By T. D. Thornton
Three weeks after renewing his federal court fight to reverse a corporation's ban on being able to train horses in the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Kentucky Oaks, Bob Baffert on Wednesday let the judge in the case know that time is of the essence in scheduling his hearing on a preliminary injunction, because the races that award significant qualifying points for Derby and Oaks eligibility are quickly approaching.
Baffert's legal team filed a Jan. 4 notice in United States District Court (Western District of Kentucky) explaining that the May 5 Oaks and May 6 Derby “furnish the exigency that warrants a preliminary injunction.”
The filing continued: “Baffert needs to notify his client base whether they will be able to continue using his services for the 2023 Kentucky Derby, the 2023 Kentucky Oaks, and the respective qualifying races.
“As the 2023 Kentucky Derby and Oaks draw closer, Baffert risks losing more clients due to CDI's edict of suspension even if he ultimately prevails on the merits. A hearing date on or about Feb. 1, 2023, is therefore agreeable.”
In June 2021, Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), the gaming company that controls the Derby, Churchill Downs, and five other Thoroughbred tracks, ruled Baffert off from its properties for two years in the wake of Baffert's trainee, Medina Spirit, testing positive for betamethasone, a Class C drug, after crossing the finish wire first in that year's Derby.
Citing that drug finding and a spate of other pharmaceutical overages in Grade I races around the same time, CDI told Baffert he would be ineligible to race at its tracks until after the 2023 Derby, and that any horse that raced under his training license would not be eligible to accrue qualifying points to get into the 2022 or 2023 Derbies.
Last February, Baffert fought in federal court to reverse that CDI ban, but because he had to serve a still-under-appeal suspension imposed by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, that made the litigation moot for the 2022 Derby. But this fresh motion for an injunction that got filed Dec. 15, 2022, is actually a part of that same lawsuit.
“Points from qualifying races increase substantially beginning in mid-February, with fifty-point races contested at CDI-operated Fairgrounds Racetrack in Louisiana on Feb. 18,” Baffert's filing stated.
“Races carrying the highest number of qualifying points (100 points) begin in March, including at Fairgrounds and CDI-operated Turfway Park,” the filing stated.
If Baffert were to win an injunction to be able to race at CDI's tracks, recent history shows that the likelihood of him sending any Derby or Oaks contenders to race at either Fair Grounds or Turfway is low.
According to DRF's Formulator tool, Baffert has not started a single horse, at any level, at either Fair Grounds or Turfway in at least the last five years, which is as far back as the database goes.
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