Bob Baffert and Zedan Racing will drop their appeal of a ruling by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to disqualify Medina Spirit from the 2021 Kentucky Derby and issue Baffert a 90-day suspension for the horse’s positive drug test after the race, Baffert said in a social-media post Monday night. The decision will put an end to legal proceedings surrounding the case that have stretched for more than 2 1/2 years. One week after the 2021 Derby, Baffert hired attorneys to represent him in anticipated legal proceedings in front of the commission, and Baffert’s attorney was pursuing a case in a Kentucky Circuit Court after the commission upheld the disqualification and the suspension last year after Baffert appealed the initial stewards’ decision. In 2022, Baffert also had challenged a decision by Churchill Downs to ban him from its tracks through the 2023 Kentucky Derby, but a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Louisville upheld Churchill’s right to issue the ban. Baffert initially appealed that decision but withdrew the appeal shortly thereafter. In the statement, Baffert referenced both Churchill Downs and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, a national regulator for Thoroughbred racing that was launched, in part, in 2022. HISA’s drug-enforcement policies went into effect in the summer of last year. “Zedan Racing’s owner, Amr Zedan, and I have decided that it is best to positively focus on the present and future that our great sport offers,” Baffert said in the social-media post. “We thank the KHRC and Churchill Downs for listening and considering our point of view and we are grateful for the changes and the clarity that HISA brings to our sport.” Baffert served the 90-day suspension issued by the KHRC in the spring 2022. Churchill extended the ban last year through 2024 after Baffert appeared in a taped television interview on the national broadcast of the Belmont Stakes in which he said that he “wouldn’t have done anything different” in the Medina Spirit incident “because everything we were doing was legal. We didn’t break any rules.” Baffert currently has several top 3-year-olds who would be pointed to the Derby in any other year. Several owners, including Zedan – whose Maymun, a $900,000 2-year-old purchase, impressively won a maiden race Saturday – have stuck by Baffert despite the ban and the inability to earn any points toward qualifying for the Derby field while in Baffert’s barn. At the time that Churchill extended the ban, the company cited “continued concerns regarding the threat to the safety and integrity of racing” at its tracks. “A trainer who is unwilling to accept responsibility for multiple drug test failures in our highest-profile races cannot be trusted to avoid future misconduct,” Churchill said in a statement released at the time. On Tuesday morning, Churchill said in a new statement issued in response to an inquiry by DRF that “yesterday’s dismissal of appeal does not change the current [ban] or deadline to transfer horses” for this year’s Derby. Under Churchill’s ban, any horse that is in Baffert’s barn past Jan. 29 is ineligible to enter the Derby this year.  Medina Spirit tested positive for betamethasone, a regulated corticosteroid, after the 2021 Derby. At the time of the race, Kentucky Horse Racing Commission rules banned the presence of the drug in a horse’s system at race time. Eight months earlier, Baffert’s Gamine was disqualified from a third-place finish in the Kentucky Oaks after she also tested positive for betamethasone. Baffert and his attorneys had contended that Medina Spirit was treated with an ointment containing the drug to clear up a rash. The attorneys had argued that rules regulating the drug applied only to intra-articular injections of betamethasone, which is used to reduce swelling. The KHRC ruled that the route of administration had no bearing on whether the positive should be treated as a rule violation. Medina Spirit died suddenly after a workout in December 2021 at Santa Anita Park. A necropsy on the horse found no evidence of illegal drugs and said that the death was likely due to a cardiac event. Baffert and his legal team were likely to spend at least a week in court to argue their case. The legal proceedings over the past 2 1/2 years have drawn detailed coverage in the trade press, and a trial in the weeks prior to the Triple Crown this year would likely also have generated coverage in the mainstream media. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.