Report – Justify the Failure of Drug Screening Before Triple Crown

Justify failed a drug test one month before the 2018 Kentucky Derby and the California Horse Racing Board decided to file the case after the colt won the Triple Crown, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. .

According to the newspaper, on April 7, 2018, Justify would be positive to scopolamine after winning the Santa Anita Derby and qualifying for the Kentucky Derby. Scopolamine is a banned substance that can improve performance, according to the Times.

Such a result should have resulted in disqualification, forfeiture of the purse and removal of his Kentucky Derby entry. However, according to the Times, California regulators waited until April 26, nine days before the Kentucky Derby, to inform Bob Baffert, the coach of the Justify's Hall of Fame.

Baffert asked an independent lab to test the second sample and confirmed the results on May 8, three days after Justify's victory at the Kentucky Derby.

According to the Times, the racing board then turned away from its normal course, citing e-mails and internal memoranda it had obtained. Rather than file a complaint and hold a hearing, nothing happened until August 23, four months after the test failed, and two months after Justify finished his triple crown by winning the Belmont Stakes.

Executive director Rick Baedeker took the unprecedented step of presenting the case directly to the commissioners of the board, who voted unanimously to drop the case, according to the Times.

The jury decided that the test results could come from Justify, which consumes contaminated food. However, Rick Sams, former head of the Kentucky Horse Commission's Addiction Laboratory, told the Times that the amount of scopolamine contained in Justify's system suggested that it "must come from an intervention." intentional ".

In addition, the medical director of the California board of directors said about scopolamine in 2016 that the chances of getting "a positive result from environmental contamination are rather low" .

The Times said Baffert had not responded to attempts to comment on the story.

Two months after the dismissal of the Justify case, the California board changed the sanction for a failed scopolamine test from an exclusion to a fine and a fine. possible suspension.

Scopolamine can help clear the airways of a horse and optimize his heart rate to make it more effective, said Sams at the Times.