He still has a responsibility as the face of the game but I dont think hell overcome [this] because his personality wont allow him to do it.. CHRB brass agreed to follow Arthurs suggestion. None of them are considered performance-enhancing in the traditional sense, such as amphetamines or speedballs. The quest to find Jimson weed continued. [8] His first suspension was in 1977 for misuse of morphene, but thereafter he had no violations for the next eight years. "Bobby" Adair. May 10, 2021. Bob Baffert says Derby horse Medina Spirit was 'cancelled.' Here's what 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. Those who have known Baffert the longest, including a core group of owners, recognize his flaws but generally remain steadfast in their support of him. Darrell Vienna, Ruiss attorney, said he would not have agreed to those stipulations but was not allowed to intervene. Churchill Downs Draws a Hard Line With Bob Baffert I dont see somebody who is doping horses, Martin said after reviewing Bafferts drug-related history. All of the drugs were legal, just not in the amounts found on race day. He was fined $1,500. After Arthur cleared Baffert of wrongdoing, the legislation was abandoned. But hes Bob, he has to speak his mind.. No sanctions were issued against Baffert.[40][41]. His last day as medical equine director is Wednesday. Horse owner and racing reform advocate Barry Irwin has stated, "He's Mr. Baffert told investigators he used the drug for about five years to build up his horses, which Arthur noted was unusual because it was typically used to slim them down. Horse trainer Bob Baffert before the 2020 Breeders Cup at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky. Trainer Bob Baffert pets an outriders horse while watching workouts at Churchill Downs in April. Baffert has paid out over $20,000 in fines, but compared against over $321 million in career earnings. Garcia left California horse racing the next year, according to CHRB records; he could not be reached for comment by The Post. In 1997, he trained Silver Charm to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, finishing second in the Belmont. 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. . Racing lacks a central clearinghouse for data on deaths nationally, and regulators in many states do not track deaths by trainer. In the settlement, which records show did not include monetary damages, CHRB agreed to file a complaint against Justify. Until this summer, Baffert was the longest-serving member on the board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, having been elected in 2007. 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. The CHRB ruled it was caused by feed contamination, citing six other horses across four barns who also tested positive. Several members of the Breeders Cup board have used Baffert as their trainer. The previous August, Bob Baffert Racing Stables had donated $1,000 to the TOC's political action committee, California records show. His graded stakes wins include nine wins in the Santa Anita Derby, nine in the Haskell Invitational Handicap, and fourteen in the Del Mar Futurity, a race he won seven straight times from 1996 to 2002, when it was a Grade II event. The 90 day ban against Baffert was set to be honored in all 38 racing states. He has won the Kentucky Oaks three times: first in 1999 with Silverbulletday, who was later selected for the Hall of Fame, then with Plum Pretty in 2011 and with Abel Tasman in 2017. California counts all fatalities of horses in a trainers care, including breakdowns during training, not just racing deaths. Baffert has had two fatalities in the last three years, a low number for a barn of his size. The legal records, which draw from dozens of emails, memorandums and other materials that have not previously been made public, show how officials delayed action, contradicted their own plans and rewrote existing rules to Bafferts advantage. Baffert trained Lookin At Lucky, co-owned by Mike Pegram, to win the Preakness Stakes in 2010. The bill was introduced by California Assemblyman Adam Gray, a former aide to Cardoza who had been in office for less than three months. Its not uncommon to find trainers who dont understand medications and how different medications work, Arthur said. My heart tells me one thing, but my head tells me something else, said veteran racing journalist Ron Flatter, the managing editor of the website Horse Racing Nation. In the court of public opinion, hes a big loser, said Barry Irwin, owner of racing group Team Valor and an outspoken critic of race-day medication and Baffert. 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 2000, for instance, another of his horses, Nautical Look, tested positive for morphine, landing Baffert a two-month suspension. The dark side of Bob Baffert's reign. A recent conversation about the tragedy of horse deaths wended its way back to the defense of his reputation. Racing officials ruled that the positive test was a result of contamination and the wins of Charlatan and Gamine were restored. Baffert has been married twice and has five children: four with his first wife, Sherry: Taylor, Canyon, Forest, and Savannah. Last October Gamine was disqualified from third to last in the Kentucky Oaks after betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory, was discovered in the horses system. Time after time its not his fault. But a top veterinary official cleared Baffert, finding that the spate of deaths remains unexplained following a probe that demonstrated the hazards of going after Baffert. Its more the friendship that I miss. And he pushes the envelope to the extent that they give their lives for his bank account.. Some of the horses that have died have been my horses, and on each and every instance, I have spoken to Bob and Ive been more than satisfied with the explanation, Shah said. Nonetheless, in that case, Arkansas suspended Baffert for 15 days. They had a son in 2004 whom they named "Bode" (/bodi/ BOH-dee), after skier Bode Miller. Yes, I'm a registered Republican, although I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. April 29, 2022 9:00 AM. Two months after Arthur cleared Baffert, the legislation to limit his term died. 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. He married his second wife, Jill, a former television reporter based in Louisville, in 2002. With Time Running Out In Legal Wars, Bob Baffert Says Four Of His The longest his suspension from Kentucky would be is 30 days, which would be honored by all racing jurisdictions. But after learning that Justify and another Baffert horse had tested positive for the same drug, Arthur announced in an e-mail to CHRB officials: The scopolamine cases will be handled differently than usual. Arthur said in a recent interview that he was referring to the logistics of what was clearly going to be a high-profile case that needed to be handled carefully.. [33], In February 2022, Baffert was suspended 90 days and fined $7,500 by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. This was fun. 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.. Baffert also has wielded unmatched clout when regulators have discovered banned or excessive substances in his horses. 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. PUBLISHED 9:20 AM ET Jul. Cardoza, who now works for a law firm, denied in an interview last month that the TOC was involved: Not at all. But he then said, TOCs involvement in that bill had nothing to do with Bob Baffert., Instead, Cardoza said, the drive to oust Arthur was over his opposition to Lasix. I guess I'm more of an "old school" Republican. It then changed the classification of scopolamine so that its detection in a horse would trigger only a fine and not disqualification and loss of the races purse. A A Former President Donald Trump released a statement Sunday about the disputed winner of the Kentucky Derby, saying the controversy reflects the current state of the country. I told him I thought there was a good indication that these were feed contamination.. By then, Justify had won the Triple Crown, one of the rarest achievements in sports. Baffert's attorney argued in court that the trainer's May suspension by the New York Racing Assn. Bob Baffert | National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame But in this case, Arthur urged a lighter penalty based on his suggestion the CHRB downgrade the drug. Trainer Bob Baffert has heart attack in Dubai - CBS News was. [2] Baffert and his family reside in California. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Baffert wrote that reforming racing was not just necessary to the sports survival but the only moral path forward. Baffert wants a preliminary injunction that would keep Churchill Downs from denying his horses entry into races there and at Turfway Park, in Florence, Ky., and from "prohibiting him from earning. 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. When I won with [Triple Crown winners] American Pharoah and Justify, it was a relief. The colt went on to win the Preakness Stakes, giving the trainer his third shot at winning the Triple Crown. The new classification simply makes more sense pharmacologically, Arthur wrote. But the sports new governing authority will not take over until mid-2022. The suspension was scheduled to run March 8 through June 5. By then, Bafferts encounters with regulators dated back decades, to 1977, when he served a yearlong suspension for racing a horse on morphine. The deadliest period came between 2000 and 2005, when 34 of Bafferts horses in California died. 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.. In his claustrophobic and cluttered office at Santa Anita Barn 5, Bob Baffert, the hall of fame trainer, was pushing papers and moving stacks, hunting for a faded photo of his 17-year-old self aboard a long-forgotten quarter horse from a small racing circuit in Arizona.
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