Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit was treated with an anti-fungal ointment containing betamethasone, the substance detected in his post-Derby blood sample, up until the day prior to the race, trainer Bob Baffert said in a statement released on Tuesday. The ointment, a prescription medicine called Otomax with various uses in veterinary medicine, was used to treat dermatitis on Medina Spirit’s hind end after his second-place finish in the April 3 Santa Anita Derby, Baffert said in the statement, which was released through his attorney. He said that he learned that the ointment contained betamethasone, a corticosteroid, on Monday, one day after announcing that Medina Spirit had tested positive for the substance after the Derby. The label of the ointment clearly states that it contains betamethasone. :: Join DRF Bets and get ready to watch and wager on the Preakness with a $250 first deposit bonus  Baffert said he was following his veterinarian’s recommendation to apply the ointment daily “to give the horse relief, help heal the dermatitis, and prevent it from spreading.” It was applied once a day every day until the day prior to the Derby, Baffert said. “While we do not know definitively that this was the source of the alleged 21 picograms found in Medina Spirit’s post-race blood sample, and our investigation is continuing, I have been told by equine pharmacology experts that this could explain the test results,” Baffert said. Betamethasone is a regulated medication in Kentucky. Rules went into effect this year treating any detectable level of the substance as a violation. The state racing commission’s recommendations, which are based on an intra-articular injection of the medication, call for a 14-day withdrawal time of the drug. Baffert’s attorney, Craig Robertson, said in response to questions that it was his “understanding” that the ointment was applied the day after the Derby but the treatments were then stopped. The horse is currently being pre-race tested on the expectation that he will be allowed to start in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, Robertson said. “It is my expectation, based on consultation with experts, that if the primary test results are accurate and betamethasone was in the horse’s system on May 1, it would have cleared by now,” Robertson said. Baffert had previously said that the horse had never received betamethasone, which can be found in trace amounts in treatments such as throat washes and other ointments due to its ability to reduce inflammation. The drug is far more commonly used in its injectable form to treat inflammation in joints. “I had no knowledge of how betamethasone could have possibly found its way into Medina Spirit [until now] and this has never been a case of attempting to game the system or get an unfair advantage,” Baffert said, addressing his previous statement about the horse never receiving the drug. Dr. Mary Scollay, the executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, said on Tuesday after reviewing a photo of the affected area that it was “not implausible” for a daily application of the ointment to show up on a post-race test. “I say ‘not implausible’ because I’m not aware of any data on topical applications and how they show up on blood concentrations,” Scollay said. “But we now know we have an exposure to betamethasone. And if you look at the photo it’s a truly expansive area. If they are covering that whole area every day, that’s a lot more than five drops down a dog’s ear.” Kentucky, like all other states, uses the absolute-insurer rule as a backstop for all post-race positives. The rule, which has been weakened by several cases in the past decade and by the addition of provisions allowing for “mitigating circumstances” in many rulebooks, holds a trainer responsible for the condition of the horse at the time post-race samples are drawn, regardless of fault. Under Kentucky’s rules, a betamethasone positive calls for the disqualification of the horse from the race in question. Penalties for a first offense for a trainer calls for a $1,000 fine “absent mitigating circumstances.” A second offense within a year calls for a $1,500 fine and a 15-day suspension for the trainer. Baffert’s horse Gamine tested positive for betamethasone after the Kentucky Oaks last September, and the trainer did not contest the penalty. Baffert said in the statement that he would continue to contest the positive finding for Medina Spirit, which has not yet been confirmed in a split-sample test. He also said that Medina Spirit should not face a disqualification in the Derby because of the finding. “Medina Spirit earned his Kentucky Derby win and my pharmacologists have told me that 21 picograms of betamethasone would have no effect on the outcome of the race,” he said. “Medina Spirit is a deserved champion and I will continue to fight for him.” Not counting Medina Spirit’s alleged positive, Baffert has had four positives for regulated medications in the past year, including the prior positive for betamethasone in Gamine, which he said resulted from an intra-articular injection 18 days prior to the Oaks, outside the 14-day window. The string of positives led Baffert to release a statement prior to the Breeders’ Cup in November last year pledging “to raise the bar and set the standard for equine safety and rule compliance” in his barn operations. In that statement, Baffert had also said that he would be “increasing the training and awareness of all my employees when it comes to proper protocols” and that he is “personally increasing my oversight and commitment to running a tight ship and being careful that protective measures are in place.”