Bob Baffert’s most recent Kentucky Derby winner may be close to losing that title.
Medina Spirit’s failed drug test, after the first leg of the Triple Crown, was confirmed by a second sample, according to the New York Times, which could be grounds for disqualification. Mandaloun, which finished in second at the Derby, would be the official winner if Medina Spirit is stripped of the title.
Baffert would also lose his record-breaking seventh Derby win.
Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby on May 1, but a week later, a positive drug test revealed traces of the steroid betamethasone, which is used to treat pain and inflammation. Baffert initially said he had no knowledge of how the drug could have gotten into Medina Spirit, blaming “cancel culture” and claiming he once had an overage in a horse which ate hay that was urinated on by a groom who took cough medicine.
Eventually, though, it came to light that Medina Spirit had been treated for dermatitis in the week leading up to the race, with the anti-fungal ointment Otomax containing betamethasone.
Baffert requested the second drug test with another sample, according to the New York Times, which has now been confirmed.
“To be clear, if the findings are upheld, Medina Spirit’s results in the Kentucky Derby will be invalidated and Mandaloun will be declared the winner,” Churchill Downs officials said in a statement on May 9.
Still, a lawyer for the owner of Medina Spirit said further tests are needed to see if the original samples include other components that can prove the traces of betamethasone came from the ointment.
“If it was inadvertent contamination, that should be taken into account,” Clark Brewster, a lawyer for Medina Spirit owner Amr Zedan, told the Times. “We’re hopeful that reasonable minds and good-intentioned regulators can see what it is, and what it is not, and not have a draconian response.”
Mandaloun’s trainer, Brad Cox, told the Associated Press he’s given “very, very little thought to” a change in the Kentucky Derby results, since it’s out of his control.
The New York Racing Association (NYRA) suspended Baffert last month from entering horses or having stall spaces at Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack and Saratoga Race Course. He will not have any horses in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.
Medina Spirit, along with fellow Baffert-trained horse Concert Tour, were allowed by Maryland officials to race in the Preakness Stakes after passing three rounds of prerace testing. Medina Spirit finished third, ending what would have been a controversial bid for the Triple Crown.
A Kentucky Derby disqualification would mark the second in three years after Maximum Security was DQ’d in 2019 for interference after the race. 1968 winner Dancer’s Image is the only previous horse to be disqualified afterward for failing a postrace drug test.
— With AP
