A rules committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Monday voiced its approval for several major changes to the way drug positives are adjudicated in the state, including giving stewards the option of throwing out the cases if a trainer provides “substantial evidence” to overcome the requirements of the absolute insurer rule. The five-member committee, meeting in a room packed with representatives of owners, trainers,  and jockeys, plus commission personnel and state stewards, held a lively 90-minute discussion revolving around the proposed rule changes before directing the commission’s legal counsel, John Forgy, to put the changes in writing and distribute them to the state’s racing constituencies for comment. The proposed changes come in the wake of several medication cases in Kentucky that have challenged the absolute-insurer rule, which holds trainers liable for the conditions of their horses regardless of circumstances. Late last year, a Kentucky district court judge ruled that the state’s existing regulation denied trainers their due-process rights by preventing them from presenting evidence that could rebut positive findings, the first challenge to the rule from a court in nearly 50 years. The change to the absolute insurer rule would address a direct criticism in the judge’s ruling by providing a “rebuttable presumption” to trainers facing drug positives, with the caveat that stewards would still have the power to assess penalties if a trainer is not able to prove his or her case. “[Stewards] don’t have to accept his excuse,” said Marty Maline, the executive director of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, when asked to comment about the change. “But they at least have to listen to what he has to say.” The change could be addressed by the full commission at a meeting scheduled for mid-May, Forgy told committee members and Frank Kling, the chairman of the commission, who sat in on the meeting. It would then take four to six months to get the rules through the various requirements set by the state legislature for rule-making bodies before going into effect. The committee also approved adding language to the state’s rules that will give stewards discretion to assign penalties below the minimum requirements set by regulation for positives for Class A, B, and C drugs. Committee members said that the discretionary powers would allow stewards to use mitigating circumstances in cases in which there is a gray area on responsibility for a drug positive, such as a Class A drug that appears in a low concentration in a post-race sample and that is also known as an environmental contaminant. “We’ve handcuffed the judgment of our stewards in a lot of cases,” said Bret Jones, a committee member who is heavily involved with the operation of his family’s farm, Airdrie Stud. “This is the general concept of giving them more latitude.” In addition, the committee approved a change to the state’s language regarding prohibited substances in racehorses by eliminating specific language to the types of drugs that are prohibited to the blanket characterization of “substances foreign to a horse.” John Roach, a former Kentucky Supreme Court justice who is on the committee and the commission, said the amendment will create a “bright line” for regulators in determining what substances can be considered by the commission for penalties. “It makes the standard clearer,” said Forgy.