Darrell Vienna, Esq. [SBN 173694] LAW OFFICE of DARRELL J

1 Darrell Vienna, Esq. [SBN 173694] LAW OFFICE OF DARRELL J. VIENNA 2 5256 S. Mission Road, Suite 703- 808 Bonsall, CA 92003 3 Telephone: 626.590.9999 Facsimile: 626.470.9973 4 Email: [email protected] 5 Carlo Fisco, Esq. [SBN 166274] Attorney at Law 6 P.O. Box 2554 Culver City, CA 90231-2554 7 Telephone: 310.390.3311 Email: [email protected] 8 Attorneys for Petitioner 9 Mick Ruis 10 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 11 FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT 12 13 ) Case No.: RUIS RACING, LLC, ) 14 ) VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF Petitioner, ) MANDATE AND DAMAGES 15 ) vs. ) 1. Petition for Writ of Mandate and Damages 16 ) (CCP §§ 1085, 1095) CALIFORNIA HORSE RACING BOARD, ) 17 ) 2. Petition for Writ of Mandate and Damages ) (CCP §§ 1094.5, 1095) 18 ) ) 3. Statutory Violation (Govt. Code § 815.6) 19 Respondent. ) ) 20 ) ) 21 ) ) 22 ) 23 24 By way of this petition for writ of mandate and damages, petitioner, Ruis Racing, LLC, 25 (“RUIS” or “Petitioner”) alleges: 26 27 28 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE AND DAMAGES - 1 1 INTRODUCTION 2 1. One of the top international news stories in the horse racing industry in 2018 was the 3 victory by the horse “Justify” in the Triple Crown races thus becoming only the 13th horse to do so 4 since the series began in 1875. Justify began his Triple Crown pursuit by winning the Santa Anita 5 Derby at Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, CA on April 7, 2018. What the international racing 6 community did not know was that Justify returned a positive test result for a prohibited substance 7 after the $1,000,000 Santa Anita Derby. The public did not learn of this positive test because the 8 California Horse Racing Board (“CHRB”) decided to keep it secret. Without any public notice, 9 public comment or other standard, mandatory procedures meant to ensure public participation and 10 protection, the CHRB decided, in a secretive, closed session of its Board, to dismiss the matter 11 against Justify and his trainer Bob Baffert. The public had no knowledge of the drug positive and 12 subsequent secret dismissal. 13 2. A year later in September 2019 a story written by racing journalist, Joe Drape, 14 appeared in the New York Times entitled, “Justify Failed a Drug Test Before Winning the Triple 15 Crown.” Drape exposed that a prohibited drug substance, scopolamine, was detected in the urine and 16 blood samples taken from Justify after his win in the Santa Anita Derby. Drape further wrote how 17 the CHRB, upon receiving confirmation of the disqualifying sample, went about hiding and then 18 dismissing the matter against Justify and the trainer, Bob Baffert, without any public disclosure, 19 hearing, comment or participation. 20 The Drape article exposing these facts follows: 21 22 Justify Failed a Drug Test Before Winning the Triple Crown 23 nytimes.com/2019/09/11/sports/horse-racing/justify-drug-test-triple-crown-kentucky-derby.html Joe Drape, September 11, 2019 24 /// /// 25 /// 26 /// 27 /// 28 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE AND DAMAGES - 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 On June 9, 2018, a colt named Justify thundered home to the full-throated cheers of a capacity crowd to win the 150th running of the Belmont Stakes and claim horse racing’s 16 Triple Crown, one of the most storied achievements in sports. 17 18 It was the perfect ending to an improbable journey for a talented horse, his eclectic ownership group, and his Hall of Fame trainer, Bob Baffert. 19 Only a few people, however, knew the secret that Baffert carried with him into the winner’s 20 circle that day: Justify had failed a drug test weeks before the first race in the Triple Crown, 21 the Kentucky Derby. That meant Justify should not have run in the Derby, if the sport’s rules were followed. 22 23 They were not, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. Instead of the failed drug test causing a speedy disqualification, the California Horse Racing Board took 24 more than a month to confirm the results. Then, instead of filing a public complaint as it usually does, the board made a series of decisions behind closed doors as it moved to 25 drop the case and lighten the penalty for any horse found to have the banned substance 26 that Justify tested positive for in its system. 27 By then, Justify had become just the 13th Triple Crown winner in the last 100 years, and his 28 owners had sold his breeding rights for $60 million. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE AND DAMAGES - 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 The jockey Mike Smith, pictured last year at the Belmont Stakes, celebrated his Triple Crown win aboard Justify.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times 15 16 Only a handful of racing officials and people connected to Justify knew about the failed drug test, which occurred April 7, 2018, after Justify won the Santa Anita Derby. He tested 17 positive for the drug scopolamine, a banned substance that veterinarians say can enhance 18 performance, especially in the amount that was found in the horse. 19 Justify was undefeated at the time, but he still needed to finish first or second in the Santa Anita Derby to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, on May 5. While the colt won at Santa Anita, 20 the failed drug test would mean disqualification and forfeiture of both the prize money and 21 the entry into the Kentucky Derby that came with the victory. 22 None of that happened, though. 23 Test results, emails and internal memorandums in the Justify case show how California 24 regulators waited nearly three weeks, until the Kentucky Derby was only nine days away, to notify Baffert that his Derby favorite had failed a doping test. 25 Four months later — and more than two months after Justify, Baffert and the horse’s 26 owners celebrated their Triple Crown victory in New York — the board disposed of the 27 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. The 28 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE AND DAMAGES - 4 board voted unanimously to dismiss the case. In October, it changed the penalty for a 1 scopolamine violation to the lesser penalty of a fine and possible suspension. 2 Baffert did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for this article. 3 Rick Baedeker, the executive director of the California Horse Racing Board, acknowledged 4 that it was a delicate case because of its timing. He said regulators moved cautiously 5 because scopolamine could be found in jimson weed, which can grow wildly where dung is present and become inadvertently mixed in feed, and that “environmental contamination” 6 is often used as a defense. 7 “We could end up in Superior Court one day,” he said. 8 “There was no way that we could have come up with an investigative report prior to the 9 Kentucky Derby,” he added. “That’s impossible. Well, that’s not impossible, that would have been careless and reckless for us to tell an investigator what usually takes you two months, 10 you have to get done in five days, eight days. We weren’t going to do that.” 11 The documents reviewed by The Times do not show any evidence of pressure or 12 tampering by Justify’s owners. Horse racing, however, is uniquely insular. 13 The chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, Chuck Winner, owns an interest in 14 horses trained by Baffert. Two other board members employ trainers and jockeys they regulate. 15 Justify’s owners included power brokers in the sport such as Kentucky-based WinStar 16 Farm, owned by Kenny Troutt, a billionaire commercial thoroughbred breeder; the 17 mysterious China Horse Club, whose 200 members from mainland China and beyond have paid $1 million to join; and an equine investment fund with ties to the billionaire investor 18 George Soros. Baffert is America’s pre-eminent trainer. He has won the Kentucky Derby five times. In 2015, he trained American Pharoah, the first horse to win the Triple Crown 19 after Affirmed won in 1978. 20 With Justify, Baffert was faced with a late-developing colt who did not race as a 2-year-old. 21 The last horse to win the Derby without starting as a 2-year-old was Apollo in 1882. 22 As is customary, blood and urine samples from Justify and 34 other horses who competed 23 on the day of the Santa Anita Derby were delivered on April 10 to a lab at the University of California, Davis. 24 25 The lab sent notice on April 18, two and a half weeks before the Kentucky Derby, that Justify had tested positive for scopolamine, which is normally used to treat stomach or 26 intestinal problems, such as nausea and muscle spasms, in humans. 27 28 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE AND DAMAGES - 5 Horse racing has a long history of trainers’ repurposing drugs in pursuit of a performance 1 edge. Frog and cobra venom, Viagra, cocaine, heart medicines and steroids have all been 2 detected in drug tests. 3 Scopolamine cases have resulted in disqualifications, purse reimbursements, fines and suspensions over the decades.

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