Baffert/Zedan File New Medina Spirit Appeal

Thursday, September 14, 2023 | 9:42 pm

Trainer Bob Baffert, right, celebrates with jockey John Velazquez, left, after Medina Spirit's victory in the Grade I, $300,000 Awesome Again, Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Santa Anita Park, Arcadia CA. © BENOIT PHOTO

Owner Amr Zedan and trainer Bob Baffert, connections of the ill-fated Medina Spirit (Protonico), filed a petition for a judicial review of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commissions's disqualification of the colt from his win in the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby.

The news, first reported by Bloodhorse, noted that the petition was filed in Franklin Circuit Court in Kentucky Tuesday and also includes a protest over Baffert's suspension in Kentucky.

BloodHorse reported that Zedan and Baffert claim in the petition that the “laboratory limit of detection” used to identify betamethasone in Medina Spirit “is contrary to the plain terms of KHRC regulations and is void as arbitrary and capricious.”

They also argue that KHRC's exercise of rule making and adjudicatory powers is illegal and that the penalties against Zedan “are unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious.”