Vassimo, an aspiring Kentucky Derby candidate trained by Todd Pletcher who has been entered in this weekend’s Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, tested positive for a regulated medication, betamethasone, after winning the first start of his career late last year, according to records posted by the Horseracing Integrity and Wagering Unit (HIWU) on Wednesday afternoon.
"If the case results in sanctions, Vassimo will be disqualified from his Dec. 14 maiden win, which came in a special weight allowance race at Gulfstream Park in Florida. Pletcher could also face a suspension of either seven or 15 days.
Vassimo, who is 50-1 on the morning line of this weekend’s Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool, is one of 14 runners entered in the Risen Star, which awards a total of 105 points to the first five finishers for Derby eligibility. The winner gets 50 points, which is normally enough to make the Derby field.
Following his maiden win, Vassimo easily won an allowance race at Tampa Bay Downs to remain undefeated in two starts. Horses are eligible to enter allowance races and stakes races without a maiden win.
Betamethasone is a corticosteroid that acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and a painkiller. The drug is allowed to be used as a therapeutic, but it cannot be administered as an injection into a fetlock joint within 30 days of a race or 14 days of a workout under current guidelines.
If the betamethasone is injected into a different joint, such as a knee, the stand-down period is 14 days to race or 7 days before a workout. If the betamethasone is injected intravenously or intra-muscularly, the horse’s blood sample will trigger a positive if the concentration is above a set limit, according to Dr. Jennifer Durenberger, the director of equine safety and welfare for the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), which devises the rules governing medication use in the jurisdictions it oversees.
Pletcher, a Hall of Fame trainer who regularly starts multiple horses in the Kentucky Derby, was fined in May of last year for a positive test for dexamethasone, another corticosteroid, according to HIWU records. Pletcher did not appeal the case. The horse in that case was disqualified, as are all horses that have any medication violation under HIWU’s rules.
As part of the resolution of the case, Pletcher had 1.5 “penalty points” assigned to his record. The accretion of such points can lead to additional penalties for violations within a 24-month span, such as a suspension of up to 15 days. Alexa Ravit, a spokeswoman for HIWU, said that the suspension would be reduced to seven days with an “admission of violation.”
Drew Mollica, Pletcher's attorney, said that he has not yet decided whether the positive will be appealed.
“Todd is going to do a review of his barn. We’ll look at the science they provided us and determine what to do ASAP,” Mollica said. “We’re going to move on this quickly.”
HISA requires all veterinary treatment records to be entered into a database. That system flags horses who are entered to race within the stand-down periods required for corticosteroid injections. It also prevents the horses from racing, suggesting that no intra-articular corticosteroid treatment record for Vassimo exists in the database.
Betamethasone, which is commonly used to treat swelling in joints, is the medication Medina Spirit tested positive for after his win in the 2021 Kentucky Derby. Medina Spirit was eventually disqualified from the Derby after a series of appeals and court challenges. The case was adjudicated prior to HIWU taking over drug testing in most major racing jurisdictions in mid-2023.
Bob Baffert, Medina Spirit’s trainer, initially insisted that the horse was never given betamethasone. However, Baffert later acknowledged that the horse was treated with an ointment containing the drug. Although Baffert and his legal team argued that only injections of the drug were illegal under Kentucky’s medication rules, state regulators and courts dismissed that argument.
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