He has won the Kentucky Derby five times. Four months later, during a confidential executive session, Arthur and CHRB Director Rick Baedeker recommended that the commissioners not move forward with the disqualification of Justify, arguing that the scopolamine positive was probably the result of contamination from jimson weed. Wizards show plenty of heart early but cant find an edge late in Chicago. Either way, the state-appointed official probing Bafferts role in the deaths at Hollywood Park did so as his job was being threatened by the efforts of a Baffert-affiliated coalition. The 5-year-old mare was the seventh seemingly healthy horse from that barn to drop dead in 16 months. The Jockey Club has a database of thoroughbred breakdowns meaning deaths stemming from track injuries but said it is barred from sharing its data because of its contracts with racetracks. The lawyers said that taking into account Bafferts estimate of how many horses he has in his care, a count that differs from the starts data, the number of deaths of horses in Bobs barn is consistent with what would normally be expected from the horse population in general. Starts are regularly used, including by the CHRB, to study the death rates of a trainer. In a written decision, the stewards stated the CHRB has already ruled on this matter in its August 2018 closed hearing and had followed the law., However, the stewards suggested they would not have made the same decision as the CHRB: It is the Stewards opinion that had this Board of Stewards heard the Justify and Hoppertunity complaints prior to August 23, 2018 both horses would have been disqualified., Ruiss lawyers have since argued in court for the settlement to be rescinded because the stewards refused to make a decision on the merits., I remain convinced that justice has not yet been served, Vienna told The Post, and that hopefully the courts will resolve the matter., The rise and fall of Jorge Navarro, the alleged doping king of horse racing. While he allowed that the case was handled differently because of the Triple Crown ramifications, the special treatment had nothing to do with the horses trainer. I told him I thought there was a good indication that these were feed contamination.. Doug ONeill, a two-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, was one of the few trainers who would talk about Bafferts recent troubles. Obviously if we can get the Kentucky case resolved, Arkansas will have the benefit of knowing that result before a final decision is made in that case. We went there with expectations not very high. Bob Baffert blamed "cancel culture" after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test. Its more the friendship that I miss. Hell do anything to win, and hes got all his bases covered politically, Barry Irwin, owner of 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, said of Baffert. The month after that, Grays bill to limit Arthurs term was passed out of a committee. Once again, the Hall of Fame. And Bafferts veterinarians were prescribing it at his request without conducting laboratory tests to see whether the horses needed the drug, according to Arthurs later report. But hes a good person, no, a great person. Nine died in 2000, all but one from breakdowns. As he did so, a political group with Baffert on its board was involved in legislation that would result in Arthur losing his job. He has won the Kentucky Oaks three times: first in 1999 with Silverbulletday, who was later selected for the Hall of Fame, then with Plum Pretty in 2011 and with Abel Tasman in 2017. It was obvious long before Miners Daughter collapsed in a blood-tinged froth in March 2013 that there was something amiss in Barn 61 at Hollywood Park, the Los Angeles-area racetrack. Baffert grew up on a cattle and chicken farm in Nogales, Ariz., near the Mexico border. In 2012, Baffert saddled Bodemeister, named for the trainer's youngest son, Bode, to second-place finishes in the Derby and Preakness. (A CHRB spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Board member Michael E. Pegram had for decades hired Baffert to train his top horses, including the winner of the 1998 Kentucky Derby, Real Quiet. His attorney, let me just say, worked very, very hard, recalled former California Deputy Attorney General Jerald L. Mosley, who represented the state in attempting to uphold the suspension. Robert A. Baffert is an American Racehorse Trainer who trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. I think much of the GOP political party is moving too far to the right. Baffert said the horse ingested hay after a groom, who was taking cough medicine, had urinated in the horses stall. Baffert claims the defendants have "unlawfully deprived and will continue to deprive Baffert of his right to due process of law guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment and of his right to. In more than four decades in the sport, Baffert has faced significant regulatory scrutiny because of a high death rate only once, after seven of his horses collapsed in a short period of time at the same California track. Many in the racing world wondered how many times can the dog eat your homework? Trainer Bob Baffert stands outside his barn at Churchill Downs on May 2, 2016, in Louisville, Ky. Medina . Does his love of the camera sometimes bite him? asked longtime owner and friend Mike Pegram. But Baffert and his lawyers had since established a reputation for pugnaciousness when regulators attempted to discipline him. [35], The most notable cases prior to Medina Spirit's test was the disqualification of Gamine after a third place finish in the 2020 Kentucky Oaks, also for betamethasone,[36] and Triple Crown winner Justify, who tested positive for scopolamine after winning the 2018 Santa Anita Derby, but the results did not become public until after the horse won the Triple Crown. Bob Baffert blamed "cancel culture" after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test. But he said it wasnt clear from the records why the CHRB reversed course on filing a complaint against Baffert. "So now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, is a junky," Trump's statement read. Its not often that a sport turns against its biggest star, but Churchill Downs has taken that stand. Robert A. Baffert (born January 13, 1953) is an American racehorse trainer who trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has successfully appealed his 15-day suspension to the Arkansas Racing Commission, allowing the six-time Kentucky Derby winner to resume preparations to run Medina . State investigators found that his staff was mixing a potentially dangerous prescription drug into the feed of every horse in his care. He claimed that the horse death data provided by the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) was not possible.. [citation needed], According to his supporters, Baffert's style and personality, combined with his success, have made him a target for controversy. In his claustrophobic and cluttered office at Santa Anita Barn 5, Bob Baffert, the hall of fame trainer, was pushing papers and moving stacks, hunting for a faded photo of his 17-year-old self aboard a long-forgotten quarter horse from a small racing circuit in Arizona. Arthur is retiring at the end of June from a job often consumed by the scandals of a single trainer. He married his second wife, Jill, a former television reporter based in Louisville, in 2002. Garcia left California horse racing the next year, according to CHRB records; he could not be reached for comment by The Post. But the star trainers sudden support belied the fact that Baffert has for years been entangled with the very problems he blamed for his sports potential demise: drugs, dead horses and a feckless regulatory system. [25][26] On June 14, 2021, Baffert sued the NYRA alleging the association had no authority to suspend his license and that suspension "without prior notice" was a violation of the law. With upward of $1 million in yearly revenue drawn from wagering at tracks, the TOCs stated mission included establishing fair and reasonable medication rules and integrity standards., Baffert, the groups resident celebrity, was in business with several of his colleagues. Once the golden boy of horse racing, Bob Baffert now the face of its disgrace. There have been so many false narratives that have come up and the hearing process isnt even done yet. The bottom line, he said, is if youre a horse in Bob Bafferts barn, youre there to work.. A complaint is filed in every case where the split sample confirms the original laboratory finding, read an advisory on the CHRB website. [15], At a news conference on May 9, Baffert initially said that Medina Spirit was never administered betamethasone. Darrell Vienna, Ruiss attorney, said he would not have agreed to those stipulations but was not allowed to intervene. 10, 2022. View . CHRB brass agreed to follow Arthurs suggestion. Baffert's attorney argued in court that the trainer's May suspension by the New York Racing Assn. [2] His first winner was Flipper Star at Rillito Park on January 28, 1979. Hes always wanted to be a rock star and some people dont think racing should have one.. A week after that, Baffert learned of the positive test. Mick Ruis, who trained against Baffert for a couple years but now just manages his own racing business, once admired Baffert and his success, but no longer. He got his first big break in 1992 when he won his first Breeder's Cup race with Thirty Slews. Again, we can most likely agree to most anything in Kentucky except a suspension.. "[16][17] Nonetheless, Churchill Downs suspended Baffert from entering any horses at their racetrack pending the outcome of an investigation. Even then, he would not talk about the specifics of the cases against him. Brewster alleged, without providing evidence, that the Jockey Club directed 5 Stones to investigate anybody who doesnt train for them and wins a lot of races and might run in racetracks they dont run at., You know what the conclusion was? Brewster said of the alleged private investigation into Baffert. Less than two weeks later, Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby. And he does know generally when to stop on a horse.. Two months later, the PAC contributed $2,000 to Gray's . Bafferts record of testing failures threatens public confidence in thoroughbred racing and the reputation of the Kentucky Derby, said Bill Carstanjen, chief executive of Churchill Downs Inc. Given these repeated failures over the last year, including the increasingly extraordinary explanations, we firmly believe that asserting our rights to impose these measures is our duty and responsibility.. He rejoined The Times in 2009 and left his post as deputy sports editor late in 2017. On the morning of this years Kentucky Derby, he was going through his list of past Kentucky Derby winners and should-have-been winners, and dismissed Medina Spirit as not the best horse in the race. Things would have been so much simpler if the horse had not won the race. He makes it clear that he believes in same-day medication and he believes in his whips, said Roberts, who has long pushed to remove whipping horses from racing. We have a real conundrum to sort out, Arthur wrote in an email to top CHRB officials, explaining he believed a disqualification would be terribly unfair. More than a year earlier, the Association of Racing Commissioners International, which creates model rules for the sports various state bodies, had reclassified scopolamine from a 3/B to a 4/C drug. Bob Baffert has moved his way up the ladder to the extent that he has the most influential, the wealthiest owners in the industry, that he takes on the highest-quality horses possible because he wins races. It hurts racing., In the same speech, Baffert agitated for the continued use of Lasix, which is popular with trainers but increasingly criticized as a potential performance-enhancer and masking agent for other drugs. The drug was again betamethasone, and Baffert again expressed shock and vowed to clear his name. Does the drug that could strip Medina Spirit of a Kentucky Derby win enhance performance? He was fined $1,500. But after learning that Justify and another Baffert horse had tested positive for the same drug, Arthur announced in an e-mail to CHRB officials: The scopolamine cases will be handled differently than usual. Arthur said in a recent interview that he was referring to the logistics of what was clearly going to be a high-profile case that needed to be handled carefully.. He was 10 when his father, Bill, bought a couple of quarter horses, plowed some land for a track and Bob started riding them before school each morning. The week after Justify won the Preakness, bringing him to the cusp of the Triple Crown, test results came back showing the plant they had tested was milkweed. By the April 1 ruling, Baffert had already transferred four 3-year-old colts to other trainers. [42][44] A friend of Baffert's and an inductee into the American Quarter Horse Association Hall of Fame, Adair died on Preakness Day, May 16, 2015, at 71. My heart tells me one thing, but my head tells me something else, said veteran racing journalist Ron Flatter, the managing editor of the website Horse Racing Nation. Shortly after Petersen sent the analysis of the states chances, the CHRB agreed to settle Ruiss lawsuit. Robert A. Baffert (born January 13, 1953) is an American racehorse trainer who trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. Petersen noted that in a previous case the board had exonerated the trainers of three horses who had tested positive for scopolamine, finding the flunked tests were a result of Jimson weed. But by August, the plan had changed. The 90 day ban against Baffert was set to be honored in all 38 racing states. Following the 2015 Belmont win, Baffert outlined several charities that he and his wife Jill supported. CHRB regulations state that its foreign substances guidelines are based on ARCI recommendations as modified by the state board. Baffert was inducted into Lone Star Park's Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2009, he was nominated and inducted to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame, the same year as a filly he trained, Silverbulletday. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) A federal judge denied Bob Baffert's request to lift his two-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc., ruling Friday that the Hall of Fame trainer did not prove its. After the Times broke the news of the positive drug test, Ruis sued the CHRB in January 2020. Two Triple Crown winners and a signature shock of white hair will do that for a man. He told reporters that he would fight the issue "tooth and nail. The month after Gray introduced his legislation, Bafferts seventh sudden death made the deaths at Hollywood Park a national news story. You could trust him and that never changed.. [18] Baffert responded by saying the situation "was like a cancel culture kind of a thing," a remark which earned him noticeable criticism from the press. He also won the race in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 when run as a Grade I event. Federal prosecutors had just indicted more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians and others on charges related to doping horses, a seismic event in a sport already reeling from a well-publicized spate of horse deaths and perpetually dwindling revenue. The bold statement appeared to put Baffert on the right side of history: By the end of the year, President Donald Trump had signed into law the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, which promised to reform the sport. And in the 13 months following his essay in The Post, Bafferts horses tested positive for prohibited or excessive substances five times in three states. The substance was indeed Jimson weed. Baedeker and Arthur said in interviews that no matter how it was handled it would have been impossible to resolve the case that quickly. Medina Spirit died after a training session on 6 December 2021 and an ensuing necropsy on 11 February 2022 was inconclusive. The horse is scheduled to run Saturday in the Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita. The CHRB provided The Post with death data dating back to late 1990 showing that at least 87 of Bafferts horses have died in California since then. A 23-page analysis of that case, sent to the CHRB by a California deputy attorney general in July and obtained by The Post, suggests the states lawyers were concerned about the way the agency responded to the failed drug test. At the time, she was 42-years-old. This America's different." pic . Without that win, Justify would not have qualified to run in the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown, a month later. [8] His first suspension was in 1977 for misuse of morphene, but thereafter he had no violations for the next eight years. To me, whats in the best interest of the sport is not seeing anyone being dogpiled on.. In the next six months, three of his horses tested positive for banned or excessive substances four times in California, Arkansas and Kentucky. He built up his training business a step at a time and acquired some prominent owners. Drop dead while galloping, read a California Horse Racing Board vets account of the first horses death in November 2011. Baffert told investigators he used the drug for about five years to build up his horses, which Arthur noted was unusual because it was typically used to slim them down. The 77-year-old billionaire made headlines last year when he made a $10,000 contribution to opponents of Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance. In that period, 36% of all cardiac related horse deaths in California were animals trained by Baffert. This article was published more than1 year ago, LOS ANGELES In March 2020, horse racings most recognizable figure, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, declared that his sport was in crisis.. was. His graded stakes wins include nine wins in the Santa Anita Derby, nine in the Haskell Invitational Handicap, and fourteen in the Del Mar Futurity, a race he won seven straight times from 1996 to 2002, when it was a Grade II event. It will all be settled by lawyers and judges and that takes time. It seems the biggest problem trainer Bob Baffert had during the running of the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes on Saturday was keeping his face covering over his nose. In raw numbers, most of Baffert's medication violations were for exceeding allowed amounts of authorized medications such as phenylbutazone, a pain medication commonly administered to horses. Cardoza, who now works for a law firm, denied in an interview last month that the TOC was involved: Not at all. But he then said, TOCs involvement in that bill had nothing to do with Bob Baffert., Instead, Cardoza said, the drive to oust Arthur was over his opposition to Lasix. Baffert failed in multiple attempts in Kentucky to overturn the track's ban or the start of his suspension, which began April 4. In 1997, he trained Silver Charm to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, finishing second in the Belmont. A New York federal judge on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 nullified the suspension of horse trainer Bob Baffert, finding that the New York Racing Association acted unconstitutionally by failing to let him adequately respond to claims made against him after Kentucky . John Cherwa is a special contributor to the Los Angeles Times. Baffert won the Derby a third time in 2002 with War Emblem. But when factoring in the number of races run, Bafferts horses have died at the highest rate of the 10 trainers who have had the most horse deaths. The ARCI rules are recommendations, the associations president, Ed Martin, said in an interview. Several members of the Breeders Cup board have used Baffert as their trainer. Hes good.. He will rub people the wrong way by speaking his mind, sometimes he needs to hit the mute button. "[10], However, over 30 horses Baffert trained have failed drug tests. It takes only a minute or so to walk from the racetrack at Santa Anita Park to the barns in back. Now 68, Baffert is seeing his livelihood and reputation under attack after a series of medication infractions have made him an outcast to some in the industry and a pariah to many more outside of it. A recent conversation about the tragedy of horse deaths wended its way back to the defense of his reputation. Horse owner and racing reform advocate Barry Irwin has stated, "He's Mr. Nothing is held back.. A 4/C violation meant minor punishment that wouldnt typically involve disqualifying the horse or redistributing winnings. Bell told an investigator he then checked other bales and found a branch and pods he thought were Jimson weed in the parking lot. The first two infractions occurred in May 2020, when the horses Charlatan and Gamine tested positive in Arkansas for lidocaine, a numbing agent. It elicited little notice; racehorses die by the hundreds per year in California alone. The 69-year-old Hall of Fame trainer is suing Churchill Downs Inc. in federal court to end his suspension. Baffert made the. Between 1997 and 1999, he won the Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer three years running and was voted the 1997 Big Sport of Turfdom Award. Baffert has had two fatalities in the last three years, a low number for a barn of his size. The owners ultimately abandoned the plan after Bafferts horse, American Pharoah, won the Triple Crown that year, fearing their effort could damage the sport, one of those people said. Bob Baffert Family, Parents The Post separately obtained start data dating back to 2000 from the Daily Racing Form to put the deaths into context. Baffert, like many trainers, was using a thyroid drug that was cited in the CHRB investigation. On Monday, Bell confirmed he helped with the search, adding Jimson weed has plagued California for years.. I dont see somebody who is doping horses, Martin said after reviewing Bafferts drug-related history. What we knew about horses you could put in a thimble. Baffert is America's pre-eminent active trainer. Theres one thing that I will say positive about Bob is that he is a horseman. The goal, the people familiar said, was to get Baffert to support languishing reforms in the sport. See, I bet you didnt know I was a jockey? Baffert said. Another person who came to Bafferts defense was his former assistant Tim Yakteen, who now runs his own stable.