Medina Spirit case is not mentioned in Ky. commission meeting

The pending decision on whether the late Medina Spirit will be disqualified from his win in the 2021 Kentucky Derby was not mentioned during Tuesday’s meeting of the state's Horse Racing Commission.

Chief steward Barbara Borden gave a Thoroughbred rulings report to the commission without acknowledging the case.

Stewards met Monday with trainer Bob Baffert and his lawyers to hear the Medina Spirit case. No ruling was made at the hearing, and no timetable was offered.

Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby on May 1 before testing positive for betamethasone after the race. Baffert and his legal team maintained the positive test was due to the application of a skin cream known as Otomax and not an injection.

Baffert claimed further testing performed on the Protonico colt’s split-sample urine detected betamethasone valerate, which would indicate the positive was indeed due to a skin cream. Had the betamethasone been injected, Baffert and his attorneys said it would have been betamethasone acetate.

Baffert recently went through a hearing with the New York Racing Association to help determine whether he will be suspended from its tracks. It was during that meeting that a NYRA attorney said a stewards hearing was scheduled for Feb. 7. The meeting was moved to this week due to a scheduling conflict, according to Clark Brewster, one of Baffert’s lawyers.

Medina Spirit died when he collapsed after a five-furlong workout Dec. 6 at Santa Anita. A necropsy revealed no obvious cause of death.