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The trainer Bob Baffert was barred from Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby immediately after Medina Spirit unsuccessful a drug take a look at in May shortly after successful the 147th functioning of America’s best horse race. The New York Racing Association has renewed its endeavours to bar him from its circuit.
So how is Baffert in a position to run eight horses for tens of millions of dollars in purse dollars on Friday and Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup Environment Championships at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Southern California?
The coach has good friends in superior sites: on the Breeders’ Cup board, to be specific.
Baffert will saddle horses for six of these board users at Del Mar. 6 far more either own horses in Baffert’s steady or stand stallions that he when qualified.
So it was rarely a shock, soon after a critique and a board vote last thirty day period, that they made a decision that Baffert could compete in the Breeders’ Cup with the horses some of them own.
What did that overview entail? Did any board members with fiscal ties to Baffert — all but two of the 14 — recuse by themselves from selecting his destiny?
You are not authorized to know.
Drew Fleming, the Breeders’ Cup president and chief executive, declined to response detailed thoughts from The New York Occasions, as did individual board customers.
Alternatively the business set Baffert on what quantities to the “double mystery probation” Dean Wormer handed down to the Delta fraternity in the film “Animal Household.”
Baffert’s horses, the firm mentioned, will be examined a lot more frequently than his competitors’. They will have added eyes surveilling them. And if a single of them assessments positive for anything, the Breeders’ Cup board customers will fall the hammer on Baffert.
They promise.
How did horse racing get right here? Once more?
Commence with a culture of doping that has been pervasive for many years, then throw in a absence of infrastructure (and will) to make and implement procedures. Finally, incorporate choice-making driven by greed somewhat than issue for the overall health and safety of the horses, the riders and the public.
Outdoors the Triple Crown situations, horse racing makes national headlines only when tragedy and scandal are associated. There has been a great deal of both recently — 30 useless horses in a period at Santa Anita Park and federal indictments accusing additional than two dozen trainers and veterinarians from Florida to New York of doping their animals.
By the way, all but a several of them have pleaded responsible.
On Saturday, Medina Spirit will compete in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Vintage, the marquee and remaining race of the two-day festival. No matter if he wins or loses, horseplayers and casual sports lovers alike will ponder if he ran drug-cost-free.
The colt crossed the end line first in the Derby on Might 1, only to flunk a postrace examination for a corticosteroid that is prohibited on raceday. That outcome has since been contested in condition and federal courts and will be for possibly yrs to arrive.
To realize why Medina Spirit will be permitted to operate, you have to have to fully grasp Baffert’s outsize role in the races that precede the Classic.
In the $2 million Juvenile, the race that usually creates the following year’s Kentucky Derby favorites, there will be two colts trained by Baffert, Pinehurst and Barossa, who are co-owned by three Breeders’ Cup board customers, which includes Barbara Banke, the board’s chairman and the operator of Jackson Household Wines. Pinehurst was bred by a fourth board member, Fred W. Hertrich III.
The $1 million Filth Mile, $1 million Filly & Mare Sprint and $2 million Distaff also element horses owned by board customers and properly trained by Baffert. At stake is the purse dollars — 60 % goes to the winner — in addition the prospective for tens of thousands and thousands of bucks extra for homeowners of Breeders’ Cup-winning horses that enter the breeding market.
The colts can most likely come to be stallions. The offspring of fast, pedigreed mares are more high-priced at the thoroughbred auctions.
Baffert has demonstrated that he provides price to horses.
Counting Medina Spirit’s victory, Baffert has gained a file seven Derbys, surpassing a record set by Ben Jones. He qualified the two most current Triple Crown winners, American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018), both equally of whom stand at Coolmore Stud, which is also represented on the Breeders’ Cup board.
Baffert is a member of the sport’s Hall of Fame and is at present seventh in the countrywide instruction standings. He qualified horses that have unsuccessful 30 drug tests — which includes five in a 13-month span, Medina Spirit amid them.
Previous 12 months, the activity acknowledged that it had a drug difficulty and backed federal laws to deal with it.
The Horseracing Integrity and Basic safety Act is supposed to take influence following summer season. It calls for a board overseen by the Federal Trade Commission to compose principles and penalties to be enforced by the United States Anti-Doping Company.
The Breeders’ Cup and its board associates (and Baffert employers) have been loud proponents of drug-free of charge racing. But they apparently decided it made additional feeling to get pushed, rather than leap on their own, into a new era.
