and betamethasone are corticosteroids, some readers wondered whether a positive test for betamethasone could actually be a guise for something more sinister.

According to Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director for the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the answer is no.

Scollay explained that the testing and confirmation process used in mass spectronomy makes it virtually impossible for one drug to be misidentified as another. She doesn't believe betamethasone is a false positive result, nor that SGF-1000 could actually have shown up as dexamethasone in post-race tests. (No one ever said the indicted individuals were always accurate in their intercepted conversations.)

Mass spectronomy works by identifying foreign molecules inside blood or urine and weighing them as part of a process called screening analysis. Those molecular weights are then checked against the lab's drug catalogue. The catalogue contains the molecular weights of known substances and is developed through rigorous testing of known drugs. If a molecular weight matches something in the catalogue, that's an initial finding.

Before the lab can actually call the test a positive for the substance though, it goes through a second process called confirmatory analysis. It's possible two substances could have the same weight but be made up of different components, so the lab must find out if their compositions are the same. In this process, the molecules of the substance are bombarded with energy until they split apart, and the ratios of the resulting pieces are measured against the catalogued substance.

“Each specific molecule has its own way of fragmenting,” said Scollay. “It's like a Hershey bar – it's scored in a certain way, it's going to break the same way every time if you apply force at certain points. When you go to identify the molecule, you look at the candidate ions, the ions that result from fragmenting it, and also the ratio of those ions to each other. They should be present in very specific proportions. If they're not, or if the candidate ions are not present, or even one of them is missing, you have not identified the substance.

“I would argue that if you identify the candidate ions in the right ratio, you've identified betamethasone.”

By the time a lab calls a positive using this testing method, it's justifiably confident that the substance at play has been correctly identified.

So what of the SGF-1000/dex connection?

“Maybe dexamethasone was in the SGF-1000, and that's why they said it would show as dexamethasone, but if a molecule has the same exact molecular weight as dexamethasone and you apply energy to it and it fragments, and the fragmented parts are the ions you would get from dexamethasone in the relative concentrations, I'm going to say you've identified dexamethasone,” she said.

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