'I really don't feel we did anything wrong' - Baffert wins medication ban appeal

Bob Baffert has successfully appealed against a 15-day suspension for two positive post-race tests for an illicit raceday painkiller, the third time this year the US Hall of Fame trainer has avoided significant sanction for a testing violation.

Charlatan, successful in the $1 million Arkansas Derby, and Gamine tested positive for the prohibited raceday medication lidocaine after running at Oaklawn Park on May 2 last year, with the two runners stripped of their prize-money and disqualified alongside Baffert receiving the ban.

After a two-day hearing the Arkansas Racing Commission voted unanimously to overturn the ruling of local stewards, reinstating Charlatan and Gamine, returning their prize-money and reducing Baffert’s suspension to a $5,000 fine per horse.

Baffert’s legal team argued that the horses had been contaminated with lidocaine from a pain relief patch for a bad back worn by the trainer’s assistant Jimmy Barnes, who had transferred the painkiller to the horses from his hands when applying tongue-ties during saddling.

It was also heard during the hearing that the levels of lidocaine found in the horses – 46 pictograms in Charlatan and 185 pictograms in Gamine – could also have been caused by contamination in the testing barn. The legal threshold for lidocaine is 20 pictograms.

“There’s abundant evidence that the horses were exposed to lidocaine,” Michael Post, one of the commissioners, said before deliberations began.

Charlatan: the Malibu Stakes winner was one of two Bob Baffert horses who had prize-money reinstated after a two-day appeal rulingCredit: Benoit Photography

“I trust our labs and I trust our people. But there was also abundant evidence that it would be below what is performance enhancing.”

Baffert told the hearing he was “proud of my operation” and that “we would never take some kind of edge”. He added: “I really don’t feel we did anything wrong.”

Steve Quattlebaum, one of two attorneys to represent Baffert at the hearing, told reporters afterwards that restoring the winners was the “right thing to do” and that it was right to give the trainer a fine rather than a suspension.

"There was a positive finding," he said. "It is appropriate for the industry for there to be a consequence of that, that matches these facts and circumstances, which that probably does."

Alongside the Oaklawn positives, Baffert had faced high-profile hearings into post-race positives for 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify after he won that year’s Santa Anita Derby, and following Gamine’s third in last year’s Kentucky Oaks.

The case against Justify was dismissed by the California Horse Racing Board, while Baffert was fined $1,500 and Gamine disqualified from the Kentucky Oaks after the trainer waived his right to a hearing in front of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

Before last year’s Breeders’ Cup, Baffert released a statement in which he promised “to do better” after positive tests were produced from his horses.

Read more:

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