ARCADIA, Calif.— As exiles go, Bob Baffert’s has been a cushty one. Most mornings, the horse coach who’s barred from competing in the Kentucky Derby, might be discovered beneath the rouge-tipped San Gabriel Mountains, holding courtroom at Clockers’ Corner, the open-air bistro at Santa Anita Park.
Hands shoved in pockets on a current morning, he talked basketball with a cluster of jockey brokers and horse homeowners earlier than shuffling on towards the eighth pole to observe his horses work. Once there, Baffert lifted his binoculars to review his Light Brigade like a jeweler sizing up uncut gems.
The horses in the Baffert barn are the costliest in Southern California, if not the world. One of the homeowners he works for, Amr Zedan, paid $3.55 million at public sale for a colt named Hejazi and $2.3 million for an additional, Arabian Knight.
If the identify sounds acquainted, it ought to: Zedan, a Saudi enterprise capitalist, owned Medina Spirit, who gained the 2021 Kentucky Derby till he didn’t. The colt examined constructive for a prohibited drug on race day and had his victory rescinded. Then Baffert was suspended for 90 days by Kentucky regulators and barred by Churchill Downs, the host of the Derby, from saddling horses in the race in 2022 and 2023. Maryland and New York regulators honored the ban in 2022, so Baffert additionally missed the different two legs of the Triple Crown, the Belmont and the Preakness.
The affair additional broken a perpetually troubled sport, resurrecting considerations about doping scandals, the frequent and mysterious deaths of its horses (Medina Spirit died out of the blue in 2021 whereas coaching) and waning curiosity in racing.
After initially blaming “cancel culture” for his shunning, Baffert vigorously proclaimed his innocence and has unsuccessfully tried to get his punishments overturned in courthouses and committee listening to rooms from Kentucky to New York.
One place he was clearly not canceled was Southern California. In 2022, Baffert’s secure gained all however a handful of its 75 races at Santa Anita, Del Mar and Los Alamitos, amassing greater than $9.7 million in purse earnings to complete twelfth in the nationwide coach standings, in response to Equibase, regardless of Baffert lacking three months whereas serving his suspension.
A Toll on His Reputation
On a current morning, a cheerful Baffert indicated that he wished to show the web page and speak about his hopes of returning to the Triple Crown path at the Preakness in Baltimore in May. He had simply returned from a 2-year-old in coaching sale in Ocala, Fla., the place Zedan spent $2 million for a colt, including one other high-profile prospect to the Baffert barn for the 2024 Derby.
Within an hour, nevertheless, his lawyer, Clark Brewster, mentioned Baffert would comply with an interview provided that it centered on a 15-slide Power Point presentation of authorized arguments that he mentioned confirmed Baffert had not damaged the guidelines and mustn’t have misplaced his 2021 Derby win.
In affidavits, Baffert has mentioned that by barring him from the Derby and every other racetrack it owns, Churchill Downs would “effectively put him out of business.” That has not occurred as a result of, no matter his missteps, horse homeowners proceed to belief him with their investments and their confidence in him retains paying off.
The horse homeowners Baffert works with purchase the finest bred and most athletic colts at the auctions, then flip them over to him in the hopes of successful the American classics — the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes — which, together with the Breeders’ Cup races, improve a horse’s worth as a stallion prospect.
Baffert has educated 16 traditional winners, 18 Breeders’ Cup champions and two colts — American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018) — that swept the Triple Crown. The Irish-owned Coolmore breeding concern purchased American Pharoah for $30 million and Justify for $60 million.
Baffert has been effusive about his love for the Derby, approaching it with the identical depth with which Steve Kerr and Bill Belichick chase N.B.A. and N.F.L. championships. His six official Derby victories tie Ben Jones, who captured his between 1938 and 1952, for the most by a coach.
In a February courtroom continuing to have the Churchill Downs ban lifted, Baffert was requested what number of occasions he had gained America’s most well-known race.
“Seven,” he replied, nonetheless counting Medina Spirit’s erased victory. “I broke the record. I’m very proud of that.”
Baffert was 1 / 4 horse coach in the late Eighties when Mike Pegram, a longtime horse proprietor, urged him to modify to thoroughbreds. By 1998, the pair had gained the Derby, the Preakness after which missed the Triple Crown by a diminishing nostril in the Belmont with a colt named Real Quiet. Both had discovered the stage that they wished to play on.
Pegram mentioned the stress of Medina Spirit’s failed drug take a look at and its aftermath might not be mirrored in the performances of Baffert’s horses or in the costs his homeowners pay at public sale, but it surely has taken its toll on Baffert and his repute.
“The numbers are the numbers, and they show Bob’s the best there is,” Pegram mentioned. “But if someone attacks you personally it hurts. Everybody handles it differently. Bob’s a big boy and is moving on.”
Maybe so, however Baffert continues to combat to overturn the disqualification of Medina Spirit, his personal suspensions in Kentucky and New York and his prohibition from Churchill Downs-owned tracks. He has mentioned that the substance detected in Medina Spirit’s blood — betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to scale back ache and swelling — got here from an ointment moderately than an injection.
Lawyers for state regulators and Churchill Downs counter that the drug is prohibited in any quantity on race day and level to 9 constructive drug assessments Baffert’s horses amassed from 2016 to 2020 to argue that his participation is detrimental to horse racing.
“They’ve hurt my reputation,” Baffert testified in federal courtroom in February. “My horses should’ve made much more money. I didn’t run for 90 days, and I had to let people go.”
Shortly after the ban was imposed, Baffert handed off most of his Derby contenders to different trainers, primarily the former assistant Tim Yakteen, so they might earn factors to qualify for the Derby in the closing prep races. Last 12 months, Yakteen saddled Taiba and Messier for Baffert and watched them end twelfth and fifteenth.
Pegram left his horses in Baffert’s barn, successfully opting out of the Derby. One of them, Cave Rock, completed second in the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to Forte, the 2-year-old champion and present favourite to win the Derby. Cave Rock is amongst the horses Baffert is contemplating taking to Baltimore for the Preakness.
“Bob’s got character and I hope I got some character, too,” Pegram mentioned.
Dominating in California
California has been good for Baffert, however it’s not as clear that he has been good for horse racing in the state. The sport was badly rocked in 2019 after 30 horses died at Santa Anita in a span of six months, nationwide information that earned the scrutiny of California lawmakers and animal rights activists.
In response, state and racing officers strengthened rules round the use of using crops, medicine for horses, schooling for trainers and jockeys, monitor security and recuperation insurance policies for injured horses. Last 12 months, 12 horses died at Santa Anita, and thoroughbred fatalities all through California fell 54 % from 144 in 2019 to 66 for the final fiscal 12 months.
Even so, Baffert’s Derby disqualification and the dying of Medina Spirit stored horse racing in an unflattering mild in a state the place animal rights teams have a robust voice.
Baffert’s upcoming return to Triple Crown races coincides with stricter drug guidelines going into impact. They will likely be administered by the newly minted Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which seems to have survived courtroom challenges by racing business teams. Drug testing now will likely be centralized, quick and environment friendly.
That was not the case when Medina Spirit failed his postrace drug take a look at. If the new guidelines had been in place then, Medina Spirit may need been stored out of the Derby beginning gate as a result of Baffert would have been serving at the least a 180-day suspension, and probably extra, for earlier infractions, in response to the baseline guidelines.
Within the horse racing neighborhood, Baffert’s dominance in California is acutely felt amongst fellow trainers and homeowners. Fourteen of the 16 horses nominated for the $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes, an necessary race on the highway to the Derby, have been educated by Baffert. Together, his homeowners had paid $9.1 million for them.
On race day, solely 4 horses made it to the beginning gate — and Baffert educated all 4 of them. Bettors have been apoplectic and regulators involved {that a} single coach may management the final result of the race. Scott Chaney, the govt director of the California Horse Racing Board, mentioned officers warned the jockeys in opposition to working collectively.
“We don’t want any, like even a hint of colluding with each other because that’s where it is a regulatory issue,” Chaney mentioned in an interview.
The aggressive imbalance has made for a tense dynamic on the bottom at Santa Anita and Del Mar, the premier California monitor exterior San Diego. Some homeowners have determined that if they will’t beat Baffert, they could as properly be a part of him, and have given him extra horses for his already loaded barn. Fellow trainers grumbled however declined to go on the file in order to not look envious.
“No knock on Bob — he’s got a powerful brand, a good team and he delivers,” mentioned Bill Nader, president and chief govt of the Thoroughbred Owners of California. “I think the frustration among trainers is ‘Why not me?’ It is a fair question. There’s no shortage of alternatives. We have Hall of Famers, big outfits and up-and-comers that all are excellent trainers and have won big races.”
There is a frequent lament amongst horseplayers that underlines the quixotic nature of a horse race: “Nobody knows nothing.”
Horses are costly. Breeding means nothing until a horse can run quick. Between accidents and poor performances, Baffert’s multimillion-dollar thundering herd has been winnowed to only one Derby qualifier — Reincarnate, dealt with by Yakteen.
And the Derby is anybody’s race. Ask Eric Reed and Sonny Leon, the coach and jockey of Rich Strike, final 12 months’s winner at 80-1.
You need a good guess? Baffert will saddle a colt in Baltimore at the Preakness, ending his Triple Crown exile and taking his place again on horse racing’s middle stage.
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