Baffert was suspended by the NYRA on May 17 -- a big deal as it barred the legendary horse trainer from entering into the prestigious June 5 Belmont Stakes race. California counts all fatalities of horses in a trainers care, including breakdowns during training, not just racing deaths. The trainer was fined $2,500. But in this case, Arthur urged a lighter penalty based on his suggestion the CHRB downgrade the drug. And because of that, he has become arrogant as hell. It was then that Baffert, one of the most accessible trainers in horse racing, stopped talking until this week. Bob had the personality and he was honest. Clark Brewster, a nationally known trial attorney who represented adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her defamation suit against President Trump, will be Bafferts attorney in any litigation against Churchill Downs. Please answer some questions in this short survey about professional soccer and the 2022 Men's FIFA World Cup. Baffert was fined $10,000. Anybody who walks with that swagger, people are going to love him or hate him, Pegram said. Even then, he would not talk about the specifics of the cases against him. But that number may drop to six if the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission disqualifies this years winner, Medina Spirit, for a medication violation, the trainers fifth since May 2020. . He claimed the boards cover up cost him damages including the $400,000 difference between the first-place and second-place purses in the Santa Anita Derby. 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. Rick Baedeker, who was executive director of the CHRB before retiring last year, said the boards decisions were carefully considered to avoid treating Baffert differently than any other trainer. The horse is scheduled to run Saturday in the Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita. 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. See, I bet you didnt know I was a jockey? Baffert said. After the test result was revealed, Mick Ruis, the trainer and owner of the Santa Anita Derbys runner-up, sued the CHRB, claiming Justifys win should have been erased. And Madeline Auerbach, who later became a CHRB commissioner, had partnered with Baffert in thoroughbred breeding. Ruis is suing the CHRB for absolving Baffert of a positive for scopolamine, a byproduct of jimsonweed, after Justify tested for the drug after winning the 2018 Santa Anita Derby. His white hair, tinted glasses and accessibility make him a natural to promote the sport. The bottom line, he said, is if youre a horse in Bob Bafferts barn, youre there to work.. But hes a good person, no, a great person. Kaleem Shah, an owner who split with Baffert in 2016, defended the trainer over the horse deaths. The previous August, Bob Baffert Racing Stables had donated $1,000 to the TOC's political action committee, California records show. [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. Again, we can most likely agree to most anything in Kentucky except a suspension.. There are no secrets on the backside.. 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. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has been suspended from the home of the Kentucky Derby for two years after Medina Spirit's positive post-race drug was confirmed, the company that runs the. He finished third in the Derby that year with Congaree. To the newspaper, she. followed up and ruled Baffert would not be allowed to run in New York. He saddled Paynter in the Belmont Stakes later that year, but that colt, like his stablemate Bodemeister, finished second. Baffert has had more than 30 drug violations in his 44-year career, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. The positive test only emerged when the New York Times reported it more than a year later. 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. But Bafferts critics say his conduct after penning the article calls into question his seriousness about reform. Instead of promptly filing a public complaint against Baffert, the CHRB kept the positive result secret while Arthur conducted a lengthy investigation. By then, Justify had won the Triple Crown, one of the rarest achievements in sports. Real Quiet won the Preakness as well, but, like Silver Charm, the horse was denied a Triple Crown win and finished second in the Belmont Stakes by a nose. The consolation is knowing the truth will come out as the process plays out. Baffert, like many trainers, was using a thyroid drug that was cited in the CHRB investigation. In response to public records requests in Maryland, New Jersey and Kentucky, officials told The Post that they did not maintain digital records of horse deaths by trainer, instead keeping reams of copies of reports. All of the drugs were legal, just not in the amounts found on race day. Yeah, sure, hes a wiseass and irreverent. [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. Once again, the Hall of Fame. Robertson blamed the frequency of Bafferts drug-related violations on how often his horses are tested after winning races and said, Horse racings regulations need to catch up with the sensitivity of modern day testing., Jockey Club President James L. Gagliano dismissed that frequent complaint from Baffert. In 2012, Baffert saddled Bodemeister, named for the trainer's youngest son, Bode, to second-place finishes in the Derby and Preakness. When asked about that plan, attorney Brewster said that in fact 5 Stones did investigate Baffert at the direction of the Jockey Club. But even in those cases, which were handled according to established rules, the horses were disqualified and their winning purses were forfeited. Baffert has paid out over $20,000 in fines, but compared against over $321 million in career earnings. Baffert has also had his share of horse fatalities, the other metric to which his critics point. "We live in a different world now. The trainer was Baffert. In April, after Arkansas reversed its decision on two Baffert horses and overturned his suspension, trainer Richard Baltas was bad-mouthing Baffert at Clockers Corner, the place where trainers and fans watch horses work in the morning at Santa Anita. In 1997 he won his first Kentucky Derby with Silver Charm. 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. The way this case was handled was not a favor for Bob Baffert, Arthur said. The Post reported this month that Arthur had previously studied a spate of sudden horse deaths in Bafferts barn. [10][12] However, his violations for use of prohibited medications has sparked controversy. The owner was Kaleem Shah. 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. The suspension was scheduled to run March 8 through June 5. He won the aforementioned first race at a sanctioned track in 1970, but his mother insisted he attend college and he enrolled in the University of Arizonas Race Track Industry Program. Theres a recognition that certain substances are normal in equine care, Martin said, but if that horse still requires that, then maybe you shouldnt run the horse., Martin made a distinction between doping horses with banned substances and running them with too much medication. I told him there would be nothing from CHRB before the KY Derby, unlikely before the Preakness and possibly not until after the Belmont, Arthur wrote. 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. After Uncle Sam, a 4-year-old colt, died during a workout at the track the following January, a vet wrote: This is the 3rd for this owner/trainer in about as many months collapsed and died.. Biography Bob Baffert is best known as a horse rider. There were at least 39 trainers with more fatalities to their name than Baffert during that period. Bob Baffert blamed "cancel culture" after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test. Like Baffert, Hollendorfer is in the thoroughbred Hall of Fame. When a horse dies in California, CHRB records often list medications the horse had been prescribed, based on its medical history. Grays office told the committee that removing Dr. Arthur from his position, while intentional, is not the sole purpose of the bill, records show. 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. By age 20, he had developed a reputation as a trainer and was hired by other trainers to run their stables. Baffert, however, became the first trainer in history to win the Derby and Preakness in back-to-back years. The winner's share of the $600 purse was $330. Baffert has been married twice and has five children: four with his first wife, Sherry: Taylor, Canyon, Forest, and Savannah. It wasnt long before Baffert was making pocket change riding the horses in match races. I dont see somebody who is doping horses, Martin said after reviewing Bafferts drug-related history. 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. 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. Trainer Bob Baffert celebrates after his horse, Authentic, won the Kentucky Derby in September 2020. On June 2, with the Belmont Stakes a week away, the owner of a feed operation showed up at the CHRB office carrying plant samples he said he found more than a month earlier, the records show. Former client Kaleem Shah said, "He will rub people the wrong way by speaking his mind, sometimes he needs to hit the mute button. Baffert faces unprecedented scrutiny after a positive drug test marred a win by his horse Medina Spirit at this years Kentucky Derby. Medina Spirit died after a training session on 6 December 2021 and an ensuing necropsy on 11 February 2022 was inconclusive. (Arthur and those involved with the bill said the actions were unrelated. [13] In Kentucky, any amount of betamethasone detected in post-race testing is a violation and could result in a disqualification. 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. Bafferts breakthrough thoroughbred was Thirty Slews, who won the Breeders Cup Sprint in 1992. [27][28] On July 14 the suspension was reversed by U. S. Federal District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon sitting in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. The timing of the legislation was coincidental, he added: I understand where youre going and why, but there were no connections, from my perspective., Brewster, attorney for Medina Spirits owner, also said that Bafferts issue with Arthur was about Lasix and that the timing was irrelevant.. But Arthurs report said Hollywood Park used a different sort of poison than that found in the necropsy. 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. Kentucky regulators taped calls without consent with Baffert after Medina Spirit test. [34] However, the Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected Baffert's appeal on April 1. But the overall record indicates that he may not be running as tight a ship as he should.. Citrus Feed Companys Larry Bell has long supplied Baffert with feed and has previously testified in Bafferts defense, according to CHRB records. He views himself as an ambassador for the sport. He has never apologized to the public for trashing the game. 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..
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