Merneith | Horse Racing Free Tips

Finite Ships West To Take On Merneith In La Brea

In what appears to be a wide-open affair at seven furlongs, Steve Asmussen-trained Finite and Bob Baffert trainee Merneith head a field of 11 sophomore fillies in the Grade 1, $300,000 La Brea Stakes, one of five graded events on Santa Anita's Winter/Spring opening day this Saturday, Dec. 26.

A winner of the G3 Chilukki Stakes going a one turn mile at Churchill Downs Nov. 21, Finite is a three-time graded stakes winner who seeks her seventh win in what will be her 12th career start.

A winner of her last two starts, Merneith, a daughter of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, seeks her third consecutive win and her first graded stakes win.

FINITE

Owner: Winchell Thoroughbreds, LLC, Thomas Reiman, William Dickson & Deborah Easter

Trainer: Steve Asmussen

Fresh off a rousing 2 ½ length win going a one turn mile in the G3 Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs Nov. 21, this daughter of Munnings will ship west in search of her first G1 victory. Although she rallied powerfully from off the pace to win the Chilukki, Finite has plenty of natural speed, evidenced by her gate to wire maiden win going 6 ½ furlongs on grass at age two. With three graded stakes victories and an overall mark of 11-6-3-0, she is the leading money earner in the field with $757,869 and looms the post time favorite.

MERNEITH

Owner: HRH Prince Sultan Bin Mishal Al Saud

Trainer: Bob Baffert

A game neck winner of an ungraded six furlong stakes at Keeneland on Nov. 7, this daughter of American Pharoah was an emphatic 3 ¼ length allowance winner at the same distance here on Oct. 11 and thus seeks her third consecutive win. A well beaten third by Horse of the Year candidate Swiss Skydiver in her only graded stakes try, the G2 Santa Anita Oaks five starts back on June 6, Merneith appears poised for a top effort as Baffert seeks his record eighth La Brea triumph.

MOTIVATED SELLER

Owner: Klaravich Stables, Inc.

Trainer: Chad Brown

Second, beaten a neck by Merneith going six furlongs at Keeneland Nov. 7, this daughter of top sire Into Mischief is very much on the improve for Brown. A six length first-out maiden winner going six furlongs at Gulfstream Park Jan. 12, she was then idle until Oct. 11 at Belmont Park, where she pressed the early pace and registered a 2 ¾ length allowance win at the same distance. In what will be her fourth career start, Motivated Seller will be trying graded stakes competition for the first time.

THE GRADE I LA BREA WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER

Race 8 of 11 Approximate post time 2:30 p.m. PT

Princess Mo—Geovanni Franco—120
Merneith—John Velazquez—120
Himiko—Flavien Prat—120
Secret Keeper—Abel Cedillo–120
Finite—Ricardo Santana, Jr.—122
Biddy Duke—Juan Hernandez—122
Provocation—Joel Rosario—120
Motivated Seller—Umberto Rispoli—120
Fair Maiden—Ricardo Gonzalez—120
Golden Principal—Mike Smith—120
Stellar Sound—Victor Espinoza–120

The G1 La Brea, to be contested for the 48th time, is one of five graded stakes on an 11-race card Saturday.

Although there is no public admittance, fans can watch and wager via 1st.com/Bet and they can watch all of Santa Anita's races free of charge at santaanita.com/live. Special early first post time on Saturday is at 11 a.m. For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.

The post Finite Ships West To Take On Merneith In La Brea appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Del Mar Stewards: Baffert Fined $2,500, Brinkerhoff Handed 45-Day Suspension

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has been fined $2,500 by the Del Mar stewards, reports the Daily Racing Form, over Merneith's positive for Dextromethorphan in her second-place finish in the fourth race on July 25.

“A number of my staff were sick with COVID this summer, including Merneith's groom,” Baffert told the Paulick Report after the positive result was made public. “I learned he had been taking over-the-counter cough syrups that contained Dextrorphan. This has been an issue in other states where contamination has lead to positive tests. That's what happened here. This is clearly another case of contamination. Ultimately, this is my responsibility. It's really embarrassing for the barn, but that's what happened. #2020 sucks.”

Del Mar stewards also took action against veteran trainer Val Brinkerhoff, suspending him for 45 days and issuing a $3,000 fine over Girl Can Partie returning a positive for Metaproterenol after winning the seventh race on Aug. 1, 2019. Sunday's ruling stated that the penalty was inclusive of a syringe found in Brinkerhoff's truck, which the trainer told DRF was a precaution for colic while shipping a horse to Emerald Downs, also in August of 2019.

Different Jurisdictions, Different MMV Rules Could Play In Baffert’s Favor

As news broke Tuesday of another positive post-race drug test for a Bob Baffert trainee, some readers found themselves wondering — when do these alleged violations begin to add up to a single, long suspension?

The answer to that remains unclear, but it's probably, “They won't.”

After Charlatan and Gamine tested positive for lidocaine following their races at Oaklawn Park this spring, Baffert announced he would be appealing the 15-day suspension given out by the Arkansas Racing Commission.

As reported last week, Baffert-trained Gamine got a positive test post-race for betamethasone after her third-place finish as the favorite in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, but that case has not yet been adjudicated because testing on the split sample is not complete. (If a split sample does come back negative, the commission will not pursue charges against a licensee.)

Finally, the most recent case, a positive test for dextorphan from Merneith – second in a July 25 allowance race at Del Mar – has been confirmed on split sample, but the stewards' hearing into the matter won't take place until Nov. 12.

That means, from a regulatory perspective, none of Baffert's positive tests from this year are closed cases yet.

A hearing will take place on Thursday into whether or not stewards should disqualify Justify or Hoppertunity from 2018 races based on scopolamine positives. The CHRB has already made clear that it is not pursuing action against Baffert's license in either of those cases after a recommendation by equine medical director Dr. Rick Arthur that the positive test likely resulted from hay contaminated with jimsonweed.

Baffert's home base of California provides a sliding scale of suspensions and fines for repeated medication violations in the same penalty class. (Lidocaine and dextorphan carry a Category or Class B penalty in Arkansas and California, while betamethasone carries a Class C penalty in Kentucky.) Per California rules, one Category B offense gets between 30 and 60 days' suspension, but a second offense in two years could carry 60 to 180 days. Currently however, stewards cannot take into account violations from other states when deciding what constitutes a repeat offense in a given penalty category; even if they could, they would have to focus on completed cases, meaning those not under appeal. That means that under current rules, if California stewards do decide to suspend Baffert for the dextorphan, they'll have to address it as a B violation in a vacuum when deciding on a suspension length or fine amount.

That may seem frustrating to readers who feel Baffert's violations are adding up, even if they are for therapeutic substances. This is the kind of situation a multiple medication violation (MMV) penalty system was designed to address. The MMV, which is in force in the Mid-Atlantic, is supposed to operate similarly to many state systems that assign points to a driver's license for repeat violations. Those points can compound the base fines or suspensions given out for a violation if the license holder is a repeat offender, regardless of the penalty category of previous offenses. The idea is that repeated low-level offenses eventually pack a big enough punch that a trainer will be more careful, even with therapeutic drugs that are regulated but not considered major performance enhancers. In an ideal world, the MMV system is supposed to tally offenses across jurisdictions.

California hasn't yet finalized adoption of MMV language but the rule is in process. The proposed language has completed the 45-day public comment period and is likely to be on the agenda for a Nov. 19 meeting of the CHRB to be publicly heard and (potentially) adopted. Even after that vote, however, a CHRB spokesman said it takes new rules roughly two months to complete the administrative process to become enacted, so California's MMV rule won't be live until early 2021. Part of the proposed rule language to be considered on Nov. 19 would allow stewards to consider violations from other jurisdictions. It remains legally unclear, but seems unlikely, however, that the CHRB could use out-of-state violations occurring before finalization of the MMV rule against a trainer after the rule's implementation.

Kentucky has not yet taken up MMV language. A 2016 initiative by former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin aimed at reducing red tape for Kentucky businesses required state agencies to reexamine and simplify existing language, which also slowed the drafting of new regulation.

Arkansas does have MMV language on the books. Currently, Baffert's appeal in Arkansas is still in progress. A spokeswoman for the Arkansas Racing Commission confirmed Wednesday that the case is still in the legal discovery process and no hearing date has been set.

MMV language will only allow officials to take into account points from cases where all appeals have been exhausted. So, Arkansas couldn't issue MMV points unless its appeal was concluded after proceedings in California and Kentucky are complete.

All this means that, if Kentucky officials confirm the betamethasone overage and California officials proceed with a suspension and/or fine for the dextorphan overage, they will likely be required to consider each case in their state's bubble, which would suggest fairly mild sanctions for each.

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Merneith Split Sample Confirms Presence of Dextrorphan

A hearing has been set for November 12 before the California Horse Racing Board’s Board of Stewards after a split sample confirmed a positive result for the presence of Dextrorphan, a cough suppressant, in the sample from the Bob Baffert-trained Merneith (American Pharoah), who was second in the fourth race at Del Mar July 25, 2020.

“Unfortunately, it’s just another case of contamination,” Craig Robertson, Baffert’s attorney, told the TDN. “One of Bob’s grooms had COVID, and he was the groom who was handling Merneith. He was taking both DayQuil and NyQuil and that’s where you find Dextrorphan. it’s a cough suppressant. You would never give a cough suppressant to a horse. It’s another case of clear contamination, along with these others, and it’s just unfortunate that all of these have occurred within a relatively short time frame.

According to Wikipedia, Dextrorphan “is a psychoactive drug of the morphinan class which acts as an antitussive or cough suppressant and dissociative hallucinogen.” It is contained in DayQuil, NyQuil, Robitussin and other popular cough suppressants.

According to the CHRB complaint, posted on their website, “the Official Blood Sample #DM15986 taken on 7/25/20, was reported by Dr. Ben Moeller of the Maddy EACL at UC Davis to contain Dextrorphan, a metabolite of Dextromethorphan. This sample was taken from the horse MERNEITH which ran in the 4th race at Del Mar that day and finished 2nd. Dextrorphan, a metabolite of Dextromethorphan, is a prohibited drug if detected in a horse’s blood or urine when tested following a race. The trainer of record is Bob Baffert. A split sample was requested by Baffert, which confirmed the original violation. Dextrorphan, a metabolite of Dextromethorphan, is a Class 4 drug with a Penalty Category B.”

“A number of my staff were sick with COVID this summer, including Merneith’s groom,” Baffert said via email to the Paulick Report, which was the first to report the story. “I learned he had been taking over-the-counter cough syrups that contained Dextrorphan. This has been an issue in other states where contamination has lead to positive tests. That’s what happened here. This is clearly another case of contamination. Ultimately, this is my responsibility. It’s really embarrassing for the barn, but that’s what happened. #2020 sucks.”

The CHRB explained that the posting of this level of complaint was indicative of a new, more transparent policy.

“The California Horse Racing Board has expanded the posting of complaints on its website for alleged medication violations to include Class 4 and Class 5 violations,” said the CHRB in a press release. “The CHRB has been posting complaints for the more serious Class 1, 2, and 3 violations, which require disqualifications and forfeiture of purses. However, with the increased emphasis on all medication violations in horse racing, the CHRB has elected to add Class 4 and Class 5 complaints as well. The complaints stem from all drug testing, including alleged violations during racing, training, and from out-of-competition testing. To view complaints filed by the CHRB, go to the website (www.chrb.ca.gov) and click on the tab for Administrative Actions, then select Complaints from the drop-down menu.”

The CHRB cautioned that the posted rulings are not yet final.

“Be aware that complaints are filed for alleged violations prior to hearing. The cases have not been adjudicated at the time they are posted. Pursuant to a new statute, potential medication violations will be posted on the CHRB website beginning January 1, 2021, with the identification of all drug positives once the split sample is confirmed or even earlier if the licensee declines to request split-sample testing. Those positives will be posted before any complaints are issued.”

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