California trainer David Wayne Baker is serving a 15-day suspension that began Feb. 14 wondering whether he'll ever be able to avoid a similar penalty in the future.
Baker, who has been a trainer for 40 years, got sanctioned Feb. 13 for a positive post-race test showing the presence of a metabolite for the anesthetic mepivacaine in a 3-year-old filly named Mars Magic. The urine sample was collected after the filly won an allowance race Sept. 7 at Ferndale for owner/breeder Susan White, who races and breeds as Packsaddle Road.
The Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory (University of California-Davis) detected 3-hydroxymepivacaine, a metabolite of mepivacaine, in Mars Magic's post-race sample. Baker and White requested that the B sample be tested as well and Industrial Laboratories in Denver confirmed the finding.
Baker tried to fight the penalty during a Feb. 5 hearing before the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's internal adjudication panel. In addition to the 15-day suspension, he has been fined $1,000 and had to forfeit $19,500 in prize money.
"I tried to fight it on the grounds of contamination," Baker told BloodHorse. "This test definitely was not from anything I or any of my staff did to this horse. We have the records that the horse never got this from my vet. I thought we had a good case."
He also thought his uneventful regulatory history might help. Since 2005 (as far back as digital records are available), Baker has had one positive test for phenylbutazone in a horse he was working to get off the vet's list in August 2023. The horse had been treated according to the recommended 72-hour withdrawal time prior to its work and still had a test result slightly above the regulatory threshold, according to Baker.
"I got fined $500 for that but I've never had any other positive. I'm almost 66, why would I start cheating now?" he said.
Along with his vet records showing his horse had not been given mepivacaine, Baker tried to make the case that contamination is possible on multiple occasions.
"There are at least 15 people out of my control who touch my horse on race day," he said. "From the state vets, the pony riders, the starting gate crew, the jockey, the grooms, two hot walkers, and many owners that come by.
"I ran a different horse two weeks ago at Santa Anita, and the horse bit its tongue in the post parade," he continued. "So right before they loaded her (in the gate), they grabbed a towel and started wiping out her mouth. Who knows what was on that towel or if they wiped another horse's mouth with that towel? That is how easy it can be, how many opportunities for contamination there are."
With trainers bearing the ultimate responsibility, Baker said he believes trainers need some additional support from racetracks and regulators. For example, he said, every stall in a test barn needs to be equipped with a camera. At Ferndale, Pleasanton, and Golden Gate Fields, Baker said urine samples are collected behind closed doors and then the accompanying hot walkers or grooms are expected to sign a statement confirming they witnessed the collection.
"But all they witnessed was the horse walking into the stall and then someone coming out of the stall with urine in a cup. If the trainer is going to be responsible, there needs to be cameras so I know that is my horse's urine," he said.
A trainer's period of ineligibility could be reduced under the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program rules if a hearing officer finds "no fault/negligence" or "no significant fault/negligence." Baker did not qualify for either, which he suspects is related to a treatment the filly got for surgery four months after her post-race test. Again, he believes a clean record should have carried some weight.
"During the hearing, however, I kept getting asked if the filly had ever been treated with mepivacaine and I said 'no.' A report gets put up on the screen showing that the horse was given this drug," Baker recalled. "But that was four months after the race when she was being treated for a saucer fracture. The treatment was never in my vet bills because the horse was not even in my care at the time."
