LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CN) — A horse racing stable owned by Saudi billionaire Amr Zedan sued the Churchill Downs racetrack on Wednesday, protesting a ban on horses trained by infamous trainer Bob Baffert.
Zedan wants to enter his race horse Muth, winner of this year's Arkansas Derby, in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs this May. But in July 2023, the corporation that operates Churchill Downs decided to extend a 2021 ban on Baffert-trained horses beyond the original two years through to 2024, dashing Zedan's hopes for Muth to run in the most-attended horse race in the U.S.
According to Zedan and his racing stable in his complaint, this ban extension was unwarranted, came "without warning" and was solely the result of Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen's "personal animus" against Baffert.
"[Churchill Downs]' spurious, illegal extension of the suspension does not withstand scrutiny and imperils a host of interested stakeholders," Zedan wrote. "Its CEO, Carstanjen, is indulging his ego at the expense of everyone else."
Zedan's stable wants the court to declare that Churchill Downs had no legal right to extend Baffert's suspension through 2024, and to issue an order preventing enforcement of that extension.
It also requests monetary damages — according to Zedan and Eric Andrus, one of his PR spokespeople, the stable spent over $14 million between July 2022 and May 2023 to purchase seven race horses and have them trained by Baffert, with the hopes that they would qualify for the 2024 Kentucky Derby.
"Taking [Churchill Downs] at their word was our client, who had already purchased several horses," Andrus said in a phone interview.
Baffert's suspension stems from a 2021 scandal wherein that year's apparent Kentucky Derby winner — Zedan's horse Medina Spirit — twice tested positive for the anti-inflammatory steroid betamethasone after the race. At the time, trainers were allowed to treat horses with betamethasone, but the animals could not have the drug in their system on race day.
The positive drug tests resulted in Medina Spirit's disqualification and a two-year ban on Baffert-trained horses. In a statement Carstanjen issued at the time, he also cited other incidents where horses trained by Baffert have tested positive for prohibited substances.
"[Churchill Downs] has consistently advocated for strict medication regulations so that we can confidently ensure that horses are fit to race and the races are conducted fairly,” Carstanjen said in 2021. “Reckless practices and substance violations that jeopardize the safety of our equine and human athletes or compromise the integrity of our sport are not acceptable and as a company we must take measures to demonstrate that they will not be tolerated."
Other race tracks besides the Churchill Downs also suspended Baffert following the Medina Spirit controversy, but most only for 90 days.
Andrus said they weren't contesting the facts of Medina Spirit's drug tests, but he argued that under new 2023 horse race regulations, the 21 picograms per milliliter of betamethasone found in Medina Spirit's system in 2021 would be legal today.
The updated regulations — as determined by the privately-managed but federally-empowered Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority — state that it is legal for horses to have up to 200 picograms per milliliter of betamethasone in their urine on race day.
Andrus also said that racegoers, Churchill Downs shareholders and Kentucky itself would face material harm over Baffert's "indefinite" ban, claiming it prevented the race track from showcasing the most competitive gamut of race horses possible in the Kentucky Derby.
"No other authority has joined in this indefinite ban ... there's real harm by not having the most competitive field available," Andrus said.
The race brought in approximately $47 million in local, state and federal tax funds in 2023, according to the Kentucky business publication The Lane Report, with almost $400 million in total economic impact.
"Zedan’s lawsuit is the latest meritless attempt to relitigate the Baffert suspension," Churchill Downs said in a statement released Wednesday in response to the complaint. "Lifting Baffert’s suspension now would threaten the safety and integrity of races at Churchill Downs by changing the qualification rules just before the Kentucky Derby."
Baffert himself has been at the center of numerous controversies over the course of his 30 year-plus career. In December 2021, Medina Spirit died of an apparent heart attack during a workout in California, and according to an October 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation, 75 other horses have died in his care since 2000.
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