Shortly after Petersen sent the analysis of the states chances, the CHRB agreed to settle Ruiss lawsuit. 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. In the next six months, three of his horses tested positive for banned or excessive substances four times in California, Arkansas and Kentucky. The CHRB officially opened an 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. Mr. "We live in a different world now. But its a lot more difficult when going against a private company, such as Churchill Downs, which can invoke its own penalties. Former Democratic congressman Dennis Cardoza, also on the board, was co-owner with Pegram of Shakin It Up, a successful thoroughbred trained by Baffert. The TOC, of which Baffert is still a board member, did not respond to requests for comment. He will rub people the wrong way by speaking his mind, sometimes he needs to hit the mute button. Two Triple Crown winners and a signature shock of white hair will do that for a man. The 69-year-old Hall of Fame trainer is suing Churchill Downs Inc . To the newspaper, she. Medina Spirit had a legal medication in him, ONeill said. Longtime client Mike Pegram explained, "Anybody who walks with that swagger, people are going to love him or hate himhe's a wiseass and irreverent." According to data provided by the California Horse Racing Board and supplemented by The Times research, the trainer has had 75 horses die since 2000 either racing, training, or by illness or non-exercise accidents. With private eyes and political muscle, horse racings elite pushed to punish dopers, Throughout the months-long process, CHRB officials had indicated they planned on filing a complaint against Baffert, which would have exposed the failed drug test. When a horse dies in California, CHRB records often list medications the horse had been prescribed, based on its medical history. He started at The Times in 1980 and left in 1995 to be sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Co. sports coordinator in 2002. After finishing last season strong, CJ Abrams is ready for more. Once again, the Hall of Fame. Less than two weeks later, Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby. 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 horse's. In a hearing in October, the state and attorneys for Baffert and the horses owners stipulated the scopolamine positive was the result of contamination and it would have no performance-enhancing effects. Baffert's horses have won a record six Kentucky Derbies, seven Preakness Stakes, three Belmont Stakes, and three Kentucky Oaks. He views himself as an ambassador for the sport. This America's different." pic . Baffert was granted a stay until April 4 to gain time for an appeal. A New York federal judge on Wednesday, July 14, 2021 nullified the suspension of horse trainer Bob Baffert, finding that the New York Racing Association acted unconstitutionally by failing to let him adequately respond to claims made against him after Kentucky . But the overall record indicates that he may not be running as tight a ship as he should.. Baedeker said this week he changed his mind on not filing a complaint, which would have put the matter before CHRBs Board of Stewards, because he didnt want to pass the buck. I dont see somebody who is doping horses, Martin said after reviewing Bafferts drug-related history. By age 20, he had developed a reputation as a trainer and was hired by other trainers to run their stables. Carson Valley was killed in a freak accident in 2019 at Del Mar when a loose horse crashed into the Baffert trainee. It subsequently said any horses running for a suspended trainer (Baffert) would not be eligible for Kentucky Derby or Oaks qualifying points. He declined to answer further questions. Baffert also trained the 2018 Triple Crown Winner, Justify and the 2020 Kentucky Derby winner, Authentic. He has often blamed drug positives on trace contamination from substances in a horses barn and has criticized tightening restrictions on the race-day use of bute and other drugs. The month after that, Grays bill to limit Arthurs term was passed out of a committee. Teflon."[11]. According to Arthurs report, he found that Baffert was dispensing Thyro-L, or thyroxine, a prescription thyroid hormone, to all horses in his care. It was then that Baffert, one of the most accessible trainers in horse racing, stopped talking until this week. On a recent afternoon, Baffert appeared largely unperturbed by the firestorm surrounding him when he answered his door in Arcadia, Calif. This is the first Ive learned of it, Baffert responded when told of The Posts finding that he had the highest rate of horse deaths among other top trainers in the state. The owner was Kaleem Shah. CHRB regulations state that its foreign substances guidelines are based on ARCI recommendations as modified by the state board. [43] At the post-Belmont press conference, Baffert announced he and his wife would be making donations of $50,000 each to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the California Retirement Management Account (CARMA), and Old Friends Equine, all programs for retired race horses; and to the Permanently Disabled Jockey's Fund in memory of a Quarter Horse Jockey named Robert Z. It wasn't long after the running of the 123rd Kentucky Derby, where a grey . The first two infractions occurred in May 2020, when the horses Charlatan and Gamine tested positive in Arkansas for lidocaine, a numbing agent. It basically said something under his control is associated with these fatalities, Arthur said, but regulators couldnt act without evidence of a rules violation. Baffert says he plans to seek legal recourse wherever necessary. On the morning of this years Kentucky Derby, he was going through his list of past Kentucky Derby winners and should-have-been winners, and dismissed Medina Spirit as not the best horse in the race. Things would have been so much simpler if the horse had not won the race. Baffert dedicated American Pharoah's win to Bobby. 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. "[23] On June 2, 2021, Medina Spirit's split sample also tested positive and Churchill Downs suspended Baffert through the end of the 2023 Spring Meet. Petersen opined it would have been unfair to punish Baffert for what he called an oversight by CHRB staff and said there is no evidence to suggest a nefarious motive by the board. "Bobby" Adair. The New York Racing Assn. He has won the Kentucky Derby five times. Only once has a Kentucky Derby winner been disqualified for a medication violation. Baffert failed in multiple attempts in Kentucky to overturn the track's ban or the start of his suspension, which began April 4. He routinely challenges most sanctions, usually agreeing to accept fines but vigorously fighting suspensions. By then, Arthur already had a years-long, tangled history with Baffert. There are highs and lows and a lot of disappointment. This horse was going to run at the Triple Crown, Arthur said. 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. Baffert said in his autobiography it was a combination of ignorance and desperation. What we knew about horses you could put in a thimble. Medina Spirit departed Churchill Downs in a van before dawn on Monday, bound for Baltimore (a horse van, not Jeff Spicoli's VW bus ). Baffert was recently suspended for 90 days by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, California Horse Racing Board, and the New York State Gaming Commission for drug violations in the 2021 Kentucky . Its so obvious. He also won the race in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 when run as a Grade I event. But Bafferts critics say his conduct after penning the article calls into question his seriousness about reform. Yakteen rose to Bafferts defense and it ended with a scuffle that slightly injured a security guard. 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. "So now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, is a junky," Trump's statement read. "[29][30] On September 10, 2021 Baffert was charged by NYRA for conduct detrimental to the best interests of racing. This whole thing is ridiculous, Baffert texted back, according to messages obtained by The Post via public records request. Baffert has paid out over $20,000 in fines, but compared against over $321 million in career earnings. 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. Baffert won the Derby a third time in 2002 with War Emblem. He has not been in alliance with us, said Hancock, mentioning Bafferts many positive tests and then listing top trainers who have had one or zero positives in their career. By then, Justify had won the Triple Crown, one of the rarest achievements in sports. This pattern has bred frustration among some horsemen. He paused, then added: Ive learned who my friends are.. Horse racing needs to cut off the head of the snake, Ruis said. Baffert said the horse ingested hay after a groom, who was taking cough medicine, had urinated in the horses stall. He also dismissed complaints that doping was rampant in the sport. The quest to find Jimson weed continued. Yeah, but thats what drives him. Arthur said the TOC was behind the effort to oust him because of his criticism of Lasix. I went under the radar. Thats much higher than the Jockey Clubs widely cited national rates, which never exceed two deaths per 1,000 starts. Officials worked secretly to clear Bob Bafferts Justify amid 2018 Triple Crown run, records show. Petersen noted that in a previous case the board had exonerated the trainers of three horses who had tested positive for scopolamine, finding the flunked tests were a result of Jimson weed. On June 1, Baedeker had asked the agencys top lawyer and investigator how close they were to filing the Scopolamine complaints., On July 9, a month after Justifys Belmont triumph, the agencys chief counsel, Robert Brodnik, wrote to the CHRB investigator that they would like to officially file by Monday.. 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. The rise and fall of Jorge Navarro, the alleged doping king of horse racing. After the Times broke the news of the positive drug test, Ruis sued the CHRB in January 2020. Arthur called Bafferts blanket use of thyroxine troublesome and said at the meeting, I havent found an example of a barn that uses it in all their horses like Baffert does. Yet he determined that the drug wasnt to blame for the deaths. He makes it clear that he believes in same-day medication and he believes in his whips, said Roberts, who has long pushed to remove whipping horses from racing. I think much of the GOP political party is moving too far to the right. Other people may have made a different decision, but to say that there was no basis for that decision is pure bulls---, said Arthur, who announced his retirement this year. Bob is trying to put 2020 behind him and move forward in a positive manner, Robertson wrote in an e-mail to Borden. Most were for excessive use of phenylbutazone, a commonly used anti-inflammatory known as bute. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our equine and human athletes, Baffert wrote, and nothing impacts their health and safety more than the policies and procedures concerning drugs.. Both trainers were fined $500. Betamethasone is mostly injected into the joints of horses to ease inflammation and, if the inflammation is reduced, any associated pain subsides. In 2000, for instance, another of his horses, Nautical Look, tested positive for morphine, landing Baffert a two-month suspension. PUBLISHED 9:20 AM ET Jul. 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. Decorated racehorse trainer who won multiple Kentucky Derbies, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. In each instance, the death is investigated. The board agreed not to disqualify Justify. In fact, Bafferts horses, at 8.3 deaths per 1,000 starts, have died at a significantly higher rate than Hollendorfers, at 6.25. Citrus Feed Companys Larry Bell has long supplied Baffert with feed and has previously testified in Bafferts defense, according to CHRB records. When the CHRB also decided to run DNA tests on the horses blood samples, the records show Arthur said the request would be a big deal and asked if they could wait until after the Preakness, which was 10 days away. Hes always wanted to be a rock star and some people dont think racing should have one.. Baffert has been married twice and has five children: four with his first wife, Sherry: Taylor, Canyon, Forest, and Savannah. 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. . Hollendorfers lawyer, Drew Couto, has claimed his client is being unfairly blamed for a high-profile spike of deaths at the track. Biography Bob Baffert is best known as a horse rider. California keeps track of horse deaths by trainer, but there are errors and limits to the data. Kaleem Shah, an owner who split with Baffert in 2016, defended the trainer over the horse deaths. 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. According to protocols, the medication is supposed to have a 14-day withdrawal period. He was fined $1,500. Nonetheless, in that case, Arkansas suspended Baffert for 15 days. Following the 2015 Belmont win, Baffert outlined several charities that he and his wife Jill supported. He also can be found at the Olympics, having just finished the Tokyo and Beijing double, marking his 11th Olympics. Arthur, the equine medical director, took issue with Petersens legal finding that the CHRBs handling of the case could be declared arbitrary or capricious. He followed it with six more Derbies, two of which launched Triple Crown runs, with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. May 10, 2021. Baffert was fined $10,000. There are no secrets on the backside.. LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. High Connection won the $125,000 Los Alamitos Derby by 1 3/4 lengths Saturday, giving trainer Bob Baffert his second victory on the card in his return to competition after serving a 90-day suspension. And the Breeders Cup, which will be held Nov. 5-6 at Del Mar, has indicated it will soon make a decision on Bafferts eligibility to run in those championship races. [15], At a news conference on May 9, Baffert initially said that Medina Spirit was never administered betamethasone. "We live in a different world now. As the Kentucky Derby approached, officials began discussing the possibility of contamination that the positive test had been triggered by something Justify ingested. Yeah, sure, hes a wiseass and irreverent. Baffert grew up on a cattle and chicken farm in Nogales, Ariz., near the Mexico border. Hal Earnhardt, an Arizona car dealer and Bafferts oldest client, introduced him to Pegram, who made his money in fast-food franchising. Arthur B. Hancock III, a prominent thoroughbred owner, has for three decades been a leading proponent for eradicating drugs from the sport. Arthur and CHRB investigators inspected Bafferts barn, reviewed veterinary records and interviewed Baffert, who was flanked by an attorney. Bob survived a heart attack in late March 2012 while in Dubai for a world-class race at Meydan. In July 2020, Merneith tested positive for dextromethorphan, a drug commonly used in cough medicine. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Testimonies have begun in the case of horse trainer Bob Baffert against Churchill Downs. Arthur also presented exercise histories for the horses that showed they worked harder than average. 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. A week after that, Baffert learned of the positive test. Bob Baffert wakes up most every day with one thing in mind, winning another Kentucky Derby. Baffert made the. Cherwa also contributes general interest stories from Florida. Between 1997 and 1999, he won the Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer three years running and was voted the 1997 Big Sport of Turfdom Award. Real Quiet won the race that year, and Baffert also finished third with Indian Charlie. Ive heard the rumors on Bobby since we got in the business after winning some Cal Cup races. 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. The trainer was fined $2,500. If it surprised me it would be that I expected more, Roberts said. 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. Bafferts lawyer called as a defense witness Arthur, who testified that his handling of the case was the fault of Californias cumbersome regulatory process. He declared, I considered this a horse poisoning, not a horse drugging., After the hearing, Santa Anitas Board of Stewards, a three-person panel that rules on drug cases, dismissed the complaints. [39] California's equine medical director found that Baffert's horses were routinely given Thyro-L, or thyroxine, a thyroid hormone, that could cause heart problems during exercise, but concluded the medication, which Baffert said he had been using routinely for the previous five years, did not cause the heart attacks. His primary attorney is Craig Robertson, who represents him in all regulatory matters, but he has recused himself from any action against Churchill Downs because his law firm does business with the company, creating a conflict of interest. In the past three years, there were 188 deaths involving either racing or training in California. Baffert did not win another classic race until 2001, when he won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes with eventual Hall of Fame member Point Given. Medina Spirit died after a training session on 6 December 2021 and an ensuing necropsy on 11 February 2022 was inconclusive. Similarly, cases against two horses who tested positive in Arkansas in 2020 for lidocaine were dismissed as being the result of accidental transfer from an assistant trainer who was using the medication on himself. Baffert revisited the Derby the next year, sending two top colts, Real Quiet and Indian Charlie, to Louisville. He married his second wife, Jill, a former television reporter based in Louisville, in 2002. But he said it wasnt clear from the records why the CHRB reversed course on filing a complaint against Baffert. [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. And promote he does, chatting with people he met one minute ago as if they were long-lost friends. Were going to get through it.. His reasoning was that Baffert also administered thyroxine to horses outside of Hollywood Park, where his horses did not suffer sudden deaths. They had a son in 2004 whom they named "Bode" (/bodi/ BOH-dee), after skier Bode Miller. Baffert has had more than 30 drug violations in his 44-year career, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. Baffert claims the defendants have "unlawfully deprived and will continue to deprive Baffert of his right to due process of law guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment and of his right to. When Did threshold change and what were they before?, No amount of betamethasone is permitted in Kentucky races now, Borden wrote. The majority of the deaths in Bafferts care are attributed to breakdowns, though others have died suddenly without explanation and some of the horses suffered illness including his most recent death, Noodles, in May where pneumonia was the suspected cause. Has his success made people hate him more? Racing officials ruled that the positive test was a result of contamination and the wins of Charlatan and Gamine were restored. Baffert, however, wouldnt change the outcome. 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 . (Pegram and Auerbach did not respond to interview requests. Currently, his major coverage area is horse racing, where he can be found at big races at Santa Anita, the Triple Crown series and Breeders Cup. 10, 2022. Two months later, the PAC contributed $2,000 to Grays successful election committee. In the case of Bafferts recent horse deaths, the records list a typical blend of drugs that have been allowed under certain thresholds, most frequently the anti-inflammatory phenylbutazone (or bute to horsemen) and furosemide (also known as Lasix), which is said to decrease bleeding from a horses lungs. I guess I'm more of an "old school" Republican. [citation needed], According to his supporters, Baffert's style and personality, combined with his success, have made him a target for controversy. But Baffert and his lawyers had since established a reputation for pugnaciousness when regulators attempted to discipline him. Once the golden boy of horse racing, Bob Baffert now the face of its disgrace. 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. Board member Michael E. Pegram had for decades hired Baffert to train his top horses, including the winner of the 1998 Kentucky Derby, Real Quiet. (At least one death of a Baffert horse identified by The Post was not included in the agencys data.) Four months after that, in May 2014, Arthur issued an advisory that the CHRB was concerned by the apparently indiscriminate use of thyroxine and that the drug must be prescribed for a specific horse for a specific condition. Arthur told The Post that the advisory was a result of the Baffert investigation. Bafferts lawyers have made explicit that he will accept fines but not a suspension, and state regulators have continually obliged him. There have been so many false narratives that have come up and the hearing process isnt even done yet. Arthur is the CHRBs primary advisor on drug testing, according to state code; the role of determining penalties in individual cases falls to its stewards and commissioners. Baffert has also had his share of horse fatalities, the other metric to which his critics point. 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. Does his love of the camera sometimes bite him? asked longtime owner and friend Mike Pegram. In 2007, he joined the 15-member board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), a nonprofit that represents the roughly 9,000 CHRB-licensed owners in the state. In a written decision, the stewards stated the CHRB has already ruled on this matter in its August 2018 closed hearing and had followed the law., However, the stewards suggested they would not have made the same decision as the CHRB: It is the Stewards opinion that had this Board of Stewards heard the Justify and Hoppertunity complaints prior to August 23, 2018 both horses would have been disqualified., Ruiss lawyers have since argued in court for the settlement to be rescinded because the stewards refused to make a decision on the merits., I remain convinced that justice has not yet been served, Vienna told The Post, and that hopefully the courts will resolve the matter., The rise and fall of Jorge Navarro, the alleged doping king of horse racing. 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. The horse is scheduled to run Saturday in the Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita. The 90 day ban against Baffert was set to be honored in all 38 racing states. On July 15, 2020, Deputy Attorney General Robert Petersen sent his initial case assessment to Brodnik. Please answer some questions in this short survey about professional soccer and the 2022 Men's FIFA World Cup. John Cherwa is a special contributor to the Los Angeles Times. He's saddled. When I won with [Triple Crown winners] American Pharoah and Justify, it was a relief. Racing does not have a historical database for violations, with most of the information kept on the state level. After winning the Santa Anita Derby in April of that year, Bafferts Justify tested positive for scopolamine, a banned substance, which normally would have disqualified the victory and made the horse ineligible to run in that years Kentucky Derby. As the trainer battles to protect his legacy, the records offer a new window into how those charged with running horse racings disjointed regulatory system have appeared to treat the powerful trainer with deference. Until this summer, Baffert was the longest-serving member on the board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, having been elected in 2007. 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.. It sounds like hes deflecting, Gagliano said of Baffert. The Post separately obtained start data dating back to 2000 from the Daily Racing Form to put the deaths into context. We had some thoroughbreds with another trainer and Im thinking how can we make money with Bobby running for $4,000 at night when we could be running for $40,000 during the day, Pegram said. With upward of $1 million in yearly revenue drawn from wagering at tracks, the TOCs stated mission included establishing fair and reasonable medication rules and integrity standards., Baffert, the groups resident celebrity, was in business with several of his colleagues. followed up and ruled Baffert would not be allowed to run in New York. 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.



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