The California Horse Racing Board has agreed to order the disqualification of 2018 Horse of the Year Justify from the 2018 Santa Anita Derby and pay $300,000 to the owner of the second-place finisher in the race, Bolt d’Oro, under a settlement reached earlier this week.The settlement will require the redistribution of the Santa Anita Derby’s $1 million purse. Justify earned $600,000 for his dominating three-length win in the race but will now be placed last. Bolt d’Oro, owned by Mick Ruis, who earned $200,000 for his second-place finish, will be elevated to first.The settlement, reached on March 4 and signed by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge on March 5, puts an end to nearly five years of litigation over the result of the race. Ruis began seeking the disqualification after The New York Times published a story 17 months after the race outlining a decision by the CHRB to dismiss a post-race positive by Justify for the drug scopolamine following the race. Late last year, Judge Mitchell L. Beckhoff of the Los Angeles Superior Court ordered the CHRB to disqualify Justify, citing his dissatisfaction with a response by California stewards on their legal rationale for failing to issue the disqualification. The settlement states that “nothing contained in this agreement shall be construed as an admission of liability, any wrongdoing, or any violation of law.” The purse re-distribution will be completed within 30 days. The settlement was first reported by The Blood-Horse.Justify, who won the 2018 Triple Crown and retired before the end of the year with an undefeated record, has gone on to become a highly successful sire. He was raced by a partnership that included China Horse Club, WinStar Farm, Starlight Racing, and Head of Plains Partners. He was trained by Bob Baffert.Justify was nominated this year for election into the Racing Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. With his disqualification, his final racing record will be modified to five wins in six starts.The CHRB has consistently defended its decision to dismiss the drug positive, citing accidental contamination from a shipment of hay on the Santa Anita backstretch that contained jimsonweed. Scopolamine occurs naturally in jimsonweed.At the time of the 2018 Santa Anita Derby, scopolamine was listed as a Class 3 drug, but the CHRB was in the process of reclassifying the substance to a Class 4 drug. Under CHRB rules in place at the time, positives for Class 1, 2, or 3 drugs required disqualifications of horses, but the CHRB argued that they were not required to issue any disqualification or penalty due to the determination that the horse had accidentally been contaminated.