Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test, Hall of Fame coach Bob Baffert said Sunday.
This is the latest doping scandal for horse racing and possibly the sport's top coach.
The jockey who rode Medina Spirit was John R. Velázquez, the four-time Derby winner born in Puerto Rico.
Flanked by his attorney Craig Robertson at a morning news conference at Churchill Downs on Sunday, Baffert said Medina Spirit was found to have 21 picograms of the steroid betamethasone, twice the legal threshold for Kentucky racing, in a post-test sample. race.
Kentucky Derby winning horse disqualified
May 6, 201902: 03
Steroids are used to
increase muscle strength.
This is the same one found in the Gamine system
, another Baffert-trained horse that finished third at Kentucky Oaks last September.
Baffert denied wrongdoing and said he did not know how Medina Spirit could have tested positive.
And he assured that Medina Spirit has never been treated with betamethasone and described it as "a complete injustice."
"I took the biggest blow to the gut in racing for something I didn't do," said Baffert, who promised to be transparent with race investigators.
The coach said he received news of the positive test from Kentucky officials on Saturday and that
Medina Spirit has not yet been officially disqualified from the Kentucky Derby,
although this could occur after other tests and trials are completed.
"This shouldn't have happened," Baffert said.
"There is a problem somewhere. It did not come from us."
With information from AP.