How many lost lives is a “spate”? That kind of comment in the rebuttal article is something that I find incredibly distasteful. It absolutely presents the point of view that the number doesn’t matter.
I have been out of this line of work for a bit but (my opinions alone): I am a former employee of CAHFS, UC Davis, Maddy Lab. We studied MANY cases of contamination vs direct administration, the declaration of “accidental exposure”. Moreover, studies were performed on targeting levels detected and their ability to enhance performance or the PD outcome. Sometimes it was for legal prep. Many times rulemaking, SOP development, or other impact. It seems maybe the CHRB dismissed this before it would go to outside study or confirmation. Bummer.
The quotes, and evidently I wasn’t clear enough, were that the horse himself was just a horse. Justify can’t “cheat”, his human team can “cheat” for him.
Was this cheating and fixing? Since the mud slinging has started, I don’t know. Do I think Baffert has, upon occasion, a force field that causes bad juju to slide off him? Sometimes I’ve thought so. In this case, I don’t know.
Do I think that racing should call out cheaters and fixers? Yes, but, as in any other “accusation”, the cheat/fix should be proven and not just hand waving (as many who read my other comments should come as no surprise 
).
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BH has it now… I suspect (don’t know) that the story hit wide publication after most of the BH staff were finished. They often appear to pick up stories later than places like PR and DRF.
The BH article is saying jimson weed contamination from straw bedding, not from feed.
Let the court room games begin.
The big issue is NOT whether or not the positive test was due to contamination, it is that it was COVERED UP.
When you have a positive test, the trainer can request the split sample be tested. In this case, the race was run on April 7, and the sample came up positive. Now I’m quoting from the NY Times article:
“The lab sent notice on April 18, two and a half weeks before the Kentucky Derby, that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine…”
This is about the usual time to get test results back. Normal trainers get a phone call from the stewards immediately because the purse gets held up, and the trainer notifies the owner.
"Baffert and other trainers in California were well aware that scopolamine was a banned substance and that it could occasionally be found in jimson weed, though the plant’s strong odor and foul taste make it unappealing. In November 2016, Dr. Rick Arthur, the racing board’s equine medical director, warned horsemen to be alert to jimson weed in their feed and hay, saying that a positive test for the drug is “totally avoidable.”
“Now, the likelihood under our current procedures of getting a positive from environmental contamination is rather low,” Dr. Arthur said at the time.
On April 20, two days after learning of Justify’s positive test, Dr. Arthur wrote in an email circulated to Baedeker, the board’s executive director, its lawyers and its interim chief investigator that the case would be “handled differently than usual.” He asked for further testing and review of the data."
Things are looking fishy. Justify needed the win to get into the Derby. At this point, the KY stewards should have been notified that there was an issue because Justify’s eligibility to run in the Derby is questionable.
“On the morning of April 26, four days before Justify was to ship to Louisville, Ky., for the Kentucky Derby, Baffert received notification that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine. Baffert, as was his right, asked that another sample from that test be sent to an approved independent lab.”
Why on earth did the stewards wait from April 18 to April 26 to notify the trainer?
"It was sent on May 1, four days before the Derby, and that lab confirmed the result on May 8. (By then, Justify had won the Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown.) The same day, Baedeker notified the board members that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine.
“The C.H.R.B. investigations unit will issue a complaint and a hearing will be scheduled,” he told them in a memorandum obtained by The Times.
No one ever filed a complaint and the hearing never took place."
This is seriously egregious and deviates from how positive tests are normally handled.
"Instead, on Aug. 23, 2018, more than four months after the failed test, Baedeker said he presented the Justify case directly to the commissioners of the California Horse Racing Board in a private executive session, a step he had never taken in his five-and-a-half-year tenure. The board voted unanimously not to proceed with the case against Baffert.
Without a formal complaint, Baedeker said state law prohibited him from discussing in detail the evidence of environmental contamination. In a written response, Baedeker said that a handful of other horses may have been contaminated, but he offered little supporting evidence."
If they are so convinced NOW that it was environmental contamination, WHY NOT PRESENT THE EVIDENCE??
What are the names, dates and races where other horses tested positive, and were those positives handled in a similar manner? Nope, this is favoritism and cover up and I hope they all get the bejesus sued out of them.
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I have not been in Baffert’s barn in Cali but have been in his barn when he is at Pimlico and he doesn’t even bed on straw here. There are 30!!! bags of shavings in each of his stalls. I know that because I bedded my stalls for weeks with the clean shavings I wheelbarreled out of his stalls after the Preakness.
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Thank you for clarifying!
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I agree with you. The cover up is the issue. And that there wasn’t an adequate investigation. CA racing has had some serious issues lately.
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Not to play Devil’s Advocate but , from the same article in the NY Times comes this statement.
“The other horses had the presence of scopolamine but below the screening level and therefore were not positive tests,” he said in a written response.” - Rick Baedeker, the executive director of the California Horse Racing Board.
So, how far below the screening level? How close were they to the screening level? So some one treated a bunch of horses with scopolomine, but only one horse was above the level? So many questions. No answers.
We all know Baffert came from the QH world, where things are more “untidy”, but at this point in his life would he be that unintelligent?
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Thats why the studies would need to be done by a group like when I worked for the CA lab. We did everything from various feed contamination, feed poppy seed muffins, bakery scraps, microscopic amounts of illicit rubs on a nose, etc. to try and duplicate the levels or effects thus confirming or disproving the assertion. Too bad this case wasn’t done.
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It could do that if other owners are willing to press the issue. With Justify breeding three mares a day and having already recouped his $60 million price tag, there may be too many owners/groups invested in continuing to sweep it under the rug. If lawsuits are filed they will take years to go through and by then he’ll have offspring of racing age. It’s definitely going to be interesting.
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Haha, they can try…
What a nightmare. How disappointing… 
For a Triple Crown Winner? And possibly a cut of the $60 million sale price? He’s done unethical things before.
ETA: The real shame of it is that doped or contaminated, Justify will always be the Triple Crown winner who may not have deserved it due to cheating.
Now, unsurprisingly, The Associated Press produces this article;https://www.apnews.com/963bd368bb0845778253f7bde1080b43
Well it’s on ABC network news now.
Justify is a long way from having earned back his price tag–which is kind of a moot point here. The horse is a Triple Crown winner with a great pedigree. That’s what made breeders pay 150K to breed to him. Nothing about that is going to change.
What will be looked at is whether or not he should have been taken down as winner of the SA Derby. Yes, that would have prevented him from running in the KY Derby–if the CHRB had done something about it at the time. They did not and he went on to compete in and win all three races, passing all testing in the three states. There won’t be lawsuits pertaining to the Triple Crown–no one can argue that his wins there weren’t justifed–and breeders will continue to seek him out for their mares.
What needs to be examined is the role the CHRB played in letting a famous trainer skate past rules that the rest of us have to play by. Hopefully that will take place. But frankly I wouldn’t bet the farm on it happening.
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Not that it matters much, but Sir Barton would be on the list. Justify isn’t alone.
I have great respect for you, and your thoughts and opinions…however, I would argue that a case could be made for the idea that the horse should not have been eligible to compete in the triple crown races.
Now, will people still want to breed to an exceptional son of a very fine sire who died young? Sure. But some attorneys, or even states attorneys, are going to may hay of this. Really.
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