Attorney: Baffert’s 2021 Kentucky Derby hearing will be Monday

One of Bob Baffert’s attorneys confirmed that a review that could change the outcome of the 2021 Kentucky Derby will be heard by state stewards Monday at 10:30 a.m. EST in a Zoom hearing that was postponed from this week.

“They will receive testimony and exhibits and a presentation of evidence,” said Clark Brewster, an Oklahoma-based lawyer who added Thursday evening he and Baffert will be in Lexington, Ky., on Monday.

Related: Medina Spirit's necropsy results come out Friday.

Brewster’s confirmation of the meeting, which will not be open to the public, was reported earlier Thursday by the Lexington Herald Leader. The hearing will determine whether the late Medina Spirit should be disqualified from his May 1 victory at Churchill Downs after he failed a post-race drug test.

“What I do know is there’s no rule violation at all,” Brewster told Horse Racing Nation. “We’re hopeful in light of that, that that will be the end of the matter on Monday, but you never know what stewards will do.”

An email from HRN to a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission spokeswoman asking if the meeting had been scheduled had not led to an immediate response Thursday evening.

Team Baffert contends that Medina Spirit tested positive for a trace amount of betamethasone because of an ointment he was given to treat a skin condition, not because of an injection.

“I know (Kentucky regulators) originally thought that the 21 picograms of betamethasone were the result of the horse being injected,” Brewster said. “It turns out they were wrong. It’s now scientifically proven that it was not from an injectable, which is the only thing regulated.”

Brewster added that any appeal of Churchill Downs Inc.’s “unprecedented” two-year ban of Baffert and his horses from the Derby, the Kentucky Oaks and CDI racetracks may depend on the outcome of Monday’s hearing.

“It was extraordinary, and it was premature,” Brewster said. “Ultimately, that’s an issue we’ll deal with.”

Brewster did not offer a timetable for fighting the ban, saying “we’ve got the (Monday) hearing set, and we’ll see what happens there.”

Baffert and Brewster will be side by side in Lexington to take part in the Zoom hearing, even though they wanted to present their case in person, face to face with the stewards.

“I’ve asked to,” Brewster said, “but they prefer to do it by Zoom, so we’ll just be there in Kentucky.”

Brewster also said the stewards had intended to hold the meeting on Monday this week, but “I was tied up on a two-day matter here (in Tulsa) that was not going to be moved. We tried to move it and couldn’t move it. It was just a calendar issue.”