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[Mark Peel via Derby]

I’m no fan ofBob Baffert; I’ve always suspected him of cheating.  But something aboutMedina Spirit’s failed drug test seems fishy.  Baffert is just too smartto get caught doping a Derby entry.  It could havehappened, of course.  In the post-race interviews, Baffert was obviouslyshocked that Medina Spirit had won.  Drug tests are generally given to thewinner and one or more randomly selected horses, so Baffert may have beenrunning a sore legged Medina Spirit with a small dose of betamethasone thinkinghe had no chance of winning and thus no chance of being caught.  It’spossible.   Also, as smartas he is, Baffert has already been caught red-handed before.  Gamine andCharlatan were both ruled off Oaklawn Park after failing drug tests in2020.  Gamine is also reported as having failed a drug test on Oaks Day atChurchill Downs—again, betamethasone.  Most famously, Justify failed adrug test after winning the Santa Anita Derby in 2018, but the California HorseRacing Board let the investigation drag on for months while Justify entered andwon the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes—races he would not havebeen permitted to enter had the Santa Anita drug violation been publiclyconfirmed.  (The CHRB chairman atthe time, Chuck Winner, had employed Mr. Baffert to train his horses.) So yes, it’s notthe most far-fetched thing in the world that America’s greatest thoroughbredtrainer won his seventh Kentucky Derby with an entry who was loaded up on painkillers.  Baffert is a tough SOB, he trains his stock hard and fast, andno one can be as successful as he has been without a strong dose ofruthlessness cut into his skill and ambition. But somethingabout this feels wrong.   There are manypeople in racing who do not like Bob Baffert, and many people in racing whowouldn’t mind seeing him taken down.  Other trainers, for one. Certainly any trainer who’s trying to run a clean, drug-free operation wherethe animals are well-treated would suspect Baffert’s unparalleled successwasn’t entirely on the up-and-up.  A clean trainer, though, wouldn’t be myfirst suspect—for one thing, there are so few of them!  It’s the dirtytrainers, the majority who get away with whatever they can to get an edge, cutcorners, take the small hard-to-detect risks—the ones who would administer thesame “therapeutic” doses of betamethasone to their own stock who might find away to see that someone who knows someone who knows someone would see thatMedina Spirit or Gamine or Justify was given a little extra juice.   Baffert is alsoknown to be hard on jockeys who make mistakes on his horses, or have a troubledtrip and lose when they’re supposed to win.  Baffert freezes out jockeyswhen they don’t perform the way he thinks they should.  He’s discardedMartin Garcia, Mike Smith, Victor Espinosa.  Last year he started usingJohn Velazquez instead of Smith aboard McKinzie, and gave him the mount onMedina Spirit.  That certainly made Velazquez and his agent happy, but notso much the west coast riders and agents who are losing mounts, and thetrainers like Todd Pletcher who have used Velazquez for years and may lose himfor races like the Triple Crown, Travers, and Breeder’s Cup.  Jockeys andtheir agents have friends on the backstretch, too.  Twenty-seven peoplewere arrested last year in an FBI drug sting focused on horse racing—only two,Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, were well known trainers; the rest wereveterinarians, “supplement” pushers, go-fers and hangers-on, the kind of peopleyou run into everywhere at the race track. Of course, thisscenario hardly puts racing in a better light than if Bob Baffert were indeedsimply out-and-out drugging his stock.  Which he may well be.   But I feel like something else is happening here.  Either someone in Baffert’sbarn messed up and gave Medina Spirit too much betamethasone, or Baffert’s thevictim of deliberate sabotage.  I don’t go in for conspiracies, and I’m thelast person who would defend the integrity of Bob Baffert, but racing is inmany ways a dark place, and this is one of those dark places.
Civres


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