Baffert attorneys call KHRC's court filing 'preposterous'

Attorneys for trainer Bob Baffert have called a recent legal filing from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission “baseless” because it seeks a court ruling to turn over information that Baffert’s legal counsel does not possess, according to the July 22 filing in Kentucky’s Franklin Circuit Court.

The legal response to the filing is the latest development in a case that has so far delayed any official ruling on a positive test by Baffert’s Medina Spirit for a regulated anti-inflammatory medication after the horse’s win in this year’s Kentucky Derby. Baffert’s attorneys have sought additional testing on the horse’s split samples from the Derby, a process that was complicated by the damaging of one of the samples.

In the response, attorneys for Baffert and the horse’s owner, Amr Zedan, said that the KHRC’s request for information about the split-sample testing results was “preposterous” because the attorneys had not yet received the results of the testing.

“Plaintiff’s counsel intentionally have had no communication with the New York laboratory – so plaintiffs do not know what that laboratory has done or not done,” the attorneys wrote in the response.

Earlier in the week, the KHRC had filed a request for a ruling, contending that the lab that was selected to test the split sample had displayed “a lack of candor and contemptuous conduct” in handling the sample. The request said that Dr. George Maylin, the director of the New York Equine Drug Testing and Research Laboratory, had not answered KHRC officials when they asked what testing was performed on the sample.

Baffert and his attorneys have maintained that the Derby positive arose due to the daily administration of a skin ointment containing betamethasone, the regulated medication that triggered the positive. Betamethasone is usually injected into sore joints, and Kentucky does not allow the medication to appear in post-race samples. The commission advises that the medication not be administered within 14 days of a race.

The attorneys sought additional testing of the sample at the New York lab in an attempt to detect other substances that are in the ointment. They have argued that evidence supporting their contention of a positive from the skin ointment could influence how stewards rule on the matter.

In their response, Baffert’s attorneys questioned the motivation behind the KHRC’s request for a motion.

“The KHRC is simply trying to create an issue out of thin air to lay the foundation for eventually questioning the validity of the New York laboratory’s testing results,” the response said.