It was the Wednesday morning of Preakness Stakes (G1) Week at Pimlico Race Course.
Racing's living legend, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, sat on a chair not far from the stall of his longshot, 30-1 Preakness starter Ram. As he looked in all directions, he was dismayed by the quiet surrounding him.
"The focus is on the wrong thing," he said. "This thing is lacking the normal coverage because, if you've been here before, there's no feel for the race. Other than the (Bob) Baffert situation, you would think that this is just the third race on a Wednesday. Nobody is here."
As outspoken as ever at age 85, Lukas touched on both the elephant in the room at the 146th Preakness and the Sword of Damocles hanging over the entire Triple Crown series.
Just two weeks ago, Thoroughbred racing was enjoying a halcyon moment. Zedan Racing Stables' Medina Spirit was victorious in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), giving Baffert, the sport's most visible figure, a record seventh victory in the Run for the Roses.
Television ratings and wagering boomed. The Kentucky Derby telecast was NBC's most-viewed live telecast since the NFL playoffs in January and enjoyed an audience of 14.4 million, an increase of 54% over 2020, when the race was postponed until September due to COVID-19.
Total wagering on the Derby Day May 1 card at Churchill Downs reached $233 million, second-best behind the record $250 million in 2019, despite an on-track crowd of 51,838 that was roughly a third of the 2019 attendance due to capacity restrictions
Baffert and Medina Spirit were bound for Pimlico where he would chase a record eighth Preakness win and try to push his record in the May 15 middle jewel of the Triple Crown to a perfect 6-for-6 with winners of the Kentucky Derby in May.
Speaking May 7, Baffert talked in a cheery tone about the reaction to his 3-year-old's victory.
"It's amazing how many people want to talk to me this year. No one was looking for me last year when I won the Derby (with Authentic in September)," he said. "This has really been great for the sport to see so many people talking about horse racing and getting excited about it."
Two days later, the racing world was turned upside down. Baffert beat the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to the punch and announced May 9 that Medina Spirit had tested positive after the Run for the Roses for 21 picograms of the corticosteroid betamethasone per milliliter of blood or plasma.
All of a sudden, pending the results of a split sample, there was a distinct possibility that Medina Spirit could be stripped of his Kentucky Derby victory, much like Dancer's Image was for a phenylbutazone test result in 1968—the only other disqualification of a Derby winner for a drug positive in the race's 147-year history.
Baffert originally denied administering betamethasone to Medina Spirit, then said in a May 11 statement through his legal representative that Medina Spirt had dermatitis on his hind end prior to the Kentucky Derby and was treated with an anti-fungal ointment, Otomax.
Baffert said he was unaware that betamethasone is one of the substances in Otomax, though betamethasone valerate is listed on the drug's label.
Medina Spirit and Baffert's other Preakness starter, Gary and Mary West's Rebel Stakes (G2) winner Concert Tour, who sat out the Run for the Roses, were subjected to three tests, two by the Maryland Jockey Club and one by the Maryland Racing Commission, and have passed each, conditions that allow them to run Saturday.
Yet with Baffert's horses the two top choices in the Preakness (Medina Spirit 9-5; Concert Tour 5-2) and the results of the split sample still unknown to the public, the situation has clearly taken attention away from the chase for the sport's—and Baffert's—third Triple Crown winner since 2015.
"I think it detracts attention," said Craig Fravel, CEO of 1/ST Racing, the parent company of the Maryland Jockey Club which operates Pimlico. "It was certainly a punch in the stomach, like when you were a kid and the air went out of you, and you didn't feel good for the rest of the day."
In the past week, the racing industry has come down on different sides of what should happen to Baffert and his Kentucky Derby winner that went from famous to infamous overnight.
Some staunchly defend him, claiming the threshold for testing is way too high. Others chastise Baffert for being sloppy or seeking a competitive edge, since it was his fifth positive test in a little more than a year.
Some eagerly await next year's implementation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act with national standards and regulation, while there are contentions that the rules outlawing Lasix in the three Triple Crown races and stakes in most major jurisdictions have vexed horsemen since that medication can theoretically wipe away picograms of banned substances.
Lukas stands at the forefront of team Baffert.
"If they would do the right thing, they would dismiss the whole thing right now," said Lukas, who formerly held the sport's all-time record for earnings and grade 1 wins that now belong to Todd Pletcher and Baffert, respectively. "It's a topical dressing. Obviously, the thresholds are way too low. They got us where we are sitting ducks with these thresholds when a topical dressing gives you a positive. If the commission does the right thing, and I'm a former member of the commission, I would dismiss the whole thing. Fine Bob for being negligent for not picking the right medication, but I would leave the Derby winner where it is.
"I mean, who reads labels?" he added. "You don't sit there and read the label. I think you can go to any tack store and buy it over the counter, and that's what we do. Your horse gets a little rash and you see that it's made for treating it and buy it. We don't think we're going to get (21) picograms from it."
May 12 at Pimlico
Barry Irwin, CEO and founder of Team Valor International, was much more critical of Baffert. Irwin has been an original supporter of the HISA and last year shifted the focus of his stable to Europe over a dissatisfaction with the medication laws in the United States.
"Baffert is unable to accept responsibility for his own actions. He never did anything wrong in his whole life. People are out to get him, blah, blah, blah. It's nuts, and the impact on the sport is very bad," Irwin said. "The reason is obviously, that for better or worse, Baffert has become the face of racing. He can be a charming guy. He comes up with funny comments. He's a natural for the role, and everyone focuses on him. The bad part is that it happened in the one race on one day that normal people in America focus on horse racing."
Irwin said he has already experienced some blowback from last weekend's news.
"I have people I went to school with and who are not horse people, and they contact me and say, 'How is it possible that a horse could sell for $1,000 as a yearling and then later sell for $35,000 and they give it to Baffert and he wins the Kentucky Derby? How is that possible?' We in the sport see it and know it's different but it's not out of the realm of possibility and then the positive comes out and they go, 'Ah-ha!' They know how he did it. They had a suspicion before and the drug test underlined his suspicion that racing is crooked," he said. "It's bad for everybody. It's bad for horse owners because they own horses for pride of ownership. It's bad for trainers because he's the head peer of the group. He gets them all painted with the same brush. It's bad for racetracks because they want people to come out and bet the races and this takes their confidence away."
Baffert has declined interview requests this week and is currently in California, but Lukas says he has spoken with the 68-year-old Hall of Famer and says Baffert has been jarred as he and owner Amr Zedan await the results of the split sample, which is intended to provide due process.
"It's affected Bob a great deal and rightfully so. It wasn't just a race. It's the Kentucky Derby and the general public is not knowledgeable enough to make an accurate judgment about what happened. It's going to bother Bob for a while," Lukas said. "It would take about an hour to get the split sample. I mean what the hell are we doing here? Get it done. Do what's right for racing. The (KHRC) commissioner should demand the split sample in two hours. This is ridiculous."
The reaction by the general public may be hard to gauge, but there's no doubt it's a Baffert-dominated Preakness. Aside from the drug controversy, his horses tower over the field.
If the son of Protonico is unable to duplicate his half-length win two weeks ago in the opening jewel of the Triple Crown, then there's Concert Tour, who seems to stand the best chance of outrunning him to the early lead and the finish line. Third at 3-10 odds in the Arkansas Derby (G1), Concert Tour skipped the Kentucky Derby to freshen up and has been training sharply in a bid to rebound from his lone loss in four career starts.
"He's coming out of his skin," Ben Glass, the racing manager for the Wests, said about the son of Street Sense who has the outside post in a field of 10. "Both he and Medina Spirit have early speed, but that's horse racing. It will sort itself out."
Beyond them, only Winchell Thoroughbreds' Midnight Bourbon (5-1) is less than 10-1 in the morning line. He won the Lecomte Stakes (G3) in January and was hurt by a poor start in the Kentucky Derby when he finished sixth at 13-1 odds, but he faces the potentially costly prospect of being involved in the early fractions with the two Baffert runners.
After that, in a field that includes the Japanese hopeful France Go de Ina (20-1), only Klaravich Stables' Risk Taking (15-1) owns a graded stakes win at 3 and that came in the Feb. 6 Withers Stakes (G3).
"He's going to win (the Preakness)," Lukas said about Baffert. "He has the two best horses here, and he's going to be awfully tough to handle. He doesn't need to vindicate anything. He's the number one trainer in the world and whatever way you want to call it, I think he's going to be in the winner's circle."
Post time for Saturday's race is 6:47 p.m. ET and many observers will be counting the minutes down to it. For that's when the horses will break from the starting gate and, for a little less than two minutes, the focus of the 2021 Triple Crown will finally return to its rightful spot on the best 3-year-olds running with their heart and soul in a series that has been a proving ground for the sport's greatest stars.
"Hopefully, with all the precautions we have put in place and the way it's been addressed, come race day and post time it will have the feel of a Triple Crown race," Fravel said. "I understand what Wayne is saying about the feeling here, and we are all recovering from the news, but life goes on and you have to turn lemons into lemonade—and, hopefully, it will be a Lemonade Preakness."
