Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit will be allowed to run in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes despite testing positive for a restricted substance.
The conditions of the agreement include “a binding commitment” from Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert for “full transparency of medical and testing results that will allow for all results to be released to the public,” Preakness officials said in a statement.
Baffert’s lawyer Craig Robertson had revealed earlier Tuesday that Medina Spirit would be permitted to run in the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown after Baffert agreed to blood testing and a medical review by the Maryland Jockey Club.
Medina Spirit had tested positive for the anti-inflammatory medication betamethasone after winning the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 1.
After previously maintaining Medina Spirit had “never” been given that drug, Baffert revealed earlier Tuesday that the horse had been treated for a recent case of dermatitis with the anti-fungal ointment Otomax. He claimed to be unaware Otomax contained betamethasone until he was informed on Monday.
“While we do not know definitively that this was the source of the alleged 21 picograms found in Medina Spirit’s post-race blood sample, and our investigation is continuing, I have been told by equine pharmacology experts that this could explain the test results,” Baffert said in the statement.
In a media appearance on Monday, the 68-year-old Baffert said he once had an overage stemming from a horse eating hay in a stall that had been urinated on by a groom who had ingested cough medication containing the banned substance.
“I intend to continue to investigate and I will continue to be transparent. In the meantime, I want to reiterate two points I made when this matter initially came to light,” Baffert said. “First, I had no knowledge of how betamethasone could have possibly found its way into Medina Spirit (until now) and this has never been a case of attempting to game the system or get an unfair advantage.
“Second, horse racing must address its regulatory problem when it comes to substances which can innocuously find their way into a horse’s system at the picogram (which is a trillionth of a gram) level. Medina Spirit earned his Kentucky Derby win and my pharmacologists have told me that 21 picograms of betamethasone would have had no effect on the outcome of the race. Medina Spirit is a deserved champion and I will continue to fight for him.”
Medina Spirit arrived in Baltimore on Monday and has drawn the No.3 starting position. Concert Tour, another horse trained by Baffert, also will run Saturday, starting from the far-outside No.10 gate. A third horse, Beautiful Gift, is scheduled to run in the George E. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico on Friday.
“If any of the Baffert horses test positive for a banned substance, or at a level for a permitted therapeutic substance that is above the designated limit, or if after medical review, reasonable conditions warrant, Baffert or [Maryland Jockey Club] on his behalf, will scratch the horse in question,” the Preakness statement said.