Baffert Hearing Postponed in Franklin County

[Wandering Eyes]

FRANKFORT, KY.–The hearing to appeal Bob Baffert's suspension by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission in Franklin County (Ky.) Circuit Court was delayed Wednesday morning and rescheduled until March 17. The delay was put into place to allow the KHRC hearing on the same matter, scheduled for this Friday March 4, to be held in advance of the Franklin County hearing, as a successful outcome for Baffert would by the KHRC Friday would have rendered today's hearing moot.

Judge Thomas Wingate said he would issue his decision on Monday, March 21, after the Friday, March hearing, and that no penalties may be assessed until that point.

Wednesday's filing asked for four forms of legal relief, arguing that typically, trainers are almost automatically granted a stay. The suspension was due to begin March 8.

After the KHRC stewards'  Feb. 21 ruling disqualifying Medina Spirit (Protonico) from the 2021 Kentucky Derby and suspending Baffert for 90 days, the KHRC denied Baffert's appeal for a stay of that suspension. Baffert is appealing that decision before the entire KHRC board in a hearing that will be held this Friday.

Wingate said that he could not remember an instance in the past where a stay had not been granted. “I don't remember,” he said. “I've done a lot of Thoroughbred rulings, and I always thought it was pretty much automatic. But we haven't really seen where anybody cared about it (enough to appeal.) Most trainers don't have the legal team Baffert does to drag it out.”

Baffert's attorney Craig Robertson, the trainer's sole representative in court Wednesday, cited the 2015 Graham Motion case, where Motion appealed a suspension handed down by the KHRC for after a positive finding of methocarbomol in Kitten's Point (Kitten's Joy) in her win in the 2015 Bewitch S. at Keeneland. He was initially suspended five days and fined $500. Motion had never had a drug positive prior to that and the suspension and fine were thrown out by Wingate two years later, who ruled that the absolute-insurer rule was unconstitutional. Wingate retorted that Motion had no history of drug positives, where Baffert does.

 

 

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