This in turn led to a ban from all California Horse Racing Board facilities beginning April 4 due to a rule removing any trainer under a 60 day or higher ban from all CHRB facilities. But a top veterinary official cleared Baffert, finding that the spate of deaths remains unexplained following a probe that demonstrated the hazards of going after Baffert. After Baffert was notified a week following this years Kentucky Derby that the colts blood and urine sample contained 21 picograms, a trillionth of a gram, of betamethasone, he held a hastily called news conference outside his barn at Churchill Downs saying he had no idea how it could have gotten into the horses system. There have been so many false narratives that have come up and the hearing process isnt even done yet. [2] Baffert and his family reside in California. In February, Kentucky racing officials decided against suspending Baffert, with Borden telling the Louisville Courier-Journal a lesser punishment was all in the course of being fair. And in April, Arkansas officials reversed the 15-day suspension for lidocaine positives that the trainer blamed on an assistants pain patch. The board followed their recommendation. Mick Ruis, the owner and trainer of the second-place finisher in the Santa Anita Derby, has sued the CHRB. The Baffert who snubbed me on April 29, 2010, that is the real Bob Baffert, not the glib, seemingly affable chap heretofore seen in TV interviews. Following the publication of the report, Baffert tweeted: Im gratified that CHRB completed its investigation & found there was no wrongdoing. If you lose 75% of the time, youre considered really, really good. On at least 14 occasions, Baffert has been caught racing a horse with more than the allowable amount of bute in its system, according to a review of ARCI data, making it his most common offense. At one point, the regulators effort included searching for exonerating evidence in a literal haystack. The way this case was handled was out of respect for Justify., On the afternoon of April 18, 2018, Arthur learned that Justify and another Baffert horse, Hoppertunity, had tested positive for scopolamine. [2][4], Baffert established his early reputation with less expensive horses like Silver Charm and Real Quiet, bought for $16,500 and $17,000 respectively. 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. Early life and career [ edit] The deadliest period came between 2000 and 2005, when 34 of Bafferts horses in California died. A week after that, Baffert learned of the positive test. Like Baffert, Hollendorfer is in the thoroughbred Hall of Fame. Baffert, like many trainers, was using a thyroid drug that was cited in the CHRB investigation. This pattern has bred frustration among some horsemen. Arthur said the TOC was behind the effort to oust him because of his criticism of Lasix. Baffert grew up on a ranch in Nogales, Arizona, where his family raised cattle and chickens. Baffert's horses have won seven Kentucky Derbies, seven Preakness Stakes, three Belmont Stakes and three Kentucky Oaks. Whether youre a lifelong resident of D.C. or you just moved here, weve got you covered. Its bizarre, Baedeker said, because you have a deputy attorney general criticizing the board for following the law to the letter.. Horse trainer Bob Baffert on Monday argued that Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit had been a victim of "cancel culture" after the horse failed a postrace drug test . [10], Controversy deepened when on December 6, 2021, Medina Spirit died of an apparent heart attack after a workout at Santa Anita Park. None of them are considered performance-enhancing in the traditional sense, such as amphetamines or speedballs. Among them, according to interviews and records obtained by The Post: a push to have the veterinary official removed from office, supported by a trade group with Baffert among its directors. [14] It was Baffert's fifth violation in 13 months. His reasoning was that Baffert also administered thyroxine to horses outside of Hollywood Park, where his horses did not suffer sudden deaths. He has never apologized to the public for trashing the game. The way this case was handled was not a favor for Bob Baffert, Arthur said. The colt skipped the Belmont Stakes but became the champion three-year-old colt that year. Two months later, the PAC contributed $2,000 to Grays successful election committee. Baffert trained Lookin At Lucky, co-owned by Mike Pegram, to win the Preakness Stakes in 2010. Its all right there in black and white; thats all I can say., ARCI President Ed Martin said the rules limiting race-day medications have been tightened not out of concern for performance enhancement but to prevent breakdowns. [11], Prior to Medina Spirit's death, Baffert had last been under intense scrutiny a decade earlier when seven horses in his stables at Hollywood Park died between November 2, 2011 and March 14, 2013, all from sudden and later unexplained heart attacks. 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. In his analysis, Petersen estimated the states chances of winning at trial to be 50 percent. In that period, 36% of all cardiac related horse deaths in California were animals trained by Baffert. Its more the friendship that I miss. In February 2013, with Bafferts Hollywood Park sudden-death toll at six and Californias equine medical director, Rick Arthur, probing his barns operations, state legislation was introduced that would place term limits on Arthurs position, eventually forcing him out of a $309,000-a-year job. CNN Hall of Fame horse trainer Bob Baffert will miss the Kentucky Derby for a second straight year after a federal judge denied his request to have a two-year ban by Churchill Downs Inc.. Racing officials ruled that the positive test was a result of contamination and the wins of Charlatan and Gamine were restored. [42] He had been paid $200,000 to allow the Burger King to stand behind him in the grandstand during the televised broadcast of the Belmont, after having turned down $150,000 to allow the mascot to appear with him at the Preakness. After the Times broke the news of the positive drug test, Ruis sued the CHRB in January 2020. But they dont usually die in a cluster from a single barn for no clear reason. [citation needed], According to his supporters, Baffert's style and personality, combined with his success, have made him a target for controversy. It was then that Baffert, one of the most accessible trainers in horse racing, stopped talking until this week. Bob Baffert has taken up more of my time than I ever should have had to deal with, Arthur said, before again coming to the defense of Bafferts treatment of his horses: He certainly puts the pedal to the metal, but he doesnt close his eyes. In an email Monday, Bafferts attorney, W. Craig Robertson III, referred to the CHRBs initial decision to dismiss the test and a hearing last year in which officials ruled they had no authority to overturn that decision. Hollendorfers lawyer, Drew Couto, has claimed his client is being unfairly blamed for a high-profile spike of deaths at the track. The drug was again betamethasone, and Baffert again expressed shock and vowed to clear his name. Yeah, sure, hes a wiseass and irreverent. Time after time its not his fault. He still has a responsibility as the face of the game but I dont think hell overcome [this] because his personality wont allow him to do it.. Bob is trying to put 2020 behind him and move forward in a positive manner, Robertson wrote in an e-mail to Borden. Hes a very unique personality, a unique sense of humor. We went there with expectations not very high. Baffert has trained horses that won fifteen American Classic Races, fifteen Breeders' Cup races, four Dubai World Cups and the inaugural Pegasus World Cup. A 4/C violation meant minor punishment that wouldnt typically involve disqualifying the horse or redistributing winnings. LOS ANGELES In 2018, as star trainer Bob Baffert led his thoroughbred Justify to the Triple Crown, California regulators embarked on a secret effort to exonerate Baffert after the horses positive test for a banned substance, according to confidential records obtained by The Washington Post that fully detail the saga for the first time. And he pushes the envelope to the extent that they give their lives for his bank account.. (A CHRB spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. He routinely challenges most sanctions, usually agreeing to accept fines but vigorously fighting suspensions. Ive heard the rumors on Bobby since we got in the business after winning some Cal Cup races. Unlike a normal day at the races, Bafferts fate will not be decided by a photo-finish camera or the actions of a jockey aboard a 1,000-pound animal. In a scheme typical of the high-stakes warring behind the scenes in racing, four thoroughbred owners entered talks in 2015 with a private intelligence agency to dig up drug-related dirt on Baffert, according to multiple people with direct knowledge. His white hair, tinted glasses and accessibility make him a natural to promote the sport. Please answer some questions in this short survey about professional soccer and the 2022 Men's FIFA World Cup. Bob Baffert Family, Parents [31][32] Additional charges were added on January 3, 2022. On July 15, 2020, Deputy Attorney General Robert Petersen sent his initial case assessment to Brodnik. In 2015, a loose group of prominent thoroughbred owners hatched a plan according to people with direct knowledge of it to sic private eyes, from a firm called 5 Stones that helped bring down Russian dopers, on their sports most famous trainer. In 1997 he won his first Kentucky Derby with Silver Charm. The substance was indeed Jimson weed. Its not uncommon to find trainers who dont understand medications and how different medications work, Arthur said. His American Pharaoh horse won the Triple Crown in 2015. Baffert says he plans to seek legal recourse wherever necessary. A CHRB spokesman said the agency could not comment or make any employees available for an interview, citing the pending litigation. He's a cheat and an asshole, and I hope Medina Spirit gets taken down and his connections are denied the $1.8 million first-place check. Scopolamine, Baedeker wrote, can be injected but very often is the result of feed or straw that has been contaminated with Jimson weed., Arthur had previously suggested he didnt consider Jimson weed contamination to be a serious threat, writing in a 2016 memo that the likelihood under our current procedures of getting a positive from environmental contamination is rather low. In an interview this week, Arthur said he meant that such incidences were infrequent but said that in California, if you have a scopolamine positive, its going to be associated with Jimson weed thats just the reality of it., On April 26, records show, Arthur emailed CHRB officials that he had talked to Bob and informed him the proceedings would not immediately interfere with Justifys Triple Crown schedule. Those who have known Baffert the longest, including a core group of owners, recognize his flaws but generally remain steadfast in their support of him. (The trainer and jockey usually get 10 percent each.) Baffert, however, became the first trainer in history to win the Derby and Preakness in back-to-back years. Bob Bafferts horses have incurred numerous drug violations over the course of his 44 years as a thoroughbred trainer. In 2015, the Daily Herald ran a profile on Jill Baffert, explaining that she was a former journalist and waitress from Centerville. Horse racing needs to cut off the head of the snake, Ruis said. The hearing for a preliminary injunction began in federal court on Thursday afternoon, continuing a nearly two-year-long legal battle between Baffert and the racetrack following his suspension back in 2021. 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. The California Horse Racing Board cleared Baffert of any wrongdoing, but with reservation, calling such a cluster of deaths a less than 1-in-1,000 occurrence. [As for whats going on now,] I dont like it but Im dealing with it. Arthur indicated in his report that thyroxine was suspected to cause heart problems for horses during exercise, and at least four of the sudden deaths involved confirmed or suspected cardiac failure. During a hearing, records show, Baffert argued the positive test could have been a result of his stable hands eating poppy seed bagels and muffins around the horse. California counts all fatalities of horses in a trainers care, including breakdowns during training, not just racing deaths. It wasn't long after the running of the 123rd Kentucky Derby, where a grey . Santa Anitas 16-day fall season begins Friday with 14 stakes races over three days as trainers and owners take aim at the Breeders Cup at Del Mar. He paused, then added: Ive learned who my friends are.. He got his first big break in 1992 when he won his first Breeder's Cup race with Thirty Slews. Monty Roberts, a trainer who has agitated for more humane treatment of racehorses throughout his six-decade career, said that Baffert has long been one of the most important voices holding the sport back from reform. Horse-racing deaths, like much of the sport, are shrouded by a disjointed bureaucracy. Shortly after Petersen sent the analysis of the states chances, the CHRB agreed to settle Ruiss lawsuit. The testing levels have become ridiculous, Baffert told a conference of racehorse veterinarians during his keynote speech in 2000, according to a trade publication. I felt that we wouldve been dumping this in their lap, that we wouldve been putting them in an unfair position, and that we needed to go ahead and do the difficult thing, quite frankly, which is take responsibility for the decision, Baedeker said. The colt went on to win the Preakness Stakes, giving the trainer his third shot at winning the Triple Crown. His most serious infraction was also his first. It was an easy suspension to serve as Baffert was in school and not doing much training. That investigation led to the indictments that Baffert said spurred him to embrace more oversight, so the cheaters would be quickly caught and punished.. It then changed the classification of scopolamine so that its detection in a horse would trigger only a fine and not disqualification and loss of the races purse. The CHRB ruled it was caused by feed contamination, citing six other horses across four barns who also tested positive. Until this summer, Baffert was the longest-serving member on the board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, having been elected in 2007. After Arthur cleared Baffert of wrongdoing, the legislation was abandoned. 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. Its just disheartening. Arthur and CHRB investigators inspected Bafferts barn, reviewed veterinary records and interviewed Baffert, who was flanked by an attorney. Does the drug that could strip Medina Spirit of a Kentucky Derby win enhance performance? But the overall record indicates that he may not be running as tight a ship as he should.. Share on Facebook TWEET This If they didnt adopt those rules, the rules that prevail are the ones they adopted.. On June 9, Justify won the Belmont and the Triple Crown. The average death rate for racehorses in California, according to an analysis of more than 5,000 deaths since 2000, is 7.2 per 1,000 starts. Bob Baffert wakes up most every day with one thing in mind, winning another Kentucky Derby. 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. It sounds like hes deflecting, Gagliano said of Baffert. View . I went under the radar. [24], On May 17, 2021, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) banned Baffert from entering Medina Spirit or any of his other horses in the 2021 Belmont Stakes or any other race at Belmont Park. 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. [33], In February 2022, Baffert was suspended 90 days and fined $7,500 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. Officials worked secretly to clear Bob Bafferts Justify amid 2018 Triple Crown run, records show. I believe there is some precedent in criminal law when a law is changed from a felony to a misdemeanor how they should be prosecuted even before the new law becomes effective, wrote Arthur, whose job before medical equine director was as a racetrack veterinarian. The new classification simply makes more sense pharmacologically, Arthur wrote. [34] However, the Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected Baffert's appeal on April 1. 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. Once the golden boy of horse racing, Bob Baffert now the face of its disgrace. Baedeker and Arthur said in interviews that no matter how it was handled it would have been impossible to resolve the case that quickly. The Judge made her ruling based on the NYRA having not allowed Baffert a forum to refute their claims and stated that (they the NYRA).."had held no hearing let alone a prompt one. A recent conversation about the tragedy of horse deaths wended its way back to the defense of his reputation. In 2010, Misremembered, a horse he bred, owned by his wife Jill and their friend George Jacobs, won the Santa Anita Handicap, marking Baffert's first Grade I win as a breeder instead of a trainer. The winner's share of the $600 purse was $330. When The Post shared the data on 72 of the horse deaths with Brewster, he and Bafferts lawyer, W. Craig Robertson III, said that one of the horses listed was never in Bafferts care, though it is marked as his horse in CHRB records, and that another was a stable pony not being raced. 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. Closing everything and moving forward is in Bobs best interest and the best interest of horse racing. When asked about that plan, attorney Brewster said that in fact 5 Stones did investigate Baffert at the direction of the Jockey Club. I thought wed get fourth.
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