Trainer Jimmy Baker suspended 15 days for metformin positive

Trainer Jimmy Baker has been suspended for 15 days by Kentucky’s stewards after a horse he trains tested positive for the diabetes drug metformin, a substance that had turned up in another trainer’s horse last year after a race in Kentucky as well.

Fed Money, trained by Baker, tested positive for metformin after winning a maiden-claiming race on Nov. 4 at Churchill Downs, according to the stewards’ ruling. Metformin is cataloged as a Class B drug in Kentucky.

Technically, the stewards suspended Baker for 30 days, but half of the suspension was stayed provided Baker does not have a Class A or Class B positive within the next 365 days. Fed Money, a 4-year-old gelding, also was disqualified, and Baker was fined $500.

Although metformin was developed for use in humans to treat high blood sugar, studies have been performed on the substance as a treatment for mares with equine metabolic syndrome.

Baker said Wednesday that he did not administer the drug to the horse. After being informed of the positive, Baker said, he talked to his groom.

“He gave me five or six vials of the medications he was taking, and the very first one I looked at was metformin,” he said. “He had been in and out of the hospital for a year, had a couple of surgeries, and he told me this is one of the drugs that the doctors told him he needed to get better. It’s a shame that it happened, but I’m the absolute insurer.”

Earlier this year, the Kentucky stewards suspended Wesley Ward for 15 days after his horse Avery Jane tested positive for the same drug after a race in April of last year at Churchill Downs.

Ward said that he “had never heard of the drug” until Avery Jane tested positive. The filly has won several stakes races since testing positive.