Churchill formalizes Mandaloun’s promotion to Derby winner

While Bob Baffert’s legal team has promised to appeal Medina Spirit’s disqualification, Churchill Downs went ahead with a photo op Tuesday morning to change a paddock sign to show Mandaloun won the 2021 Kentucky Derby. 

It could be the first of many changes to the sign as the legal and bureaucratic maneuvers and appeals have a long way to go.

This particular replacement came in the middle of a Louisville rainstorm. A track spokesman said it could not be done in the dry weather Monday, because the “guy who changes signs is union, and they (had the say) off because of the holiday.”

It was not a run-of-the-mill Presidents’ Day for racing. A long-awaited stewards ruling on last year’s Derby finally dropped Monday at about 1 p.m. EST. It announced the disqualification of Medina Spirit because of his betamethasone positive from last May. It also proclaimed Mandaloun the Derby winner.

The signs heralding big wins for Monomoy Girl and Shedaresthedevil and even the trainer himself have been replaced at the Brad Cox barn at Churchill Downs by a single sign honoring Mandaloun’s newly awarded victory in the Derby.

“I’m proud of the horse,” Cox told Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod on Monday. “I’m happy for (owner) Juddmonte Farm and Garrett O’Rourke. Unbelievable tradition that they have with that legacy that they have with so many horses throughout the years. I’m hoping someday he’ll be remembered as one of the top horses they have.”

Cox was not  at Churchill Downs on Tuesday, since he was scheduled to be on a flight to the Middle East to look after Mandaloun’s run in Saturday’s Grade 1, $20 million Saudi Cup.

O’Rourke, the general manager of Juddmonte USA, chose not to comment on the adjudicated victory, telling HRN in a text that the “appeal has to play out.”

The signs at the Baffert barn were all gone Tuesday afternoon, including the one showing what had been the trainer’s record seven Derby victories. The only indication of recent activity was a tractor parked in the same doorway Baffert used to hold his impromptu news conference May 9 to announce Medina Spirit’s drug positive.

Although Baffert was ordered by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to pay a $7,500 fine and serve a 90-day suspension March 8-June 5, his attorney Craig Robertson promised an immediate appeal that presumably would put off any penalty.

Also on Baffert’s legal team, lawyer Clark Brewster stopped short of saying a court fight would be coming next to try and overturn Churchill Downs’ ban on Baffert and his horses from the next two runnings of the Derby.

“We are discussing all options,” he said. “The decision regarding CDI will come soon.”

In addition to Baffert’s contention that the betamethasone positive in Medina Spirit was brought on by a legal ointment rather than an illegal injection, Brewster added the new strategic wrinkle that Tyler Picklesimer, one of the three stewards ruling on the Medina Spirit case, works for Churchill Downs Inc., creating a conflict of interest with the very company that has banned Baffert from its racetracks.

“The fact that one of the stewards is a current CDI employee raises serious and disturbing bias issues,” Brewster said in a text to HRN.

Picklesimer is the racing director and secretary at CDI-owned Turfway Park near Cincinnati. He also fulfills the Kentucky state practice of having one racecourse employee work with two KHRC stewards to oversee races at any given track.

Still to be decided in the coming days and weeks is whether owners loyal to Baffert will move their Kentucky Derby and Oaks contenders out of his stable in order to be eligible for Derby qualifiers that reach a climax late next month and in early April.

Most of Baffert’s most serious candidates for the Derby, including Robert B. Lewis (G3) winner Messier and Saturday’s likely Rebel Stakes (G2) favorite Newgrange, are owned by the same partners who are led by Tom Ryan of SF Racing, Jack Wolf of Starlight Racing and Sol Kumin of Madaket Stable. None has commented recently on if or when they might move their horses to eligible trainers.

Baffert and his lawyers continue to wait for the New York Racing Association to rule on a call to permanently set aside a suspension that was handed down for Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga last spring. Baffert won a judge’s order that let him race last summer at Saratoga. To fulfill that judge’s call for due process, NYRA held a hearing last month, but the retired judge running it has not issued his recommendation yet.

Additional reporting by Horse Racing Nation’s Matt Stahl at Churchill Downs.