ARCADIA, Calif.— As exiles go, Bob Baffert’s has been a cushty one. Most mornings, the horse coach who’s barred from competing within the Kentucky Derby, might be discovered beneath the rouge-tipped San Gabriel Mountains, holding court docket at Clockers’ Nook, the open-air bistro at Santa Anita Park.
Palms shoved in pockets on a current morning, he talked basketball with a cluster of jockey brokers and horse house owners earlier than shuffling on towards the eighth pole to look at his horses work. As soon as there, Baffert lifted his binoculars to check his Mild Brigade like a jeweler sizing up uncut gems.
The horses within the Baffert barn are the costliest in Southern California, if not the world. One of many house owners he works for, Amr Zedan, paid $3.55 million at public sale for a colt named Hejazi and $2.3 million for one more, Arabian Knight.
If the identify sounds acquainted, it ought to: Zedan, a Saudi enterprise capitalist, owned Medina Spirit, who received 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Kentucky Derby till he didn’t. The colt examined constructive for a prohibited drug on race day and had his victory rescinded.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 within the race in 2022 and 2023. Maryland and New York regulators honored the ban in 2022, so Baffert additionally missed the opposite two legs of the Triple Crown, the Belmont and the Preakness.
The affair additional broken a perpetually troubled sport, resurrecting issues 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 tradition” 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 steady received 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 within the nationwide coach standings, in line with Equibase, regardless of Baffert lacking three months whereas serving his suspension.
A Toll on His Repute
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 on the Preakness in Baltimore in Could. 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.
Inside an hour, nevertheless, his lawyer, Clark Brewster, stated Baffert would comply with an interview provided that it centered on a 15-slide Energy Level presentation of authorized arguments that he stated confirmed Baffert had not damaged the foundations and shouldn’t have misplaced his 2021 Derby win.
In affidavits, Baffert has stated that by barring him from the Derby and every other racetrack it owns, Churchill Downs would “successfully put him out of enterprise.” That has not occurred as a result of, no matter his missteps, horse house owners proceed to belief him with their investments and their confidence in him retains paying off.
The horse house owners Baffert works with purchase the very best bred and most athletic colts on the auctions, then flip them over to him within 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 skilled 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 Invoice 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 probably the most by a coach.
In a February court docket continuing to have the Churchill Downs ban lifted, Baffert was requested what number of instances he had received America’s most well-known race.
“Seven,” he replied, nonetheless counting Medina Spirit’s erased victory. “I broke the document. I’m very pleased with that.”
Baffert was 1 / 4 horse coach within the late Nineteen Eighties when Mike Pegram, a longtime horse proprietor, urged him to change to thoroughbreds. By 1998, the pair had received the Derby, the Preakness after which missed the Triple Crown by a diminishing nostril within the Belmont with a colt named Actual Quiet. Each had discovered the stage that they wished to play on.
Pegram stated the stress of Medina Spirit’s failed drug take a look at and its aftermath might not be mirrored within the performances of Baffert’s horses or within the costs his house owners pay at public sale, nevertheless it has taken its toll on Baffert and his repute.
“The numbers are the numbers, they usually present Bob’s the very best there may be,” Pegram stated. “But when somebody assaults you personally it hurts. All people handles it in a different way. Bob’s a giant boy and is shifting on.”
Possibly so, however Baffert continues to struggle 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 stated 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 slightly than an injection.
Legal professionals for state regulators and Churchill Downs counter that the drug is prohibited in any quantity on race day and level to 9 constructive drug checks Baffert’s horses amassed from 2016 to 2020 to argue that his participation is detrimental to horse racing.
“They’ve harm my repute,” Baffert testified in federal court docket in February. “My horses ought to’ve made way more cash. I didn’t run for 90 days, and I needed to let individuals go.”
Shortly after the ban was imposed, Baffert handed off most of his Derby contenders to different trainers, primarily the previous assistant Tim Yakteen, so they might earn factors to qualify for the Derby within the closing prep races. Final yr, 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 in every of them, Cave Rock, completed second within the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to Forte, the 2-year-old champion and present favourite to win the Derby. Cave Rock is among the many horses Baffert is contemplating taking to Baltimore for the Preakness.
“Bob’s acquired character and I hope I acquired some character, too,” Pegram stated.
Dominating in California
California has been good for Baffert, however it isn’t as clear that he has been good for horse racing within the state. The game 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 using using crops, treatment for horses, schooling for trainers and jockeys, observe security and recuperation insurance policies for injured horses. Final yr, 12 horses died at Santa Anita, and thoroughbred fatalities all through California fell 54 % from 144 in 2019 to 66 for the final fiscal yr.
Even so, Baffert’s Derby disqualification and the loss of life of Medina Spirit saved 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 are going to be administered by the newly minted Horseracing Integrity and Security Authority, which seems to have survived court docket challenges by racing trade 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 brand new guidelines had been in place then, Medina Spirit might need been saved out of the Derby beginning gate as a result of Baffert would have been serving at the least a 180-day suspension, and most certainly extra, for earlier infractions, in line with the baseline guidelines.
Throughout the horse racing group, Baffert’s dominance in California is acutely felt amongst fellow trainers and house owners. Fourteen of the 16 horses nominated for the $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes, an necessary race on the street to the Derby, had been skilled by Baffert. Collectively, his house owners had paid $9.1 million for them.
On race day, solely 4 horses made it to the beginning gate — and Baffert skilled all 4 of them. Bettors had been apoplectic and regulators involved {that a} single coach might management the result of the race. Scott Chaney, the chief director of the California Horse Racing Board, stated officers warned the jockeys towards working collectively.
“We don’t need any, like even a touch of colluding with one another as a result of that’s the place it’s a regulatory challenge,” Chaney stated in an interview.
The aggressive imbalance has made for a tense dynamic on the bottom at Santa Anita and Del Mar, the premier California observe exterior San Diego. Some house owners have determined that if they’ll’t beat Baffert, they may as nicely 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 document in order to not look envious.
“No knock on Bob — he’s acquired a robust model, a superb crew and he delivers,” stated Invoice Nader, president and chief govt of the Thoroughbred House owners of California. “I believe the frustration amongst trainers is ‘Why not me?’ It’s a truthful query. There’s no scarcity of alternate options. We now have Corridor of Famers, huge outfits and up-and-comers that every one are glorious trainers and have received huge races.”
There’s a frequent lament amongst horseplayers that underlines the quixotic nature of a horse race: “No person is aware of nothing.”
Horses are costly. Breeding means nothing except 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 Wealthy Strike, final yr’s winner at 80-1.
You need a good wager? Baffert will saddle a colt in Baltimore on the Preakness, ending his Triple Crown exile and taking his place again on horse racing’s heart stage.