INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The attorney representing the California Horse Racing Board in a medication case against Bob Baffert has recommended that Baffert be suspended for six months and fined $10,000 for having a horse test positive for morphine at Hollywood Park last year.

In closing arguments presented in writing earlier this week to the stewards who served at the Santa Anita meeting, Judith Seligman, a deputy attorney general who argued the case, recommended the penalty, which is the maximum for a fine.

Seligman argued that Baffert is responsible for the condition of his horse and that morphine is not permitted to appear in post-race tests in California at any level.

Stewards Ingrid Fermin, Dave Samuel, and Tom Ward are currently reviewing closing arguments from Seligman and Baffert's attorney, Neil Papiano. They are expected to issue a ruling in coming weeks. The ruling could result in a fine and/or suspension for Baffert.

The Baffert-trained Nautical Look, the winner of an allowance race at Hollywood Park on May 3, 2000, was found to have a trace level of morphine in a post-race urine test.

Papiano has argued that the case should be dismissed on the grounds that the CHRB was required to test both the urine and blood sample and failed to do so. In testimony during an eight-day hearing at Santa Anita in April, officials with the CHRB and Truesdail Laboratories of Tustin, the CHRB's primary lab, said the blood sample for Nautical Look was among a large group that was randomly thrown out in a cost-saving measure last year.

In addition, Papiano argued that Nautical Look could have been accidentally contaminated with morphine through poppy seeds from hay or feed or from bagels or muffins that were consumed at the barn.