Judge rebuffs charges by Baffert's legal team

The District Court judge in a Louisville court who presided over a hearing last week involving the trainer Bob Baffert and Churchill Downs has admonished Baffert’s legal team in an official court document over accusations the attorneys made about improper communications between the judge and Churchill’s attorneys.

In a memorandum issued on Wednesday, Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings categorically denied having improper communications with the Churchill legal team during the course of the hearing, which stretched for eight hours over two days last week. Jennings had initially allotted four hours for the hearing, which was called to consider a motion for preliminary injunction that would have prevented Churchill from continuing to enforce a ban of Baffert from its properties, but she gave both sides an additional day.

In the memorandum, Jennings wrote she had been copied on an e-mail in which Baffert’s legal counsel claimed that the improper communications occurred. The e-mail, which Jennings said she received on Monday, said that Baffert’s attorneys were “considering notifying the marshal’s office for an inquiry.” The memorandum then states that “plaintiffs ultimately accepted defendants’ representations that no ex parte communications occurred,” Jennings wrote.

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Jennings, who expressed frustration with Baffert’s legal team throughout the two-day hearing, said that the “unsubstantiated claim” about improper communications was “serious,” and she wrote that Baffert’s legal team was being put on notice.

“Plaintiffs are warned that any future conduct implicitly threatening the court, attempting to create or fabricate a suggestion suggesting recusal, or made for other advantage or litigation tactic will not be tolerated and may result in a show cause hearing and disciplinary action,” Jennings wrote.

Churchill banned Baffert for two years after his horse Medina Spirit tested positive for a regulated medication, betamethasone, after the 2021 Derby. Baffert re-filed a suit attempting to nullify the ban late last year, and the hearing on Thursday and Friday last week was to consider arguments over whether to compel Churchill to lift the ban while the case is adjudicated.

Jennings repeatedly asked Baffert’s attorneys to stick to arguments pertaining to the issues germane to preliminary injunctions throughout the hearing. She has said that she intends to rule on the request for a preliminary injunction and Churchill’s motion to dismiss the case “soon,” and attorneys for both sides expect that ruling to be made well before Feb. 28, when Baffert’s Kentucky Derby contenders will need to be transferred out of his barn in order to qualify for a spot in the race if he remains banned.

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