Medina Spirit fails drug test

[kelo]

Hair testing is becoming quite common in horse racing, especially for anabolic steroids, corticosteroids, beta antagonists that don’t test in a urine/blood test, but show up with the hair’s more “long term” report.

Here’s a power point of a presentation by Dr. Stanley from the RTIP Symposium that lists betamethasone as a drug they can test for (page 21): stanley Use of Equine Hair as a New Matrix_AQHA AAEP 2017 (ua-rtip.org)

It would be helpful to have an expert (like Dr. Stanley or someone similar) address whether the hair testing would be helpful or applicable in this particular case, but hair testing itself is a legitimate thing.

[Mardi1]

“Or maybe he didn’t think he had a shot of hitting the board with this horse so he wasn’t worried.”

He said in an interview that there was no f-----ing way the horse would win, and when asked how he felt when the horse did win, replied “…hoping that this poor horse, you know he ran so hard all the way” wouldn’t get caught at the finish line. But now that the horse has tested positive, Baffert calls him “a great horse”. He admitted the horse wouldn’t be competitive in the Derby, but ran him anyway, and risked injury.

And the icing on the cake is attending the press conference with his attorney. Good grief.

[skydy]

Apparently you may not have to give Dex to a horse to get a positive result. See paragraph 15 here; https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/238964/servis-navarro-among-27-facing-doping-related-charges

[Laurierace]

They special horses all the time. I know someone who ran a horse in the last race on a dreary winter night at Penn National. They ran last, got specialed and got a bad test. You never know you aren’t getting tested no matter where they finish.

[mommy_peanut]

@Mardi1

He said in an interview that there was no f-----ing way the horse would win,

In which interview did BB state this?

[halo]

For those concerned about the miniscule amount that a picogram is, this explains it: https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/report-why-regulators-test-for-picograms-of-betamethasone/#.YJmMoIDy6dw.twitter

[SMK]

Thank goodness someone finally did the math out for everyone! 20 pg pg/ml is actually quite a bit when you multiply it out, and considering the vast majority drugs are given in mgs, days later that is not a small amount of drug still circulating, especially with a half-life of about two days.

[Where_sMyWhite]

I am trying very hard to bite my tongue and I do NOT want to turn this into a Current Events thread…

Mr Fake News is now a horse medication expert

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/politics/donald-trump-medina-spirit/index.html

[halo]

I missed the part where he said he was an expert.

[moonlitoaksranch]

I missed the part where his opinion mattered.

[Paint_Party]

Agree that this shouldn’t become Current Events, however, I had to laugh at the notion of Medina Spirit being a junkie. Like he’s wandering the backstretch after dark, trying to score a dime bag from one of the lead ponies.

And then BB was on Fox news claiming he was a victim of cancel culture.

[Mara]

Mere speculation but if I had to hazard a guess as to which candidate got BB’s vote last November…it’d be a little ironic if I were correct.

[JanM]

I had to laugh (it’s the only amusing thing in this entire situation). On Google News, they have a headline from the New York Times “Baffert, Medina Springs’s Trainer Denies Cheating Allegations” They could at least get the horse’s name right.

[bingbingbing]

@Where_sMyWhite

I am trying very hard to bite my tongue and I do NOT want to turn this into a Current Events thread…

Not a good try.
I come here for horses, not politics.

[Tucker5]

Well, I listened to the entire interview with Dr. Clara Fenger and I was not favorably impressed. Each time she brought up such phrases as “fake news”, “irrelevant results”, “innocent until proven guilty”, “presented to the grand jury and indicted”, and “unconstitutional” … she lost a fair bit of credibility.

She did a great job trying to muddy the issues by talking about 57 substances detected in the water supply but stated several times that this was not a factor with Medina Spirit … but then she ended the interview saying that it just might come down to everyone bringing their own water. She compared human athletic drug testing to that of horse racing and declared horse racing to be the cleanest sport. She kept referring to pharmeceuticals as “therapeutics” only separating out anabolic steroids and pointed out how she couldn’t even administer “therapeutics” on race day. It was a bit of an odd stance especially in light of other top trainers not receiving the same results.

BB shouldn’t be able to argue everything away as environmental but Dr Fenger seemed to think he should - that “therapeutics” should not have a zero tolerance level. In fact, she argued before whatever commission it is that decides these things that betamethasone should have an allowed level of 100 picograms. Yes, both she and her husband are heavily involved in the horse racing industry. Her reasoning and conclusion just left me a bit uneasy.

[Texarkana]

Can we give Baffert the Dutrow treatment and be done with this?

[Where_sMyWhite]

@Paint_Party

Like he’s wandering the backstretch after dark, trying to score a dime bag from one of the lead ponies.

Maybe he scored from Harley (the chunky monkey appy lead pony)

@bingbingbing

Not a good try.
I come here for horses, not politics.

That’s why I didn’t name names but it drew out a few other links where geeze, you’d think the media would at least get the horse’s name correct

[Ghazzu]

@Tucker5

She did a great job trying to muddy the issues by talking about 57 substances detected in the water supply but stated several times that this was not a factor with Medina Spirit … but then she ended the interview saying that it just might come down to everyone bringing their own water.

Then why didn’t all the horses have positive samples?

[mooonie]

Baffert is such a cheater. I told my husband to never underestimate the power of a cheater and now it is confirmed. Anything he touches turns to dust.

[Mardi1]

The quote was posted in several places on social media, and I’m looking for the original source.