‘Re-Distribution Of Happiness’ Touches Hearts At Kentucky Horse Racing Commission

A 93-year-old man in a California assisted living facility has a retirement hobby he calls “re-distribution of happiness.” Lowell Joerg made headlines in Lexington (lex18.com) this week when he found a postcard from 1938 depicting the great racehorse Man o' War, and sent it “home” to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

“Too much misery in the world,” Joerg told lex18.com. “Might as well make someone happy.”

KHRC executive director Marc Guilfoil explained that the postcard also shows Man o' War's longtime handler, Will Harbut, whose great-grandson Greg Harbut currently serves on the commission. Man o' War is also buried just a short distance from the commission's offices.

Guilfoil plans to display the historic postcard, along with Joerg's hand-written letter, in a prominent place in the KHRC office.

“It just floored me that somebody would take their time to do something like this,” Guilfoil said.

Read more at lex18.com.

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Kentucky Judge Anxious To Remand Medina Spirit Case To Board Of Stewards

Monday morning in Franklin County Circuit Court saw attorneys for embattled trainer Bob Baffert and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission back in front of Judge Thomas Wingate, in response to the KHRC's July 20 request that the judge compel Baffert's attorneys to reveal the results of additional testing on Medina Spirit's post-race urine sample.

The case is based on the finding of betamethasone in a post-race sample of Medina Spirit, collected immediately after the colt crossed the wire first in the Kentucky Derby.

“My understanding is that an affirmative defense is being mounted by the plaintiffs, to the extent that there may be some evidence as to how this substance (betamethasone) was introduced to the horse,” said Jennifer Wolsing, general counsel for the KHRC. “If this turns out to be a viable affirmative defense, and of course right now the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission takes no position one way or another on that issue, that if it is, then the racing commission may want to do additional testing.

“Regrettably, we're still waiting on the testing results. We can't have a stewards hearing until those testing results have come back, because that appears to form the basis of the defense the plaintiffs want to mount. We would really like those results so that we can press forward with a stewards hearing and find out more about this case.”

Counsel for Medina Spirit's trainer Bob Baffert and owner Zedan Stables, Craig Robertson, filed a civil suit against the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on June 7 demanding their right to test the split urine sample, which sat undisturbed in the commission's freezer. Remnants of the original biologic samples were initially sent to be tested for those ingredients, but they were reportedly damaged before arrival at the plaintiffs' choice of labs, the New York Equine Drug Testing and Research Laboratory.

Judge Wingate ordered June 16 that the remaining urine sample be flown to the New York lab, that two KHRC representatives travel with the sample, and that plaintiffs fund the flight. Upon arrival, the KHRC was to retain 5 milliliters of the sample, while the remainder was to be tested for clotrimazole, gentamicin, and betamethasone valerate.

On July 14, the sample was flown to New York accompanied by Dr. Clara Fenger and Tom Huckeby, representing Baffert and Medina Spirit's owner, Amr Zedan, as well as by KHRC executive director Marc Guilfoil and equine medical director Dr. Bruce Howard.

A July 19 filing by the KHRC alleges that the urine sample was split into four milliliter and 19 milliliter segments, with the New York lab to retain the larger segment for testing. Program director Dr. George Maylin attempted to then retain the remnants of the original urine sample, which was purportedly contaminated during shipment. Maylin claimed he was unaware that the court order required those remnants be turned over to the KHRC.

When the remnants of the original sample were turned over to KHRC representatives, the filing alleges that the urine tube contained only one to two milliliters of “bloody fluid,” a broken serum separator tube, and another tube with serum that had been saved — all presented at room temperature instead of frozen. Guilfoil and Howard report that Maylin said most of the sample had been used up in testing, but would not indicate what testing was performed.

On Monday, after initial confusion over which urine sample the KHRC's motion was referring to, Wolsing represented that the commission was concerned about why the original sample had been tested when it had clearly been contaminated.

“As far as what we're asking for, we did want transparency in these test results, and we'd also like to know why the court order was violated, despite Dr. Maylin's statement to the contrary,” Wolsing said.

“Mr. Robertson says that they (KHRC representatives) took the primary sample back (to Kentucky) with them,” said Judge Wingate.

“We took back what hadn't been tested up by the New York laboratory,” Wolsing clarified. “That was a shock to us. I mean, if this primary sample is so compromised, then what in the world are they testing for?”

Robertson took over the microphone to explain.

“The primary (sample) arrived in New York in a compromised condition,” Robertson said. “New York was under instruction to test that sample, and it arrives in a compromised condition. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission doesn't advise us that it arrives in a compromised condition until five days later. We immediately then begin the process of, 'Well, let's get the pristine split sample to New York for testing.' That took three weeks because they fought us on that. It took three weeks before there was an order entered that said, 'Test the pristine split sample.'

“During that three weeks, of course the New York laboratory has the primary sample under instructions to test it. Now I don't know what testing they did or didn't do, because I have intentionally not had any communication with them about that. But it certainly is plausible that during those three weeks, they performed some sort of testing on the compromised sample, because they were under instructions to do it, and they had no idea that they would subsequently get an additional sample. Regardless of whatever they've done on the primary sample, and the subsequent split sample, all of those results need to be disclosed to both parties at the same time.”

Following that explanation, Judge Wingate quipped: “The main thing is we need to get those results so I can remand this to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, and you all can fight like cats and dogs down there over whether he's the Derby horse, and what needs to happen to Mr. Baffert.”

Judge Wingate did not issue an official order, but said he would do so if the lab was unwilling to provide the test results or a date on which they would be delivered to both parties.

“You're in the driver's seat (referring to KHRC counsel), because you've already got a report that says the steroid was in the horse, and you all just need to go and do your stewards hearings is what I believe, and go from there and see what kind of penalties that the Horse Racing Commission levies on this horse and trainer,” Judge Wingate said.

And so we wait.

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Alan Leavitt Removed From Kentucky Horse Racing Commission Over Sexual Harrassment Allegations

Harness Racing Hall of Famer Alan Leavitt has been removed from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission over allegations of sexual harassment, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. The 85-year-old was removed via an executive order from Gov. Andy Beshear issued on July 16.

Amy Cubbage, Beshear's general counsel, told the Herald-Leader: “There is a standard of conduct and his actions clearly violate those standards and necessitated removal.”

Cubbage cited “unwanted and unacceptable statements and conduct” by Leavitt toward an employee of the commission.

Benjamin Long, general counsel of the state Public Protection Cabinet, sent Leavitt “at least” three emails directing him to cease communications with the employee, and directing him to view a sexual harassment training video. Commission chairman Jonathan Rabinowitz also called Leavitt and told him to cease contacting the employee. Leavitt did not complete the training, and claimed ignorance of the communication directives when speaking to the employee in person.

Leavitt shared his emails to the commission employee with the Herald-Leader, and claims the harassment allegations stem “from my stand against the actions the commission is taking re the new horseman's organization.

“I have also objected to being shunted aside as the chairman of the sire stakes advisory committee. Those are the real reasons you are cooking up these phony charges. If you want to go further with this harassment, then I suggest we all sit down with Gov. Beshear and let him hear about all this.”

Leavitt said he was “happy to drop this whole matter here and now if you are, but I'm not taking any training course in avoiding sexual harassment. As a graduate of Andover and Harvard, I am well aware of what it is, and I would be going against every moral precept I learned there if I were to ever engage in something so vile.”

Leavitt is the president of the Kentucky Standardbred Breeders Association and of Walnut Hall Ltd.

Read more at the Lexington Herald-Leader.

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More Allegations of Damaged Samples in Medina Spirit Testing

An attempt by the connections of Medina Spirit (Protonico) to have a third-party lab perform a new series of tests on the colt's bodily fluids in the wake of the colt's GI Kentucky Derby betamethasone positive has resulted in allegations by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) of a “lack of candor and contemptuous conduct by the New York Laboratory, [trainer Bob Baffert and owner Zedan Racing Stables], or both.”

According to a status report and motion for order filed in Kentucky's Franklin Circuit Court July 19, the KHRC wants the judge in the case to compel that Baffert and/or Zedan Racing disclose what methods of testing were performed on a urine sample whose remnants allegedly came back damaged after undergoing testing July 14 in New York.

It is the second time in seven weeks that a party in this court case has alleged that samples came back contaminated from an accredited lab.

On June 1–the same date that Medina Spirit's referee sample was announced as positive–the KHRC informed Baffert and Zedan that body fluid remnants had been damaged during transport to the split-sample testing lab.

The July 14 new round of testing performed by the New York Equine Drug Testing and Research Laboratory was part of a court mandate in a lawsuit initiated by Baffert and Zedan Racing on June 7 that sought, in part, some form of “limits of detection” testing that could purportedly show that the betamethasone was present along with other compounds in the topical ointment Otomax.

Betamethasone is a corticosteroid allowed in Kentucky as a therapeutic medication, but state rules require at least a 14-day withdrawal time before racing.

Attorneys for Baffert and stable owner Amr Zedan have stated a desire to prove that the Derby winner's betamethasone positive–which has yet to be adjudicated by the KHRC–resulted from an ointment to treat a skin condition and not from an intra-articular injection.

Yet any level of detection on race day is a Class C violation in Kentucky, with no distinction listed in the rules pertaining how the substance got inside a horse.

Tim Sullivan of the Louisville Courier-Journal reported Tuesday that KHRC executive director Marc Guilfoil and equine medical director Dr. Bruce Howard transported a second urine sample to New York while accompanied by Dr. Clara Fenger and Tom Huckabee, who represented Baffert and Zedan.

Sullivan wrote that, “In signed affidavits, Guilfoil and Howard said the [New York] lab's program director, Dr. George Maylin, initially insisted on retaining remnants of the original sample, and subsequently said he had not read the court order requiring the return of those remnants despite a June 21 email in which he had pledged to abide by that order….

“When the remnants were ultimately produced, however, the KHRC filing says the urine tube contained only one to two milliliters of 'bloody fluid,' a broken serum separator tube and another tube with serum that had been saved–all presented at room temperature instead of frozen, as preferred. According to Guilfoil and Howard, Maylin explained that most of the urine sample had been used up in testing, but did not provide a clear answer when twice asked what testing had been conducted,” the Courier-Journal story explained.

Maylin did not immediately respond to an interview request from the Courier-Journal on Tuesday.

W. Craig Robertson, an attorney for Baffert and Zedan, told the paper the plaintiffs would be responding in court, adding that, “The statements contained in the KHRC's status report are inaccurate. We have intentionally had no direct communication with the New York lab, so we are unaware of any testing or the results.”

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