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On June 9, 2018, a foal named Justify cheered the enthusiasm of a crowd capable of winning the 150th Belmont Stakes and claiming the Triple Crown of Horse Racing, one of the sport's most historic accomplishments. .
It was the perfect end of an unlikely trip for a talented horse, his eclectic ownership group and Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert.
However, only a few people knew the secret that Baffert wore in the winner's circle that day: Justify had failed drug test a few weeks before the first race in the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby. This meant that Justify should not have run in the Derby if the rules of the sport were respected.
They were not, according to Documents reviewed by the New York Times. Instead of a drug test leading to a quick disqualification, the California Horse Racing Board took more than a month to confirm the results. Then, instead of filing a public complaint as usual, the jury took a series of in camera decisions to drop the case and alleviate the penalty for any horse having the prohibited substance whose evidence had has been tested positive in Justify. system.
Only a handful of race officials and people related to Justify were aware of the failure of the drug test, which occurred on April 7, 2018, after Justify's victory at the Santa Anita Derby. It has been tested positive for scopolamine, a banned substance that veterinarians believe can improve performance, particularly with regard to the amount found in horses.
Justify was undefeated at the time, but he On May 5, he still had to finish first or second in the Santa Anita derby to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. While the colt was winning at Santa Anita, the failed drug test would mean disqualification and forfeiture of the award amount and the Kentucky Derby entry that came with the win.
None of this has happened, however.
Tresults, emails and internal notes in the Justify case, California regulators waited nearly three weeks, until the Kentucky derby was in nine days, to inform Baffert that his Derby favorite had failed a doping control.
Four months later – and more than two months after Justify, Baffert and the owners of the horse celebrated their Triple Crown victory in New York – the jury fully settled the investigation in a closed session of The direction. He decided, with little evidence, that the positive test could have resulted from the consumption of food contaminated by Justify. The council voted unanimously to dismiss the case. In October, the penalty for violating scopolamine was changed to a fine and a possible suspension.
Baffert has not responded to several attempts to contact him for this article.
Rick Baedeker, executive director of the California Horse Racing Board, acknowledged that it was a tricky case because of the timing to do it. he Regulators have acted with caution because scopolamine could be found in Jimson grass, which can grow wild where dung is present and inadvertently mix in food, and that 'environmental contamination' is often used as a defense.
"We could end up one day in the Superior Court" he said.
"It was impossible for us to prepare an investigation report before the Kentucky Derby," he added. "It's impossible – well, it's not impossible, it would have been careless and imprudent to tell an investigator what usually takes you two months, you have to be treated in five or eight days. We would not do that.
The documents reviewed by the Times do not show any evidence of pressure or modification from the owners of Justify. Horse racing, however, is particularly insular.
California Horse Racing Board president Chuck Winner holds a stake in Baffert-trained horses. Two other board members employ coaches and jockeys, they regulate.
Justify the owners included the power brokers in the sport such as WinStar Farm, a Kentucky company owned by Kenny Troutt, a billionaire commercial thoroughbred farmer; the mysterious China Horse Club, whose 200 members from mainland China and elsewhere have disbursed $ 1 million to join; and an equine investment fund with links to billionaire investor George Soros. Baffert is the largest in the United States coach. He won Kentucky Derby five times. In 2015, he coached American Pharoah, the first horse to win the Triple Crown after Affirmed's victory in 1978.
With Justify, Baffert was confronted with a late-developing foal that did not run at 2 years old. The last horse to win the Derby without having started at the age of 2 was Apollo in 1882.
As usual, blood and urine samples from Justify and 34 other horses participating in the Santa Anita Derby Day Contest were delivered on April 10 in a laboratory at the University of California at Davis.
On April 18, two and a half weeks before the Kentucky Derby, the lab reported that Justify had been tested positive for scopolamine, which is normally used to treat stomach or intestinal problems, such as nausea and vomiting. muscle spasms, in the man.
Horse racing has a long history of drug reuse by coaches looking for a competitive advantage. Frog and cobra venom, Viagra, cocaine, heart medication and steroids have all been detected in drug tests.
The cases of scopolamine resulted in disqualifications, stock market repayments, fines and suspensions over the decades.
Dr. Rick Sams, Kentucky Horse Racing Commission pharmacy manager from 2011 to 2018, scopolamine can be used as a bronchodilator to clear the airway of a horse and optimize his heart rate, improving his efficiency. He said the amount of scopolamine found in Justify – 300 nanograms per milliliter – was excessive, and suggested that the drug was aimed at improving performance.
"I think it has to come from an intentional intervention," he said.
In California, Baffert and other trainers knew that scopolamine was a banned substance and could sometimes be found in Jimson grass, although the strong smell and bad taste of this plant make it unattractive. In November 2016, Dr. Rick Arthur, Race Equine Medical Director of the Race Board, Warned riders to be alert to Jimson Weed's presence in their diet and their hay, saying that a positive test for the drug is "totally preventable".
"Currently, current procedures are unlikely to have a positive impact on environmental contamination," said Dr. Arthur.
On April 20, two days after learning of Justify's positive test result, Dr. Arthur wrote in an e-mail to Baedeker, Executive Director of the Board, his lawyers, and his Acting Chief Investigator that case would be "treated differently usual. "He asked for additional tests and a review of the data.
In an interview, Baedeker said he believed that Dr. Arthur meant that the investigation needed to be thorough.
Other cases of doping were quickly handled by California's racing bureaucracy. In March, an employee of a coach, William Morey, was arrested under surveillance while giving a drug to a horse. Laboratory tests were completed, an investigation completed and a complaint filed and made public 28 days later.
On the morning of April 26, four days before sending Justify to Louisville, Kentucky, for the Kentucky Derby, Baffert was informed that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine. Baffert, as it was his right, asked that another sample of this test be sent to an approved independent laboratory.
It was sent on May 1, four days before the Derby, and this lab confirmed the result on May 8. (At that time, Justify had won the Derby, the first stage of the Triple Crown.) The same day, Baedeker informed the board members that Justify had been tested positive for scopolamine.
"C.H.R.B. the investigation unit will file a complaint and a hearing will be scheduled, "he told them in a memorandum obtained by The Times.
No one ever complained and the hearing never took place.
Instead, on August 23, 2018, more than four months after the test failed, Baedeker claimed to have presented the Justify case directly to the California Horse Racing Board Commissioners during a private session. which he had never taken part in. -and a year and a half. The council voted unanimously not to proceed with the Case against Baffert.
Without a formal complaint, Baedeker said that 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 might have been contaminated, but he provided little evidence to support.
"The other horses had the presence of scopolamine but below the level of screening and so were not positive tests," he said in a written response.
The California Race Council, as well as the horse racing industry in general, have been targeted by the death of 30 racehorses since Dec. 26 in Santa Anita Park. Los Angeles District Attorney Investigates the dead, and the state legislature held hearings and considered changes to improve the way horses are treated and regulated tracks.
California the laws do not prohibit owners of active horses from being appointed to the regulatory council to oversee the sport. Beyond the owner-trainer relationship between the President and Baffert, Madeline Auerbach, vice-chair of the board, and another commissioner, Dennis Alfieri, employ trainers and jockeys in California.
Joe Gorajec, former chairman of the board Association of International Race Commissioners, a professional group of industry commissioners, said the system was doomed to fail in California and other states in which regulators are in business with the people they direct to the police.
"Minimum bans should prevent owners of active horses, coaches, ranchers and jockeys, or any other person deriving income from this business, from serving a commission," said Gorajec, executive director of the Indiana Horse Racing Commission. . "Commissioners should be prohibited from wagering in the state that they serve."
In the months that followed the decision to file the case against Justify, the race board went up to reduce the penalty for violation of scopolamine from disqualification and confiscation of the stock exchange to a fine and a suspension.
Baedeker said the regulators planned to move to the lower standard. He said the plan was to appeal for the lower filing if the case was going to an audience.
"Our staff did not make these changes to the board – we admit it," he said.
Baffert has undergone regulatory procedures in California
In 2013, after seven horses in his custody died over a 16-month period, he was the subject of a commission report stating that he had administered a thyroid hormone to each horse from his barn without checking if he had had one. had thyroid problems.
Baffert told investigators that he thought the drug would help "build" his horses, even though the drug is usually associated with weight loss. In this case, the jury's report found no evidence "that C.H.R.B. rules or regulations were violated. "
In rretirement, Justify partners as often as three times a day. Coolmore, the international livestock company that purchased the justify breeding rights, receives up to 150,000 USD for mating, or 450,000 USD per day during a five-month breeding season. This means that Coolmore has already recovered its $ 60 million investment.
Justify is currently in Australia. The owners have their mares lined up in the hope of getting what is supposed to be the perfect seed of the perfect racehorse.
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