Calif. board refuses to set aside DQ of Justify at Santa Anita

The California Horse Racing Board turned down a call to hit pause on the court-ordered disqualification of Justify as the 2018 winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, the race that catapulted the colt to a Triple Crown championship despite a positive drug test after the race.

“After due consideration, it is hereby ordered that the request of owners China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing, WinStar Farm, jockey Mike Smith and trainer (Bob) Baffert for a stay from the decision of the stewards in the above referenced matter is denied,” the CHRB said Wednesday in a written response to Justify’s old connections. “The CHRB will assign a hearing officer in this matter where the issue of timeliness of the appeal and appeal itself will be heard and a proposed decision submitted to the board for consideration.”

Flashback: Judge orders disqualification of Justify.

The CHRB’s refusal to stop the disqualification process in its tracks was the latest victory for Mick Ruis. He owned and trained Bolt d’Oro, who crossed the finish line second behind Justify in the Santa Anita Derby.

“Upon review of the appeal letter, it is apparent that not a single valid legal basis has been stated to challenge the order,” said Carlo Fisco, a Culver City, Calif., attorney representing Ruis. “Let us not forget that despite the efforts of some shady people who tried to secretly push this scam through, a class 3 violation required at the time of the violation a mandatory disqualification and purse redistribution. Period. End of story.”

Amanda Groves, the California-based attorney for team Justify, could not be reached for immediate reaction to the CHRB decision.

The disqualification of Justify was ordered Dec. 1 by Los Angeles Superior Court judge Mitchell Beckloff, who wrote at the time “there is no real doubt the stewards would have disqualified Justify if they understood that (the CHRB) provided them with such authority.”

The CHRB followed Beckloff’s order and formally ordered the disqualification of Justify when it met March 30. It That was the punctuation mark on a March 4 settlement in which Justify’s old connections were told to pay $700,000 to Ruis’s team, including $400,000 for the difference between the $200,000 runner-up prize and $600,000 for finishing first. The remaining $300,000 were to settle Ruis’s lawsuit.

Justify tested positive for scopolamine, an alkaloid that is banned in horse racing, but it was not until September 2019, 17 months after the Santa Anita Derby, when it finally came to light in a report by Joe Drape of The New York Times.

Baffert blamed the test result on a batch of feed that was tainted with jimsonweed and eaten by a number of horses in April 2018 at Santa Anita. The CHRB agreed and, in 2020, also decided scopolamine was not a drug that should trigger a disqualification.

Beckloff agreed with Ruis’s belief that the CHRB overstepped its authority in using the contamination explanation as its guideline and in downgrading the severity of the positive test from a class 3 to class 4 positive.

If the disqualification had happened within the month after the Santa Anita Derby, Justify would have been ineligible for the Kentucky Derby, the first jewel of his Triple Crown. However, in the wake of the court ruling in December, both Churchill Downs Inc. and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission said they would not consider changing the results of the race.

“There are new rules and requirements in place since 2018 to prevent a scenario like this in the future, which is the important thing,” CDI spokesperson Tonya Abeln said in December. “We don’t plan to revisit history in terms of the Kentucky Derby winner.”

“Justify was eligible at the time of the 2018 Kentucky Derby, and the KHRC has no current plans to retroactively consider that eligibility,” commission spokesperson Kristin Voskuhl said at the time.