class action lawsuit

A New Jersey federal judge's order on Tuesday transferred a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of bettors against trainer Bob Baffert to the Western District of Kentucky, meaning that the nearly three-year-old case will now go before its third different court since 2021. The original federal lawsuit was filed in California. In it, a group of horseplayers alleged they were cheated out of their property by Baffert when his betamethasone-positive trainee, Medina Spirit, crossed the finish wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby and purportedly prevented the plaintiffs from...

A federal judge in Kentucky has dismissed the class-action lawsuit against trainer Bob Baffert and Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), that was initiated by a group of horseplayers who alleged negligence, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment because their losing pari-mutuel bets on the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby weren't honored as winners after Medina Spirit (Protonico) tested positive for and was subsequently disqualified for a betamethasone overage. The July 20 order tossing the case out of United States District Court, Western District of Kentucky (Louisville Division), could have ramifications on a...

Michael Beychok has been one of the most visible horseplayers in the sport for a while. He's a winner of the National Handicapping Championship, a horseplayer advocate and a public handicapper for the New Orleans Times-Picayune who has spent the better part of his life betting on the horses. Just not for much longer. Beychok, who is the leading figure in a class-action lawsuit filed by gamblers who say they would have made money on the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby had it not been won by Medina Spirit (Protonico), says...

Trainer Bob Baffert told a federal judge Wednesday that a group of bettors who are suing him in a class-action lawsuit alleging a years-long pattern of racketeering based on his purported "doping" of Thoroughbreds have twisted their case so far from reality that their alleged misstatements amount to libel. In a Jan. 12 filing in United States District Court (District of New Jersey), Baffert stated that the plaintiffs' recent attempt to portray him as the "Lance Armstrong of the horse racing world" is a "desperate conglomeration of highly inflammatory statements...designed...