bob baffert political affiliation10 marca 2023
That was one of the most exciting and enjoyable Derbies, Baffert said. To me, whats in the best interest of the sport is not seeing anyone being dogpiled on.. Again, we can most likely agree to most anything in Kentucky except a suspension.. Regardless, the indictments appeared to sway Baffert, whose opinion piece in The Post supported drastic action to fix a broken system. Among the provisions in the federal legislation that Baffert supported is a phaseout of Lasix on race day a reform Baffert had opposed for years. He has won the Kentucky Derby five times. Baffert won the Derby a third time in 2002 with War Emblem. At the time, she was 42-years-old. 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. Medina Spirit had a legal medication in him, ONeill said. Gray declined to be interviewed for this story, instead issuing a statement declaring that the personal vendettas of others, perceived or otherwise, play no roll [sic] in the legislation I carry. His spokesman added that campaign contributions do not affect Grays policy proposals. See, I bet you didnt know I was a jockey? Baffert said. When a horse dies in California, CHRB records often list medications the horse had been prescribed, based on its medical history. Now 68, Baffert is seeing his livelihood and reputation under attack after a series of medication infractions have made him an outcast to some in the industry and a pariah to many more outside of it. In New York, chefs are redefining it. Nonetheless, in that case, Arkansas suspended Baffert for 15 days. In correspondence with the agencys lawyer, Baedeker wrote that because our staff failed to act in a timely manner, the horses, trainer, owner and others could be harmed unjustly if they didnt use the more lenient classification. "We live in a different world now. Finding a new director every two to four years would cost $300,000 each time, a committee that analyzed the bill found. All of the drugs were legal, just not in the amounts found on race day. Bob Bafferts horses have incurred numerous drug violations over the course of his 44 years as a thoroughbred trainer. He's saddled. 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. (The trainer and jockey usually get 10 percent each.) 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. I dont see somebody who is doping horses, Martin said after reviewing Bafferts drug-related history. He also won the race in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 when run as a Grade I event. CHRB brass agreed to follow Arthurs suggestion. 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. His attorney, let me just say, worked very, very hard, recalled former California Deputy Attorney General Jerald L. Mosley, who represented the state in attempting to uphold the suspension. Baffert also has wielded unmatched clout when regulators have discovered banned or excessive substances in his horses. 10, 2022. He acknowledged there was no way to determine if that bale was part of the delivery to Baffert, according to the records, but the CHRB investigator nonetheless submitted the sample for testing. 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. 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. We live and work in a fishbowl, with rumors and accusations flowing constantly, Baffert said. Why would people want to be betting on horses when there are allegations and there are real positives and hes getting off on technicalities.. A recent conversation about the tragedy of horse deaths wended its way back to the defense of his reputation. His reasoning was that Baffert also administered thyroxine to horses outside of Hollywood Park, where his horses did not suffer sudden deaths. The colt went on to win the Preakness Stakes, giving the trainer his third shot at winning the Triple Crown. That investigation led to the indictments that Baffert said spurred him to embrace more oversight, so the cheaters would be quickly caught and punished.. Bob had the personality and he was honest. How carefully the dosage was followed was not determined, Arthur wrote. Its truly painful when you know what the truth is, Baffert told The Times earlier this week in his first interview on the subject since May. Most were for excessive use of phenylbutazone, a commonly used anti-inflammatory known as bute. Usually, regulatory agencies do not have the guts to do whats fair and right, Arthur testified during a CHRB hearing in October, and this board made that decision appropriately., He conceded that the lack of transparency was unusual. The suspension was scheduled to run March 8 through June 5. Horse-racing deaths, like much of the sport, are shrouded by a disjointed bureaucracy. Drop dead while galloping, read a California Horse Racing Board vets account of the first horses death in November 2011. The way this case was handled was not a favor for Bob Baffert, Arthur said. I told him I thought there was a good indication that these were feed contamination.. His white hair, tinted glasses and accessibility make him a natural to promote the sport. And Noodles died May 22 of a non-exercise induced respiratory issue. But the sports new governing authority will not take over until mid-2022. By then, Justify had won the Triple Crown, one of the rarest achievements in sports. California counts all fatalities of horses in a trainers care, including breakdowns during training, not just racing deaths. This horse was going to run at the Triple Crown, Arthur said. A week after that, Baffert learned of the positive test. 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. The Eclipse Award winner for Outstanding Trainer in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2015, Baffert has won 18 Breeders' Cup races, including four editions of the Classic with . But the star trainers sudden support belied the fact that Baffert has for years been entangled with the very problems he blamed for his sports potential demise: drugs, dead horses and a feckless regulatory system. And Madeline Auerbach, who later became a CHRB commissioner, had partnered with Baffert in thoroughbred breeding. 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. 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. "[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. After Arthur cleared Baffert of wrongdoing, the legislation was abandoned. The 69-year-old Hall of Fame trainer is suing Churchill Downs Inc. in federal court to end his suspension. [10], Controversy deepened when on December 6, 2021, Medina Spirit died of an apparent heart attack after a workout at Santa Anita Park. 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." Gray said at the time that the bill also would increase the institutional knowledge of Californias central horse drug-testing lab. Baffert grew up on a cattle and chicken farm in Nogales, Ariz., near the Mexico border. Kentucky regulators taped calls without consent with Baffert after Medina Spirit test. Baffert is a three-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, and has several top prospects for the May 5 race. 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.. Fellow trainer D. Wayne Lukas attributed Baffert's success to his "extraordinary eye for a good horse" and his management ability in finding the right opportunities for his charges.[5]. The colt skipped the Belmont Stakes but became the champion three-year-old colt that year. If it surprised me it would be that I expected more, Roberts said. ), Among the TOCs central crusades was countering the movement against Lasix. 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. The drug was again betamethasone, and Baffert again expressed shock and vowed to clear his name. 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. It didnt take Baffert long to dominate Rillito Park and Prescott Downs in Arizona. In 1977, as a part-time trainer, he was suspended for a year when one of his horses tested positive for morphine. Officials worked secretly to clear Bob Bafferts Justify amid 2018 Triple Crown run, records show. (Pegram and Auerbach did not respond to interview requests. 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. Bob Baffert blamed "cancel culture" after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test. [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. Only once has a Kentucky Derby winner been disqualified for a medication violation. Once the golden boy of horse racing, Bob Baffert now the face of its disgrace. In 2021, the post-race test of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit showed 21pg/mL of betamethasone. But Bafferts critics say his conduct after penning the article calls into question his seriousness about reform. [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. 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. 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. In raw numbers, most of Baffert's medication violations were for exceeding allowed amounts of authorized medications such as phenylbutazone, a pain medication commonly administered to horses. As he did so, a political group with Baffert on its board was involved in legislation that would result in Arthur losing his job. Two Triple Crown winners and a signature shock of white hair will do that for a man. Its just disheartening. Great Read: Bob Baffert has come a long way in horse racing, Santa Anita opens Friday as prelude to Breeders Cup at Del Mar, Surging Crespi receives another strong performance from sophomore Diego Velazquez, High school baseball and softball: Fridays scores, With Marcus Morris sidelined, Clippers look to stabilize lineup and rotations, With their playoff lives at stake, Darvin Ham challenges Lakers effort and urgency. Its not uncommon to find trainers who dont understand medications and how different medications work, Arthur said. His last day as medical equine director is Wednesday. [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. Attorneys for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert argued in a Kentucky court Thursday that a 90-day suspension imposed by the state's racing commission would essentially end his career. The scheme involved digging up drug-related dirt on Baffert and then telling him that the evidence could disappear tomorrow if he were to endorse the federal reforms of the sport, one of the people said. 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. Baffert did not have another medication violation for eight years. Like Baffert, Hollendorfer is in the thoroughbred Hall of Fame. 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. Baffert was fined $10,000. Bob is trying to put 2020 behind him and move forward in a positive manner, Robertson wrote in an e-mail to Borden. We have a real conundrum to sort out, Arthur wrote in an email to top CHRB officials, explaining he believed a disqualification would be terribly unfair. More than a year earlier, the Association of Racing Commissioners International, which creates model rules for the sports various state bodies, had reclassified scopolamine from a 3/B to a 4/C drug. That didnt feel appropriate to those of who wanted to see science prevail, Cardoza said. [38] This reminded the public that since 2000, at least 74 other horses had died while in Baffert's stables. The quest to find Jimson weed continued. [10][12] However, his violations for use of prohibited medications has sparked controversy. The bottom line, he said, is if youre a horse in Bob Bafferts barn, youre there to work.. [13] In Kentucky, any amount of betamethasone detected in post-race testing is a violation and could result in a disqualification. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) A federal judge denied Bob Baffert's request to lift his two-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc., ruling Friday that the Hall of Fame trainer did not prove its. Carson Valley was killed in a freak accident in 2019 at Del Mar when a loose horse crashed into the Baffert trainee. Baffert, a La Caada Flintridge resident who is currently training his horses at Santa Anita, has not officially been charged with anything related to Medina Spirit. By age 20, he had developed a reputation as a trainer and was hired by other trainers to run their stables. Per Baffert, barn staff including grooms, were involved in administering the thyroxine in feed.. When Did threshold change and what were they before?, No amount of betamethasone is permitted in Kentucky races now, Borden wrote. Baffert has had two fatalities in the last three years, a low number for a barn of his size. Four months later, during a confidential executive session, Arthur and CHRB Director Rick Baedeker recommended that the commissioners not move forward with the disqualification of Justify, arguing that the scopolamine positive was probably the result of contamination from jimson weed. 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.. 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. It was later discovered that horses from separate barns had also tested positive. He paused, then added: Ive learned who my friends are.. Justify faced disqualification from his victory in the Santa Anita Derby that would cost his owners a partnership of wealthy interests their share of the $600,000 first-place purse. A three-member hearing panel has made the decision to suspend Hall of Fame horse trainer Bob Baffert for one year, effective immediately, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday. Decorated racehorse trainer who won multiple Kentucky Derbies, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. He was born on January 13, 1953, in Nogales, AZ. In the past three years, there were 188 deaths involving either racing or training in California.