Medina Spirit Stripped of 2021 Kentucky Derby Win

Medina Spirit is no longer the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby. The colt, who died unexpectedly in December, was officially disqualified by Kentucky racing officials on Monday for failing a drug test after winning America’s greatest race.

Medina Spirit is only the third horse in the 147-year history of the race to receive such a penalty after finishing first. The decision means the colt’s owner, Amr Zedan, will not collect the $1.8 million first-place check, which was never paid out and which now goes to Mandaloun’s owner, Juddmonte, the racing and breeding enterprise founded by Prince Khalid bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who died last year. It also it erases the Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s record-setting seventh Kentucky Derby victory.

In addition, Baffert was suspended for 90 days beginning March 8 and fined $7,500. The ruling followed a hearing via Zoom on Feb. 14 before a three-member panel of stewards for the Kentucky Horse Racing Association.

The drug found in Medina Spirit’s system was betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling. Baffert and his attorneys denied injecting the colt and said the drug was applied topically to treat a skin rash on Medina Spirit’s hind end.

Neither Baffert nor his attorneys were available for comment. Both the trainer and his legal team have indicated that they will appeal the ruling before the horse racing commission in an administrative hearing. They also have said they would pursue all remedies in the court system.

The disqualification puts a new stain on a sport troubled by doping problems and places Baffert’s reputation and future in the sport in jeopardy. Baffert, whose horses won the Triple Crown in 2015 and 2018, is thoroughbred horse racing’s most recognizable personality.

The decision by Kentucky racing officials comes at a time when the Triple Crown season is heating up and the quest for qualifying points to earn a spot in the Derby’s starting gate is getting urgent. Churchill Downs, which hosts the Derby, has suspended Baffert from the race for two years and has refused to award qualifying points to horses he trains.

He has three of the most accomplished 3-year-old colts in his barn — two of them, Corniche and Newgrange, are undefeated. If their owners want to participate in the Derby, they must transfer their horses to another trainer and hope to earn qualifying points in future prep races.

Last month, Baffert threatened to sue Churchill Downs if the track in Louisville, Ky., does not lift the two-year ban, saying his right to due process was violated and that he has been unlawfully excluded from Churchill Downs and the Derby, according to a wide-ranging draft legal complaint obtained by The New York Times. The complaint has not been filed.

Bill Carstanjen, the chief executive of Churchill Downs, said the complaint was “meritless,” threatened to countersue if it is filed and emphasized that Baffert was a repeat offender. In the 2020 Kentucky Oaks, the nation’s premier race for 3-year-old fillies, the Baffert-trained filly Gamine tested positive for the same substance as Medina Spirit after finishing third. In all, Baffert’s horses have failed 30 drug tests over four decades, including five in a recent 13-month period.

“This threatened lawsuit is yet another tactic from Mr. Baffert’s well-worn playbook of obfuscating the facts, inventing excuses to explain positive drug tests and attempting to blame others to avoid responsibility for his own actions,” Carstanjen told the Times.

New York racing officials have sought to ban Baffert from Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga, alleging in a recent hearing that the trainer had committed conduct detrimental to the best interests of racing, to the health and safety of horses and jockeys, and to its business operations.

The necropsy results for Medina Spirit, who died in December of an apparent heart attack after a timed workout at Santa Anita Park, were inconclusive but indicated the colt died of a likely heart attack. Hair, blood and urine samples showed no evidence of doping, California racing officials said on Friday.

The disqualification, along with recent guilty pleas and convictions of prominent trainers and veterinarians for doping horses, lends urgency to the implementation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act.

It is supposed to take effect July 1, 2022, and calls for a board overseen by the Federal Trade Commission to write rules and penalties to be enforced by the United States Anti-Doping agency, which regulates Olympic and other elite athletes in the United States. The agency revealed the cyclist Lance Armstrong’s cheating and issued him a lifetime suspension in 2012.

USADA’s role is uncertain, however, because the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which is charged with creating a framework and budget for enforcement, could not reach an agreement with the agency. The authority is exploring other options for an enforcement entity, but has indicated that it may try to reopen negotiations with USADA.

With Medina Spirit’s apparent victory at Churchill Downs last year, Baffert won his seventh Kentucky Derby, surpassing a record set by Ben Jones, who last won in 1952.

Instead, however, Baffert and Medina Spirit join Maximum Security and Dancer’s Image as the only horses to have their Derby victories overturned.

In 2019, Maximum Security was first across the finish line, only to be disqualified for almost knocking over a rival horse in the far turn and slowing the momentum of others. The next year, Maximum Security’s trainer, Jason Servis, was among the 27 people charged by federal prosecutors in a wide-ranging scheme to secretly dope horses and cheat the betting public. He is awaiting trial.

In 1968, Dancer’s Image’s victory was taken away after a drug test showed the presence of a banned anti-inflammatory. That case lingered in the courts for four years before the disqualification was finally upheld.

More litigation is possible after the Medina Spirit ruling. Bettors were not made whole by the Kentucky decision.

While those who backed Medina Spirit on the first Saturday in May 2021, kept their winnings, those who supported Mandaloun are still left with losing tickets.