On June 9, 2018, a colt named Justify thundered home to the full-throated cheers of a capacity crowd to win the 150th running of the Belmont Stakes and claim horse racing's Triple Crown, one of the most storied achievements in sports.
It was the perfect ending to an improbable journey for a talented horse, his eclectic ownership group, and his Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert.
Only a few people, however, knew the secret that Baffert carried with him into the winner's circle that day: Justify had failed a drug test weeks before the Kentucky Derby, the first race in the Triple Crown. That meant Justify should not have run in the Derby, if the sport's rules were followed.
They were not, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. Instead of the failed drug test causing a speedy disqualification, the California Horse Racing Board took more than a month to confirm the results. Then, instead of filing a public complaint as it usually does, the board made a series of decisions behind closed doors as it moved to drop the case and lighten the penalty for any horse found to have the banned substance that Justify tested positive for in its system.
By then, Justify had become just the 13th Triple Crown winner in the past 100 years, and his owners had sold his breeding rights for $60 million.
Only a handful of racing officials and people connected to Justify knew about the failed drug test, which occurred April 7, 2018, after Justify won the Santa Anita Derby. He tested positive for the drug scopolamine, a banned substance that veterinarians said can enhance performance, especially in the amount that was found in the horse.
Justify was undefeated at the time, but he still needed to finish first or second in the Santa Anita Derby to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, on May 5. While the colt won at Santa Anita, the failed drug test would mean disqualification and forfeiture of both the prize money and the entry into the Kentucky Derby that came with the victory.
None of that happened, though.
Test results, emails and internal memorandums in the Justify case show how California regulators waited nearly three weeks, until the Kentucky Derby was only nine days away, to notify Baffert that his Derby favorite had failed a doping test.
Four months later -- and more than two months after Justify, Baffert and the horse's owners celebrated their Triple Crown victory in New York -- the board disposed of the inquiry altogether during a closed-door executive session. It decided, with little evidence, that the positive test could have been a result of Justify's eating contaminated food. The board voted unanimously to dismiss the case. In October, it changed the penalty for a scopolamine violation to the lesser penalty of a fine and possible suspension.
Baffert did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for this article.
Rick Baedeker, executive director of the California Horse Racing Board, acknowledged that it was a delicate case because of its timing. He said regulators moved cautiously because scopolamine could be found in jimson weed, which can grow wildly where dung is present and become inadvertently mixed in feed, and that "environmental contamination" is often used as a defense.
"We could end up in Superior Court one day," he said.
As is customary, blood and urine samples from Justify and 34 other horses who competed on the day of the Santa Anita Derby were delivered April 10 to a lab at the University of California, Davis.
The lab sent notice April 18, 2 1/2 weeks before the Kentucky Derby, that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine, which is normally used to treat stomach or intestinal problems, such as nausea and muscle spasms, in humans.
Dr. Rick Sams, who ran the drug lab for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission from 2011 to 2018, said the amount of scopolamine found in Justify -- 300 nanograms per milliliter -- was excessive, and suggested the drug was intended to enhance performance.
"I think it has to come from intentional intervention," he said.
On April 20, two days after learning of Justify's positive test, Dr. Rick Arthur, the racing board's equine medical director, wrote in an email circulated to Baedeker, the board's executive director, its lawyers and its interim chief investigator that the case would be "handled differently than usual." He asked for further testing and review of the data.
On the morning of April 26, four days before Justify was to ship to Louisville, Ky., for the Kentucky Derby, Baffert received notification that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine. Baffert, as was his right, asked that another sample from that test be sent to an approved independent lab.
It was sent on May 1, four days before the Derby, and that lab confirmed the result on May 8. (By then, Justify had won the Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown.) The same day, Baedeker notified the board members that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine.
"The CHRB investigations unit will issue a complaint and a hearing will be scheduled," he told them in a memorandum obtained by The Times.
No one ever filed a complaint and the hearing never took place.
Instead, on Aug. 23, 2018, more than four months after the failed test, Baedeker said he presented the Justify case directly to the commissioners of the California Horse Racing Board in a private executive session, a step he had never taken in his 5 1/2-year tenure. The board voted unanimously not to proceed with the case against Baffert.
Sports on 09/12/2019