For a number of years, the wealthy owners of the successful trainer have supported him despite controversy around doping and horse deaths.Bob Baffert is returning to Pimlico this week in an attempt to win the Preakness again, despite being prohibited from Churchill Downs.Give credit…Hong Jae C./Associated Press
Trainer Bob Baffert has always felt safe at the racetrack known as Old Hilltop. He’s driven a horse fast enough to arrive in Baltimore eight times and left with the black-eyed Susan blanket draped over the Preakness Stakes winner’s withers.
Baffert finds a friendly bunker in the white-trimmed, green stake barn. It serves as the headquarters for those who look after the horses from dawn to dark and houses all of the horses who are racing in the second leg of the Triple Crown. Among the well-known faces are D. Wayne Lukas, 88, Baffert’s friend and mentor who looks better than anyone this side of John Wayne in a Stetson.
He would like to get to know some of his coworkers better, such as Ken McPeek, a strong Kentucky native who is hoping for another victory on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course with his Kentucky Derby-winning colt, Mystik Dan.Triple Crown has temporarily resided in Pimlico twice. champions under Baffert’s tutelage. Using it as his foundation, American Pharoah became the first horse to sweep the series in 37 years in 2015. 2018 saw Justify follow suit.
The Preakness is Baffert’s absolute favorite Triple Crown event, stating, “Your Derby winner usually shows up there.” Everybody is in the same barn. It’s kind of enjoyable and quite soothing.
Baffert has had difficulty finding enjoyable moments and a casual atmosphere on the Triple in recent years. Crown path. He was disqualified from the Derby for the third time in a row by Churchill Downs after his colt Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 Derby, tested positive for drugs after the race. He served the suspension imposed by Kentucky regulators in 2022 before making a comeback to the Triple Crown races at Pimlico last year.
It’s uncertain if the 71-year-old Baffert will be allowed to return to the Derby the following year or at all. The chief executive of Churchill Downs Inc., which organizes the Derby, Bill Carstanjen, announced that Baffert “hasn’t accepted responsibility for what happened,” hence he had prolonged the two-year ban until 2024.
Churchill will review Baffert’s position in 2025, and he still hasn’t expressed regret.
He made a heartbreaking comeback to Pimlico last year. Although one of his horses, Havnameltdown, was hurt and put down on the racecourse earlier in the day, his colt National Treasure emerged victorious from the Preakness.
However, Baffert has always been surrounded by pricey horses that a group of well-known owners have purchased, whether in good and terrible times.
Imagination, Baffert’s Preakness horse for this year, was purchased for $1.05 million at a yearling sale by a consortium of Sol Kumin, the head of a hedge fund, Barbara Banke, the proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, and top executives from the billionaire investor George Soros. The members of the gang, who go by the name Avengers after the superheroes from comic books, have spent tens of millions of dollars at horse auctions with a rotating cast of affluent horse buyers.
Together with other affluent owners, they have contributed to Baffert’s six Derby victories, four titles as champion trainer, and third-place ranking in the sports career earnings list with purses totaling more than $355 million.
“He’s pretty effective, considering the $2 and $3 million horses he buys every year,” Lukas remarked. “He purchases those incredibly powerful horses. After that, he is aware of what to do with them.
That’s high praise indeed from Lukas, the man who was a master at getting the rich and well-off to empty their wallets to compete at public auctions for the finest horse flesh against the sheikhs and Irish sports-betting moguls. He was the shed row equivalent of Gordon Gekko from 1980 until 2000, when hundreds of horses were dispersed over several states. Thirteen Triple Crown race wins were the outcome.
Even though Baffert has grown to be a divisive figure in thoroughbred racing, the Avengers and other owners have shown their support for him. Regulators report that, in addition to the Derby suspension, horses he trained failed thirty drug tests in a forty-year period. Data from the California Horse Racing Board shows that since 2000, at least 77 horses have passed away while under his care. The most notable of these was Medina Spirit, who passed away seven months after the Derby following a workout at a California racetrack.
The colt belonged to Saudi businessman Amr Zedan. In addition, Zedan spent $2 million on Muth, another colt trained by Baffert, whom he was hoping would win the Preakness on Saturday and earn him his first Triple Crown. However, Muth was ruled out of the race on Wednesday after developing a high temperature while traveling to Baltimore.
Zedan applied for a temporary injunction against Churchill Downs in the weeks leading up to the Derby, which would have let Muth and other Baffert-trained horses to compete. He lost an appeal to a judge in Kentucky Circuit Court.According to a spokesman for Zedan, he had no interest in discussing his allegiance to Baffert. Regarding their trainer, Tom Ryan of Soros Fund Racing and Banke also refrained from commenting.However, Ken Ramsey, another well-known owner in the industry, will openly state that the Baffert barn in Southern California continues to attract costly and gifted horses.
“He’s the man if you want to get a horse to the Kentucky Derby,” stated Kentucky-based Ramsey, who does not work with Baffert. “He is skilled at what he does.”
Many in the industry want the standoff between Baffert and Churchill Downs to end so that the government organization that now oversees horse racing, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, may concentrate more on safety and antidoping initiatives.Seven horses perished the week of the main event last year, under the twin spires of Churchill Downs, two of them in races in the hours before the Derby. Five more people died in the days that followed, forcing Churchill authorities to relocate the races to a another racecourse in Kentucky.
Following Havnameltdown’s passing, the state of Maryland made available a 70-page necropsy report that described the colt’s prior traumas, including lesions in every fetlock—a condition caused by repeated trauma to the cartilage—in each fetlock. Two vets examined the documents on their own, per the request of The New York Times. Both said the horse wasn’t given the right attention and wasn’t supposed to race that day.In contrast, this year’s Derby was devoid of casualties and attracted the biggest broadcast audience since 1989 thanks to increased safety precautions implemented by Churchill Downs and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. NBC’s broadcast had an average audience of 16.7 million, a 13 percent increase over 14.8 million the previous year.
Terry Finley, the main owner of West Point Thoroughbreds, stated, “I think Bob has brought some discredit to our business, but he has brought some credit.” “I really think that Bob and his owners are motivated by what’s best for the company. Simply said, I don’t always agree that what they do is best for the company.”Ultimately, we’ve experienced enough of this,” Finley went on. “We require a room, quote unquote, and an escape route for every individual concerned.”For three years, Baffert contended that Medina Spirit should not have lost the 2021 Derby victory and that he should not be punished in court or before state racing authorities. After testing positive for betamethasone, a strong corticosteroid that lowers pain and inflammation, the colt was declared ineligible. According to Baffert, it was a skin cream.
Abbott declared in a January post on X that he was giving up on any legal actions in order to “positively focus on the present and the future that our great sport offers.”The CEO of Churchill Downs, Carstanjen, does not appear to be ready to get past his past transgressions.
Carstanjen stated, “There’s a pretty serious problem when you have somebody who failed the drug test in the Derby saying that he would do the same thing, he wouldn’t do anything differently if he had another opportunity.”
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