JB,
We are not a point where we can say with any confidence what effect the Beta had on MS. One reason is that what we know about this matter is what Baffert has chosen to reveal. That’s it, period. We have no veterinary records. We have no testimony from any veterinarian as to what MS was given, why, and when. And some of what Baffert has revealed is gossamer, like the groom urination story, which Mary Scollay effectively debunked in the interview I posted earlier this week, and which Baffert has apparently now abandoned. In the same vein, we have no basis to conclude that the photo he supplied of a horse showing a skin ailment is MS, or even if it is of MS, when it was taken, although some good legwork by Natalie Voss has concluded that the metadata indicates that photo was taken on Tuesday May 11th, two days ago, well after the Derby. So in sum, we know virtually nothing in terms of the relevant facts of the horse’s condition at various points, including on Derby Day.
If by the effect was negligible you mean that even in its intended use, Beta would not have moved up MS as Clenbuterol or EPO would have, ok. But at the same time, we can’t even say at this point that MS could have raced without the benefit of a powerful corticosteroid that was administered 72 hours before test time. It's possible he has some serious inflammation or a hind end issue. Maybe not but again, why haven’t the vet(s) who treated him been produced and the vet records provided? And what else was he being treated with, so that we are able to determine what interactions there might have been between Beta and other medications/treatments, another relevant consideration? Since Baffert seems to be largely in crisis-management mode, it’s hard to understand why we haven’t been provided with all that evidence if it’s exculpatory.
I realize you aren’t here to defend Baffert and I’m not here to prosecute him either. But to give him any benefit of the doubt requires us now to believe that before the biggest race on our calendar, with a purse of approximately $1.5M, potentially millions of dollars of stud fees at stake, a race he had won six times prior, and with a raft of drug positives that he promised to reverse, even going so far six months ago to trumpet that he was hiring an independent veterinarian to provide additional oversight for his barn (which never happened, by the way), that he was so grossly negligent as to treat an ailment with Otomax, a product that contained what he knew to be a regulated substance, a fact which appeared on the Otomax label. It’s a lot to swallow.
