What I can tell you definitely is this case was handled differently, and it was handled differently because of Rick Arthur, said Ruiss attorney, Darrell Vienna. But Californias adoption of ARCI guidelines is not a given. [18] Baffert responded by saying the situation "was like a cancel culture kind of a thing," a remark which earned him noticeable criticism from the press. [2][4], Baffert established his early reputation with less expensive horses like Silver Charm and Real Quiet, bought for $16,500 and $17,000 respectively. [21][22] Sports Illustrated suggested that the positive drug test was a sign that Baffert's "leaking credibility" had reached "the saturation point. Bob Bafferts horses have incurred numerous drug violations over the course of his 44 years as a thoroughbred trainer. Hospital food is a punchline. Baedeker said that before they made their recommendation to the board, they consulted with the states Office of the Attorney General, for which Petersen works, and received concurrence . Horse-racing deaths, like much of the sport, are shrouded by a disjointed bureaucracy. At the time, she was 42-years-old. 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.. He's saddled. The way this case was handled was not a favor for Bob Baffert, Arthur said. Its so obvious. 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. 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. Baffert's history in the American classic races began in 1996 when he trained a three-year-old colt named Cavonnier, who ran second in the Kentucky Derby. Bob Baffert blamed "cancel culture" after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test. Last October Gamine was disqualified from third to last in the Kentucky Oaks after betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory, was discovered in the horses system. 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. Former Democratic congressman Dennis Cardoza, also on the board, was co-owner with Pegram of Shakin It Up, a successful thoroughbred trained by Baffert. Baffert, however, became the first trainer in history to win the Derby and Preakness in back-to-back years. Rick Baedeker, who was executive director of the CHRB before retiring last year, said the boards decisions were carefully considered to avoid treating Baffert differently than any other trainer. Again, we can most likely agree to most anything in Kentucky except a suspension.. One of his grooms, Clemintino Abrego Garcia, testified that Baffert called him three or four times attempting to get him to admit that he had eaten baked goods near the horse. CNN Hall of Fame horse trainer Bob Baffert will miss the Kentucky Derby for a second straight year after a federal judge denied his request to have a two-year ban by Churchill Downs Inc.. Shortly after Petersen sent the analysis of the states chances, the CHRB agreed to settle Ruiss lawsuit. 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 all because of his success.. Baffert is America's pre-eminent active trainer. Trainer Bob Baffert stands outside his barn at Churchill Downs on May 2, 2016, in Louisville, Ky. Medina . Mick Ruis, the owner and trainer of the second-place finisher in the Santa Anita Derby, has sued the CHRB. John Cherwa is a special contributor to the Los Angeles Times. A CHRB spokesman said the agency could not comment or make any employees available for an interview, citing the pending litigation. He declined to answer further questions. Brodnik presented the board with a two-page memo stating an extensive investigation was conducted and the evidence proves that this was an environmental contamination incident. Baedeker and Arthur recommended the pending matters against Baffert be dismissed, according to the states legal analysis. Bob Baffert - Wikipedia By then, Bafferts encounters with regulators dated back decades, to 1977, when he served a yearlong suspension for racing a horse on morphine. The substance was indeed Jimson weed. (A CHRB spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. [25][26] On June 14, 2021, Baffert sued the NYRA alleging the association had no authority to suspend his license and that suspension "without prior notice" was a violation of the law. My focus will always be on the best care for my horses. Shah, the owner of at least three of the horses, told The Post he had fully trusted Baffert as a trainer and had no reason to suspect that he would harm the horses he loves the horses. Brewster, the attorney, said that Baffert believed the horses had ingested rat poison, traces of which were found in one of them. Even then, he would not talk about the specifics of the cases against him. 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 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. He appeared in an episode of the TV show Take Home Chef. Racing does not have a historical database for violations, with most of the information kept on the state level. [19][20] On May 11, Baffert stated Medina Spirit had dermatitis, for which an ointment containing betamethasone was used. The average death rate for racehorses in California, according to an analysis of more than 5,000 deaths since 2000, is 7.2 per 1,000 starts. View . (Arthur and those involved with the bill said the actions were unrelated. Arthur is retiring at the end of June from a job often consumed by the scandals of a single trainer. 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. Its not often that a sport turns against its biggest star, but Churchill Downs has taken that stand. Bell told an investigator he then checked other bales and found a branch and pods he thought were Jimson weed in the parking lot. 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. In the past three years, there were 188 deaths involving either racing or training in California. Most were for excessive use of phenylbutazone, a commonly used anti-inflammatory known as bute. He has also won the Preakness Stakes five times and the Belmont Stakes once. Bob Baffert Suspended 15 Days for Drug Positives Baffert has paid out over $20,000 in fines, but compared against over $321 million in career earnings. And in the 13 months following his essay in The Post, Bafferts horses tested positive for prohibited or excessive substances five times in three states. "[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. 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. Real Quiet won the Preakness as well, but, like Silver Charm, the horse was denied a Triple Crown win and finished second in the Belmont Stakes by a nose. All of the drugs were legal, just not in the amounts found on race day. 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. Officials worked to clear Bob Baffert's Justify after Triple Crown run After finishing last season strong, CJ Abrams is ready for more. 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. Citrus Feed Companys Larry Bell has long supplied Baffert with feed and has previously testified in Bafferts defense, according to CHRB records. Bob had the personality and he was honest. This whole thing is ridiculous, Baffert texted back, according to messages obtained by The Post via public records request. "What a way to come back," said Baffert, whose punishment by the Kentucky Horse . He claimed the boards cover up cost him damages including the $400,000 difference between the first-place and second-place purses in the Santa Anita Derby. All of the explanations for the positive drug tests are plausible, but collectively they raise questions. Anybody who walks with that swagger, people are going to love him or hate him, Pegram 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. At first it was believed the substance came from a pain-relief patch that Bafferts longtime assistant Jimmy Barnes was wearing because of back pain. It basically said something under his control is associated with these fatalities, Arthur said, but regulators couldnt act without evidence of a rules violation. The dark side of Bob Baffert's reign. That didnt feel appropriate to those of who wanted to see science prevail, Cardoza said. Officials worked secretly to clear Bob Bafferts Justify amid 2018 Triple Crown run, records show. 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. The bold statement appeared to put Baffert on the right side of history: By the end of the year, President Donald Trump had signed into law the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, which promised to reform the sport. The California Horse Racing Boards inner workings during the episode have remained mostly shrouded by official secrecy. Baffert also trained the 2018 Triple Crown Winner, Justify and the 2020 Kentucky Derby winner, Authentic. Baffert, however, wouldnt change the outcome. Hell do anything to win, and hes got all his bases covered politically, Barry Irwin, owner of 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, said of Baffert. In more than four decades in the sport, Baffert has faced significant regulatory scrutiny because of a high death rate only once, after seven of his horses collapsed in a short period of time at the same California track. Scopolamine, Baedeker wrote, can be injected but very often is the result of feed or straw that has been contaminated with Jimson weed., Arthur had previously suggested he didnt consider Jimson weed contamination to be a serious threat, writing in a 2016 memo that the likelihood under our current procedures of getting a positive from environmental contamination is rather low. In an interview this week, Arthur said he meant that such incidences were infrequent but said that in California, if you have a scopolamine positive, its going to be associated with Jimson weed thats just the reality of it., On April 26, records show, Arthur emailed CHRB officials that he had talked to Bob and informed him the proceedings would not immediately interfere with Justifys Triple Crown schedule.
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