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Irwin: Medina Spirit Positive Test A Shot Heard ‘Round The World

What's the deal with Bob Baffert and his rash of positives over the past year or so, during which time he has run afoul of the rules on five occasions?

Is Bob just unlucky? Is he running a sloppy shop? Are his vets dropping the ball on his behalf? Are the racetracks, racing regulators or racing associations somehow out to get him? Is he a victim of some sort of foul play?

Or, as the subject himself said after he announced over the weekend that his Kentucky Derby winner has tested positive for betamethasone (now where have we heard the name of that drug before, hmmm?), “…there's definitely something wrong. Why is it happening to me?”

Although lacking first-hand knowledge, experienced horsemen and vets with whom I have spoken ever since the betamethasone overage was revealed, to a man believe that the positive finding is a result of Baffert's Derby winner being injected in a joint (ankle or hock) too close to Kentucky Derby Day.

The vets' conjecture is that Baffert took a chance that the unpredictable and unreliable nature of the drug used would not rear its ugly head before the race and hopefully go undetected in the post-race analysis. They say that even if the withdrawal time is closely adhered to and even if a few extra days are tacked on, betamethasone reacts differently in every horse based on the make-up of its bodily systems. In other words, the recommended withdrawal times are best guesses and not carved in stone.

So, these vets believe, Baffert may have just taken a shot.

Or Baffert, in his arrogance, may have figured that even if a trace showed up it just might be ignored, because after all it was the Derby, and popular myth says that anything goes in the Derby.

Arrogance in the case of Baffert is completely understandable. Why wouldn't he be arrogant? He keeps getting in trouble and he keeps escaping unscathed. When this happens time after time after time after time, the escapee tends to become a bit unwary of possible pitfalls that might stand in his way. He becomes emboldened.

Within days after Baffert had basically skated from his two lidocaine positives in Arkansas, an emboldened Baffert (opined the experts) may have had betamethasone injected into a joint of Medina Spirit.

If Baffert, or Baffert at his direction to his vet, did in fact order the injection, he took a risk not just for himself and the horse's owner, but this time for the well being of the entire Thoroughbred industry. Now that would be total arrogance, because today there is not a major news outlet that did not cover Baffert's Derby positive in the shot heard 'round the world.

The arrogance required for such an act can come from one who feels that the rules do not apply to him.

Seemingly forever in Thoroughbred racing the phrase “nobody is bigger than the game” has been axiomatic. Well, I humbly submit to the readers that Baffert not only thinks he is bigger than the game, the ruling in Arkansas more of less proved it to be true.

Now, all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, Churchill Downs racetrack—an outfit known forever as an entity that would do and say anything to protect the sanctity and history of The Derby — has stepped up and closed its entry box to Bob Baffert until the current mess can be straightened out.

As excited as I am about the impending seating of the board and standing committees of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority in advance of getting it up and running next summer, this advent of Churchill Downs taking responsibility in the aftermath of the Derby positive is just as riveting and exciting. I for one look forward to following the Baffert positive in the days, weeks, months and, likely, years to come, as Baffert will no doubt once again fail to take responsibility for his own actions and place the entire industry in peril.

Barry Irwin is the founder and CEO of Team Valor International

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Report: Why Regulators Test For Picograms Of Betamethasone

On Sunday morning, trainer Bob Baffert shocked the racing world with his announcement that Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit's post-race test had returned a positive result for 21 picograms of betamethasone. During his press conference, Baffert went on to say that Medina Spirit has never been administered betamethasone.

During the ensuing social media storm, questions have arisen about what exactly betamethasone is, the legitimacy of testing for substances in concentrations as low as a picogram (one trillionth of a gram), and how it got into the horse's system in the first place.

Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director of the Lexington, Ky.-based Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, answered some of those questions in a series with Horse Racing Nation.

Betamethasone is a corticosteriod used to reduce inflammation. It can be utilized in four ways: direct injection into a horse's joint, injection into the bloodstream, subcutaneous injection near soft tissues that may be inflamed, or via topical applications.

Betamethasone “is a medication that has legitimate applications in the care of race horses,” Scollay told HRN. “It's not a heinous substance. But it is a substance that we want to control in proximity to a race, largely to protect the safety and welfare, of course, because anti-inflammatories have the ability to mask inflammation, signs of inflammation, that can be warning signs either to the horse's connections or the horse itself that there is an injury present that could escalate into something far worse if pressured.”

Read more about corticosteroids in the Paulick Report archives here and here.

The recommended withdrawal period in Kentucky for a betamethasone joint injection is 14 days, so no closer than two weeks before a race. The allowable threshold for betamethasone in a post-race test used to be 10 picograms, but that was changed last fall. Now, no trace amount is allowed.

When used as a joint injection, a typical dose of betamethasone would be nine milligrams, Scollay said.

“But then that drug leaves the joint, enters the bloodstream and is distributed throughout the body,” she told HRN. “And remember that a racehorse has upwards of 50,000 mls (milliliters) of blood. So you're not talking about 21 picograms in that entire horse's body. You're talking about 21 picograms in one ml of blood. And there's 49,999 other mls of blood, not to mention all the other tissues, the muscles, the organs, the brain, the skin, all the other tissues of the body. That drug distributes throughout the entire body. So 21 picograms, you know, you can be a little overly reductive and say that's nothing. But when you can contemplate the total sum of medication that may be in the body at that time point? It's a different story.”

If 21 picograms (remember, 21 trillionths of a gram) were found in a single milliliter of blood, that means upwards of 1,050,000 picograms of betamethasone was circulating through the horse's bloodstream at the time of the test. (That translates to 1.05 micrograms, or 0.00105 milligrams.)

Again, that doesn't include the amount of the medication remaining in the horse's tissues.

All of the above leads to the following question: if Medina Spirit was never administered this medication, how did it get into his system?

Scollay doubts that intentional sabotage is a factor in this case for two reasons. First, horses are under 24-hour security beginning on Tuesday of Kentucky Derby week. Second, the choice of a therapeutic medication to sabotage a horse just doesn't make sense.

Read more at Horse Racing Nation here and here

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The Week in Review: Latest Crisis Descends on Sport, Baffert

The week between the GI Kentucky Derby and the GI Preakness S. is typically a quiet one, and this year the racing industry was basking in the glow of an exciting and safe Derby headlined by a feel-good story: Medina Spirit (Protonico), a hard-battling underdog any average joe could have purchased at public auction as a $1,000 yearling, had unexpectedly won the Run for the Roses under the care of seven-time Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert, and was heading to Baltimore as a likeable overachiever trying to win the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

But the sport's pre-Preakness idyll was abruptly launched into turmoil and chaos Sunday morning, absorbing yet another credibility blow when a clearly rattled Baffert stepped up to a cluster of microphones at a hastily called press conference at his Churchill Downs stable to announce that Medina Spirit had tested positive for 21 picograms of betamethasone, a relatively common corticosteroid that is used with horses to treat inflammation in joints.

Betamethasone is typically administered by intra-articular injection, but is prohibited to be in a horse's system on race day in Kentucky, which lists a 14-day withdrawal guideline for that steroid's use.

If confirmed by split-sample testing, the betamethasone finding could cost Medina Spirit his Derby win, which would make the colt only the second Derby victor in 147 years to be disqualified for a post-race drug infraction. In 1968, Dancer's Image was DQ'd for a phenylbutazone positive.

Baffert, who repeatedly denied ever treating Medina Spirit with betamethasone during the 13-minute conference and added that the colt had passed an Apr. 18 out-of-competition test, now appears on a trajectory to have his figurative “day in court” to adjudicate the matter.

In reality though, that time frame could extend much, much longer–it took five full years before the controversial DQ of Dancer's Image was finally upheld by a judge, and that was half a century ago in a far less litigious era.

Expect this story to hang heavily over the remainder of the 2021 Triple Crown season and beyond.

From a public-relations perspective, Baffert's relatively quick acknowledgment of the betamethasone finding resonated as a carefully executed, almost textbook-styled example of damage control and how to shape a fast-forming narrative during a time of duress. If he has professionals guiding him in this endeavor, they are earning their money.

Accompanied by his attorney just outside his shed row Sunday morning, Baffert got out in front of the news (the test results had not yet been announced by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission), professed his innocence with a touch of emotion (“the biggest gut punch in racing for something that I didn't do”), and asserted that he'd be cooperative and transparent as the investigation unfolds (even conducting his own DNA and hair testing on Medina Spirit). Then Baffert chose to implicate circumstances as the hazy, underlying culprit in the case (“I don't know what is going on with the regulators…. It's a complete injustice…. It's getting worse, and this is something that has to be addressed by the industry.”).

Unfortunately–for both himself and the sport–Baffert has had ample practice of late in explaining troublesome medication matters to the media.

The betamethasone finding, if confirmed, will be Baffert's fifth positive test for a regulated but prohibited-on-race-day drug within the past year. During that same time frame, Baffert was also embroiled in a long and complicated court and racing commission battle in California over whether to disqualify 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify from that year's GI Santa Anita Derby because of a scopolamine finding, a case that was initially shielded from the public in executive sessions by the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB).

The Justify complaint (deemed to have been caused by eating contaminated hay) was eventually dismissed by the CHRB.

A pair of May 2, 2020, lidocaine positives in two winning Baffert trainees–Charlatan (Speightstown) in the GI Arkansas Derby and Gamine (Into Mischief) in an allowance race–were blamed by Baffert on accidental contamination from a human pain-relief patch worn by his assistant. This initially resulted in a 15-day suspension for Baffert and the DQ of both horses, but those sanctions were recently reversed by the Arkansas Racing Commission, which instead fined Baffert $5,000 for each infraction.

The Baffert-trained Merneith (American Pharoah), tested positive for dextorphan after a second-place finish July 25, 2020, at Del Mar. That positive drew a $2,500 fine; Baffert claimed that a stable employee taking cough suppressants inadvertently contaminated the horse.

When Gamine again tested positive on Sept. 4, 2020, this time for betamethasone when running third in the GI Kentucky Oaks, she was disqualified, placed last, and Baffert was fined $1,500. Baffert later acknowledged the eventual champion female sprinter had been treated with the drug, but he believed he had followed the proper withdrawal-time guidelines.

Reality versus public perception will no doubt percolate to the surface as Medina Spirit's case winds through the regulatory hierarchy and (quite likely) the legal system. One argument that is almost certain to be brought up in support of Baffert is that his recent spate of drug positives aren't primarily for performance-enhancing substances per se, but for therapeutic medications that are rigidly controlled and tested down to trillionths of a gram.

But the general public won't really care if that's the case, because the frequency of the positive tests in Baffert's horses are starting to take on an “always something” tenor. Each of his medication violations gets decided individually, essentially in a vacuum, by whichever racing commission has lodged the complaints. But the public–and peers within the industry–will judge Baffert's offenses in the aggregate, and it's no secret that the chief question being asked is “Why so many?”

The answer to that question might end up being one that the industry as a whole will find incompatible with Baffert's reputation as the preeminent trainer of his era. Will he go down in history for having saddled seven Derby winners? Or for saddling the sport with asterisks and public-relations headaches at a time when equine welfare and drug abuse are the focal points of Thoroughbred racing's future?

Churchill Downs has already barred Baffert's horses from being entered there until the conclusion of the investigation by the state racing commission. Other jurisdictions could follow.

“I know I'm the most scrutinized trainer. I've got millions of eyes on me,” Baffert said Sunday morning, underscoring that he's okay with that level of scrutiny, and that he knows it comes with the territory of winning so many iconic races.

Later, when asked by a reporter what his fellow trainers thought of the regulatory framework regarding therapeutic medications, Baffert said, “We're sitting ducks, basically…. It just seems odd, that why am I the only one that has the contaminations? Why am I the only one? That just seems odd to me.”

Good point. If the regulatory problem with therapeutic medications is indeed systemic, as Baffert asserts, why aren't other high-profile trainers collecting the same proportion of drug positives?

Let's compare Baffert to his peers in terms of elite-level competition. In 2020-21, only five North American trainers each started more graded stakes starters than Baffert. They are Steve Asmussen, Chad Brown, Mark Casse, Mike Maker and Todd Pletcher.

Collectively, those five trainers started 8,860 total horses in 2020 and so far through 2021. According to the Association of Racing Commissioners International rulings database, none of them has triggered a medication positive during the same time frame that Baffert racked up five of them from 449 starters.

Later on Sunday, back at his home base at Santa Anita Park, Baffert had one horse entered to run, a turf sprinter named Speedy Justice (Dominus). Bet down to odds-on, the colt opened up a big lead, faded, then failed to hit the board.

Will a different form of “speedy justice” end up prevailing in Baffert's latest high-profile drug positive case?

Depending on your perspective, some form of justice will eventually arrive.

But with the Derby result hanging in the balance, it's not very likely to be speedy.

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Preakness Notes: Concert Tour Breezes Amidst Storm Over Medina Spirit’s Failed Drug Test: Post Position Draw Delayed Until Tuesday

Gary and Mary West's Concert Tour worked five-eighths of a mile in 1:00.40 Sunday morning at Churchill Downs under jockey Martin Garcia, who frequently works horses for Baffert. Mike Smith is scheduled to be aboard in Saturday's Grade 1 Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in Baltimore, Md.

Zedan Racing Stables' Medina Spirit – the G1 Kentucky Derby winner who Baffert said has tested positive for betamethasone – open galloped at Churchill.

“He worked really well. He's been training really well,” trainer Bob Baffert said. “I'm happy with the way he went, so he'll definitely be going to the Preakness. Medina Spirit, we just gave him a stiff open gallop, sort of. We're happy with how he went. He came out of the race really, really well. So they'll both be going to the Preakness.”

Maryland Jockey Club released the following statement Sunday afternoon concerning the revelations of Medina Spirit's failed drug test.

“Integrity in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing is the ultimate priority for 1/ST Racing and the Maryland Jockey Club (MJC). 1/ST Racing has been an industry leader instituting processes and protocols that have led to nationwide medication reform and increased accountability. We are committed to achieving the highest level of horse care and safety standards, and we have a proven track record of pushing those standards forward.

“1/ST Racing and MJC intend to review the relevant facts and information relating to the reported medication positive as a result of the post-race blood sample testing completed by Churchill Downs following the 147^th Kentucky Derby involving Medina Spirit trained by Bob Baffert. We are consulting with the Maryland Racing Commission and any decision regarding the entry of Medina Spirit in the 146^thPreakness Stakes will be made after review of the facts.”

The post-position draw for the Preakness, originally scheduled Monday, will now be held Tuesday at approximately 4 p.m. at Pimlico Race Course. It can be viewed at Facebook.com/Preakness.

Baffert has denied that Medina Spirit was ever treated with betamethasone, a corticosteroid typically injected into joints to relieve inflammation.

Medina Spirit and Concert Tour are scheduled to leave Churchill Downs Monday afternoon to van to Baltimore, arriving at Pimlico about 3 or 4 Tuesday morning.

Crowded Trade, Risk Taking Due at Pimlico Tuesday
Trainer Chad Brown reported Sunday that Klaravich Stables Inc.'s Crowded Trade and Risk Taking emerged well from their five-furlong breezes Saturday and are headed to the 146th Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico Race Course May 15.

The Brown trainees worked in company at Belmont Park in 1:01.76, the third-fastest clockings of 18 recorded at the distance. Brown's horses will ship from Belmont Park to Pimlico Race Course on Tuesday.

Brown, who won the 2017 Preakness with Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence's Cloud Computing, had announced Friday that Risk Taking would join stablemate Crowded Trade in the Preakness. Crowded Trade was third in the Wood Memorial (G2) in his third career start. Risk Taking finished seventh as the 2-1 favorite in the Wood Memorial after winning the Withers (G3) by 3¾ lengths. He was the morning line-favorite for Saturday's Peter Pan (G3) at Belmont Park, but owner Seth Klarman opted to scratch from the race and try the $1 million Preakness, which is run around two turns.

Hall of Famer Javier Castellano has the mount on Crowded Trade, while Jose Ortiz has the assignment on Risk Taking.

Rombauer Exits Preakness Breeze in Good Order
Trainer Michael McCarthy reported Sunday morning that his Preakness Stakes (G1) candidate Rombauer came out of his workout Saturday morning at Santa Anita in good shape. The Twirling Candy colt is scheduled to ship from McCarthy's stable at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif. to Pimlico Race Course on Tuesday.

Rombauer, bred and owned by Diane and John Fradkin, earned a guaranteed berth in the Preakness with his victory in the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Feb. 13. In his most recent start, the Kentucky-bred was third in the April 3 Blue Grass Stakes (G2) at Keeneland, 5 3/4 lengths behind Essential Quality. His five-furlong work in 59.80 seconds Saturday was his fourth since the Blue Grass.

Jockey Flavien Prat was up for the work Saturday and will ride Rombauer for the first time in the Preakness.

McCarthy, 50, a longtime assistant to recently elected Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, will make his Triple Crown series debut in the Preakness with Rombauer. He saddled his first starter for his public stable in January 2014.

Unbridled Honor Ready to Go following Preakness Tune-up
Whisper Hill Farm's homebred Unbridled Honor will ship to Pimlico Race Course from Belmont Park in New York Tuesday for a scheduled start in Saturday's Preakness Stakes (G1), trainer Todd Pletcher said Sunday.

Pletcher confirmed that Unbridled Honor looked good the morning after his timed half-mile work in 49.75 seconds Saturday. Unbridled Honor broke his maiden at Tampa Bay Downs on Feb. 6 in his third career start and has since finished fourth in the Tampa Bay Derby (G2) and second in the Lexington (G3) at Keeneland on April 10.

The son of Honor Code will be Pletcher's 10th Preakness starter. The 1 3/16th-mile classic is the only Triple Crown race missing from the resume of the newly elected member of racing's Hall of Fame.

Jockey Luis Saez will ride Unbridled Honor for the first time in the Preakness. Saez is taking over from Julien Leparoux, who was up for the gray colt's last two starts.

Midnight Bourbon Seeking Rebound in Preakness with Good Start
Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC's Midnight Bourbon will try to become the sixth horse in 12 years to win the Preakness (G1) after being beaten in the Kentucky Derby (G1). The colt raced on or near the lead in his prior starts, including taking the Fair Grounds' Lecomte (G3) and finishing second in the Louisiana Derby (G2). But in the Kentucky Derby, he didn't get out of the gate cleanly and found himself in 12th and well off the pace. Forced to race wide on both turns, Midnight Bourbon closed to finish sixth.

“We weren't where we wanted to be, that's for sure,” Scott Blasi, who runs Steve Asmussen's Churchill Downs division, said of Midnight Bourbon's Derby. “But just circumstances: the horse slipped behind and didn't get away well. At the end of the day, he might actually benefit from taking dirt. There's plenty of speed in this Preakness. Hopefully he gets away cleaner. It probably adds a new dimension to him, the fact that he made up ground in all that traffic. He didn't do a lot of running early. I think he's pretty fresh coming out of it. But I think he fits well with those horses.”

The son of Tiznow galloped Sunday morning at Churchill Downs and is scheduled to have an easy half-mile workout Monday morning before shipping to Pimlico Tuesday.

Cypress Creek Equine, Arnold Bennewith and Spendthrift Farm LLC's Keepmeinmind (seventh in the Derby) and Christina Baker and William Mack's Ram, an allowance winner last time out, also had routine gallops Sunday morning at Churchill Downs.

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