KENTUCKY DERBY WINNER FAILS DRUG TEST

Bob Baffert was overjoyed, his 12-1 shot Medina Spirit led from wire to wire and the Horse Racing Hall of Fame trainer added to his list of all-time Kentucky Derby winners.

That was the good news Saturday. He praised jockey John Velasquez for a gallant run and draped the traditional Bed of Roses over the 3-year-old horse.

But on Sunday morning, the silver-haired Baffert got unexpected bad news. He learned that Medina Spirit, one of his two entries in the first of the three Triple Crown races, the 147th Derby at Churchill Downs, had failed the drug test, jeopardizing the title.

Said Baffert of the failed drug test: “I got the biggest gut-punch in racing for something I didn’t do, and it’s disturbing. It’s an injustice to the horse … I don’t know what’s going on in racing right now.

“I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel like I was wronged. We’re going to do our own investigation. We’re going to be transparent with the racing commission, like we always are.”

The only horse to be disqualified for medication after winning the Derby is Dancer’s Image in 1968.

Medina Spirit is Baffert’s fifth horse known to have failed a drug test in just over a year. Now he was told that Medina Spirit was found to have 24 picograms of betamethasone, slightly more than double that the trainer said was the allowable amount — in a post race sample.

Betamethasone is the same drug that was found in the system of Gamine, another Baffert-trained horse who finished third in the Kentucky Oaks last September. Gamine was eventually disqualified from the finish because of the test and Baffert was fined $1,500.

Betamethasone is legal under Kentucky racing rules, although it must be cleared 14 days before a horse race.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist”, Baffert said. “I know everybody is not out to get me. but there’s definitely something wrong.”

Mandaloun, which lost the Derby by a half-length, would become the winner if the failed drug test holds up, but he is not going to the Saturday Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, and so if he’s the winner, that would mean the Triple Crown pursuit for 2021 would end right there, and that would publicly hurt the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, the second and third legs.

It is unknown how long Kentucky officials will take to determine whether the results of the Derby should stand or will change.

If Medina Spirit is disqualified, his connections will not receive the $1.86 million winner’s share of the Derby purse money. But for bettors, anything that happens next won’t matter. Those who cashed in on Medina Spirit still win, and those who backed Mandaloun missed out on a winning ticket that would have returned $50 on a $2 wager.

Baffert was planning to saddle Medina Spirit and Concert Tour in the Preakness, and would be going for a record eighth victory in that race. He is undefeated with a Derby winner in the Preakness.

Last month Baffert won an appeals case before the Arkansas Racing Commission after he had been suspended by Oaklawn Park stewards for 15 days for a pair of positive drug tests involving two of his horses that won on the track on May 2, 2000. The horses tested positive for the painkiller lidocaine, which Baffert said they were exposed to inadvertently.

The failed drug test is just another in a long series of events shadowing the sport — and the Derby, its best known and most prestigious race — in recent years.

“I know I’m the most scruinized trainer and have millions of eyes on me,” Baffert said. “But the last thing I want to do is do something that would jeopardize the greatest two minutes in sports.”

Meanwhile, Medina Spirit’s win in the Derby stands — for now.