Will Justify get DQ'd?
 

Failed Triple Crown in my eyes now.

This is a HUGE story and a HUGE black eye for horse racing.

EDIT: And of course he should have been disqualified. This was a fraud. They disqualified Dancer's Image from the Derby for much less than this.

But of course, they never will. The breeding industry stands to make too much from Justify and never will allow it.

:eek:


Say it ain't so...

One other point. The entire CHRB should be removed from office over this.

EVEN IF their decision was right, doing it in private violated the Brown Act (California's open meeting laws) and was clearly done to try and avoid embarrassing powerful people in the sport, a totally illegitimate reason. You want to let someone off from a positive drug test, you do it in public with everyone watching.

too far after the fact AND racing does NOT need any more scandal right now

Yes. You cheat you get penalized. Every connection in the Santa Anita Derby and triple crown races should seek damages. Total bs and there is no sugar coating it.

Hate the way the headline is written. “Before the Triple Crown” gets too easily interpreted as “before the Belmont Stakes.”

Did Justify fail drug tests after any of the Triple Crown races? Unless the answer is yes, this is no story for me.

Gonna be a quiet night on Twitter for me after muting/blocking Joe Drape, the NYTimes and the word Justify.

A little different than Dancers Image. Justify failed the post race test in the SA Derby, which qualified him for the KY Derby. He didn’t fail any post race TC test as far as we know

I think that is the real issue. Assuming all true how could the regulators expose themselves in this fashion? Is it really worth it?

Isnt this the same thing that Richard Mandella and Ron McCanally tested positive a few years back, Jenine Sahadi as well I think.

While he may not have failed test after the triple crown races...he might not have been there in the first place had he not been doped up in the SA Derby. A DQ from that race means he doesn’t run in the Kentucky Derby and thus no triple crown. What a cluster F of a mess. CHRB what a damn disgrace, and Baffert from here on out needs to be spoken about like many on here speak of Servis and Navarro.

Maybe this will be the catalyst for a centralized governing body the sport dearly needs.

When in Rome do as the Romans do. This sport is a cesspool, always been a playground for cheaters, I dont know if this is the time to be sanctimonious about the realities.

I used to bet a lot, I bet little now. There is a reason.

That's a terrible take.

1. He shouldn't have been running in the Kentucky Derby. He tested positive in his last start and there should have been a suspension.

2. If indeed he did not receive PED's in the TC, it was probably only because he already got caught.

3. We don't know if he did PED's in the TC, actually. We just know that no positive test has been announced. Obviously, sometimes athletes don't test positive despite using. And sometimes positive tests get covered up.

4. His short career, which already looked bad, looks a lot worse now, doesn't it? Get out before you get discovered.

This should be good entertainment :popcorn:

This could not have come at a worst time with PETA' s campaign at hand.

MINIMALLY, he should be stripped of the SA Derby win...If racing (already in trouble with integrity) does not address this forcefully and quickly, you can forget any younger generations acceptance of it as an "above board" sport as there are enough doubters out there already.

1968 saw the same thing and they did the right thing there.

If true, he has to be disqualified, and some kind of action needs to be taken again the California incompetents who let this slide and covered it up..

Maybe ti time to just end all racing in California.

In MHO, he is no longer a 3X winner.

Agree if true as written. Sort of like an NCAA team winning a championship, then later finding out there was some sort of cheating. Not necessarily cheating in the Big Game itself, but you have to presume the team wouldn't have made it without the cheating.

You should expect that there will be a 100 percent full court push by California officials to try and prevent any sort of meaningful accountability here.

In addition to everything already mentioned about the power of the breeding industry, Baffert is absolutely one of the few people keeping Southern California racing afloat. He's a sacred cow here and the California officials will say anything they can think of to defend what they did here.

Wasn't a Little League World Series winner stripped of the title for cheating after finding out the star pitcher was much too old to participate?

Now the first horse since Apollo to win the Derby without racing as a 2 year old, goes on to win the Triple Crown.....and cheated with a HOF trainer at the helm, who also trained AP in 2015 to a TC win....Is AP now suspect as well?.....WTF Bob Baffert, are you really that damn greedy?

Isn't anything sacred or above board anymore?

This guy is on to something.

The problem with this statement is the assumption that the sport is clean. It is far from it....in fact some people do a better job of masking the drugs.

I'm thinking Ban Baffert from the Derby for 2 years.

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.

This is what is so wrong and life goes on , Nudge nudge wink wink, Were is the carpet.

House of cards in this present game.

Andy Beyer, to his everlasting credit, reported many years ago that the California drug positives were handled "discreetly", and slap-on-the-wrist fines were handed out in lieu of suspensions to the connections of the marquee race winners...as a way of protecting the "integrity of the game". I relayed this information a couple of times here in years past...to little fanfare.

And just to be clear, California has one of the strictest open meeting laws in the country (the Brown Act). No way is the CHRB ever allowed to do that.

This is a bummer. There is no silver lining in that story, the entire thing stinks. The worst part, and I was naive to it, is the incestuous relationship between regulators and owners/trainers/breeders. The guy making this decision had an ownership stake?! There's no way to spin that...what a bunch of clowns ruining what should be a great sport. Depressing as f*ck.

Regulatory capture. The Meatpacking Commission is generally full of meatpacking plant owners. The Cemetery Board is full of funeral directors. And the Horse Racing Board is full of people who have interests in the industry.

A certain amount of this is actually unavoidable, because you actually need some level of expertise. If you just took 7 random California civilians who knew nothing about horse racing, they wouldn't know the first thing about regulating the sport.

But this is why the Brown Act and open meetings are so important. This way, they have to do whatever they do IN PUBLIC. And this entire thing would have gone down differently if they had done it in public. There would have been calls to disqualify Justify as soon as the positive test was revealed, NBC would have covered it as a major story and a major embarrassment to the sport going into the Kentucky Derby, there would have been pressure on Churchill not to accept the entry, etc.

There is way way to much money at stake in Ky for them to do anything, and technically he was clean for the triple crown races, and that will be the out if needed.

You talking about Teflon Bob.

Let's hope that Churchill does the right thing and stops awarding points to the California tracks for triple crown preps. We all know it won't though

Let's also hope Baffert's other triple crown winner that wasn't bred to run classic distances is questioned for its triple crown success too now

The triple crown means nothing if it becomes a science project

Was he clean for those races, or do we always wonder if they just swept it on the rug.

good point, did not think that three other states may have been in on it.

dude, you are going to need to find another sport if that is the stance. The higher the level the more the desire to fracture a rule or two.

Maybe the two drug tests were tainted and this was kept quiet to protect the innocent.?

I think that's a great idea and a great leverage point that Churchill has. The CHRB may have a very different view of this matter if the Churchill is willing to destroy the Santa Anita Derby, one of the biggest races in the state.

This isn't a private company. This is a publicly regulated enterprise. Nothing wrong with declaring Justify innocent, if the evidence supports that conclusion. But it HAS to be done in public, where other trainers and owners, track owners, and fans can inspect the evidence and ensure there isn't a cover up.

A decade or so ago at the Breeders' Cup I had an hour-long discussion with a Kentucky Derby winning trainer about many things, including drugs in the sport. He told me point-blank, and reeled off several names that we all know, that there are people that he just can't beat because of what they do to their horses.

You have to be completely blind or incredibly naive not to think that when you see every horse from certain stables look like they were shot out of a cannon at the quarter pole that something nefarious isn't going on.

P.S. I'm going to a function tomorrow (not the Keeneland sale), where there will be literally hundreds of breeders, so hopefully I'll get to hear some thoughts and report back to everyone here.

You would think to protect their own brand such an action would be necessary. it is a great idea. if CD can't trust a feeder race to be on the level because of weak regulation, it would have to remove it from consideration. They would never include races in a state say- to cite an extreme illustration- had zero drug regulations. This isn't much different if true.

California has done more than enough lately to damage the sport to warrant it being ostracized from it

Must be nice being the group paying $60MM for Justify's breeding right, lol. It was the miracle horse bred to run 8-9 furlongs that could win at 12!