The civil suit in Franklin County Circuit Court over a partial Lasix phaseout in Kentucky will continue after a judge granted a motion from the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association to set aside, vacate, alter or amend an earlier judgment dismissing the case.
In June, Judge Thomas Wingate had denied a motion from the KHBPA for a temporary injunction to stop Churchill Downs and Keeneland from writing races for 2-year-olds requiring Lasix to be given 24 hours pre-race, rather than the typical four hours. The tracks had begun carding those races while waiting for regulations approved by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (also named as a defendant in the suit) to go into effect. The KHBPA contended that the tracks don't have the legal power to card no-Lasix races, since medication regulation is supposed to be made and enforced by the commission.
The tracks and commission argued that existing rules do permit racetracks to card no-Lasix races.
Part of the reason Wingate dismissed the case in June was due to a technical point about associational standing on the part of the KHBPA; “associational standing” in a legal sense refers to whether the organization represents members who had grounds to bring a suit in their own right, whether it is seeking to protect interests relevant to its members and whether the claims it makes require participation of individual members to the suit.
In an order this week, Wingate wrote “the Court understands the Plaintiff's position that it was not given adequate time, once standing was raised, to sufficiently address the issue prior to the Court dismissing the Complaint for lack of standing.”
Now, Wingate wrote, it's likely the matter will be decided on the strength of competing motions for summary judgment from each side in the suit. Wingate ordered the parties involved to set a date for oral arguments in the case within 10 days of granting the KHBPA's motion to vacate on July 29.
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