Baffert seeks to dismiss CDI's attempt to throw out lawsuit

Attorneys for the suspended Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert have filed a motion asking a federal court to dismiss an attempt by Churchill Downs Inc. to throw out Baffert’s lawsuit against the company.

The response from Baffert was filed three weeks after Churchill filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the company has the legal right to exclude licensees from its property. The case is being argued in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

In the response, Baffert’s attorneys argue that a lease of the Churchill Downs property in Louisville from the city “entwines” the company with the state and that the role of the racing commission in enforcing the rules of racing at the track requires Churchill to comply with laws protecting due-process rights.

“Mr. Baffert clearly has liberty interests in using public property for its intended purposes and to enjoy it in the manner he is expressly permitted to do by law, and defendants interfered with those interests,” the response says. “Because defendants’ actions would require due process if accomplished by the state itself, a deprivation has occurred.”

Last year, Churchill banned Baffert for two years from its racetracks after the trainer’s Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, tested positive for the regulated corticosteroid betamethasone. Based on the positive, Kentucky’s stewards suspended Baffert for 90 days in a ruling released in February, and the suspension when into effect on April 4.

Baffert filed a lawsuit challenging Churchill’s ban in March of this year, after the ruling was released. In early May, Churchill asked the court to dismiss the suit “with prejudice,” arguing that courts have consistently upheld the rights of private businesses to exclude persons from their properties.

But Baffert’s response to the motion to dismiss contends that Churchill’s “reliance upon cases discussing the rights of ‘racetrack proprietors’ is … misplaced,” asserting that the decision runs afoul of anti-trust laws and represents “restraint of trade” because several directors of the company own horses.

Several owners of top 3-year-olds trained by Baffert transferred their horses to other trainers in the early spring in order to compete in the Kentucky Derby. The response from Baffert’s lawyers contends that those decisions were evidence of the “conspiracy.”

“What Defendants and their co-conspirators have done here is to deprive owners of their freedom to select their chosen trainer for their Derby horses while leaving the licenses of their own trainers unencumbered,” the motion states.