Bob Baffert, a trainer for 45 years, may have gone through four of the longer hours of his career Jan. 27 when he testified in day four of the case instigated by the New York Racing Association seeking suspension of his license.
Baffert was called to the stand by his attorney, W. Craig Robertson III, after a late lunch break and began on a positive note after being asked to relate receiving several impressive awards.
He went on to say that for decades he trained without a drug positive in New York and was never called by a NYRA official expressing concern about any out-of-state drug positives—until after Medina Spirit's win of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1).
In times that now must look like the good old days, Baffert said he was feted by NYRA and politicians both upstate and downstate, won the Triple Crown at Belmont Park with American Pharoah in the greatest experience he's had at a track, was installed in Saratoga Race Course's Walk of Fame alongside giants of the sport, and shared humorous conversation with Secretariat's owner/breeder Penny Chenery at Saratoga. And then, before he knew it, all hell had broken loose.
Baffert, feeling disappointed and betrayed by NYRA's suspension of his activities in New York, which is enjoined for now, continues to be able to race there, but he's operating under a cloud, a cloud which NYRA says is of his own making.
Baffert spent much of his direct examination in Thursday's hearing session trying to explain away one drug positive after another, starting with Cruel Intention in July 2019 at the Del Mar meet and ending with the 2021 Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. But at the end of his explanations, some of them simple, some of them with contradictions, one thing remained. The particulars of NYRA's factual charges against him remained in place.
The medication cases, and their internal facts, go on and on.
Charlatan and Gamine tested positive for lidocaine on Arkansas Derby (G1) day in 2020. But Nadal, who won a second division of the Arkansas Derby, did not. Assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes handled all three horses after using a lidocaine patch for back pain on Thursday and Friday mornings, but only two of them showed up with the Class 2 substance. The horse that ran second to Charlatan was positive for lidocaine too (but below the threshold), but Barnes never touched him. Was there environmental contamination in the test barn? If so, why did Baffert's attorney put out a media fact sheet two months later alluding to Barnes' lidocaine patch?
Merneith tested positive for the cough suppressant dextrorphan. His groom had been taking medicine containing the substance. Did he urinate in Merneith's straw? No, he told an investigator. Yes, he said later in an affidavit.
Gamine tested positive for betamethasone after the 2020 Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1), but she was injected four days before the withdrawal window. "I called Dr. Carpenter and told him, and he said 'that's impossible' ... (but) I had to accept the punishment because rules are rules," Baffert said. There was a disqualification from a placing in the Oaks and a fine. Despite the disqualification, Gamine's owner, Michael Lund Petersen, kept the filly with the trainer.
After that, Baffert said, he "instructed my veterinarians I wanted no more betamethasone injections, didn't want it in my barn." Yet Medina Spirit came up positive after the Derby, and Baffert lost his usual cool. He held a press conference in front of his barn and the next day went on a round of television interviews when he said some things he regrets.
"I was upset," he said Thursday. "This is the greatest race in America, and that horse ran his heart out. I felt like I owed it to the owner, and I wanted people to know something was wrong."
But what was wrong, that is the question. As elicited at the hearing, Baffert all but said back then he was the victim of a conspiracy, that he was the victim of cancel culture, that something was wrong in racing enforcement, and that all the problems came from sources other than him.
Not only did he deny Medina Spirit was injected during his media tour, he admitted today he said in one of the TV interviews, "No one who handled the horse had any creams or anything like that, so we just don't know where it came from." But a few days later, and now, that's exactly what he maintains happened.
At the time, "it never crossed my mind (that betamethasone was available in another form)," Baffert said at the hearing in New York. A few days later, "Dr. Baker called me and said it might be in a skin ointment."
Baffert, with the help of Robertson, put out a statement just before the Preakness (G1) indicating remorse for saying hurtful things after what he termed the "gut punch" of learning about the drug positive. Now, Baffert says, it's his understanding the test results of a urine sample tested in New York proves the betamethasone came from an ointment called Otomax used for the skin rash.
Under questioning on cross-examination by NYRA attorney Henry Greenberg, Baffert acknowledged he is on record as saying, "I take pride in running a tight ship and know the rules in every state." But it was revealed Baffert didn't realize the Kentucky threshold for betamethasone had changed from 10 picograms per milliliter to detection level a week before Gamine tested positive after the Oaks—but he did know the 14-day window, and it was observed.
Baffert acknowledged he has been cited and paid fines 14 times in his career for bute, including six overages in the 2000s, and that he has at least 25 medication infractions in his career with 31 infractions overall. He maintains the overages were all innocent mistakes made by veterinarians.
Hints of a conspiracy theory didn't start with Medina Spirit. A CHRB investigative report letter after 2019 overages in Cruel Intention and Eclair says Baffert told the investigator "he thinks someone is intentionally giving bute to his horses and mentioned that he would be offering a reward to help solve the case." On Thursday, Baffert said he has been joking, then backtracked and said he was upset, and then admitted "it turned out to be a mistake."
In an effort to discredit Baffert, Greenberg proved the trainer said he was opposed to a complete ban of anabolic steroids in 2007 because, in his words, "I thought it was good for some horses that were coming out of sickness." Now, Baffert says, the ban "really doesn't matter," meaning that no harm came from the ban.
Following up on the hearing's recurring theme that Baffert's barn had six drug overages in 14 months, Greenberg brought up Baffert's statement to BloodHorse in November 2020 he was retaining Dr. Michael Hore "to add an additional layer of protection to ensure the well-being of horses in my care and rule compliance."
It never happened. Baffert maintained at the hearing Hore, who was based in Kentucky, was unable to take the position because the pandemic prevented travel to California. Baffert said he finally retained someone to help with compliance issues seven months following the BloodHorse interview—and a month after the Medina Spirit debacle.
Baffert's notorious use of the term "cancel culture" to describe the uproar after the revelation of Medina Spirit's positive test was, he said at the hearing, a poor choice of words that should never have been used. Greenberg appeared to accept the trainer was genuinely recalcitrant.
Although hearing officer O. Peter Sherwood has ruled evidence on the subject is inadmissible, Baffert attorney Clark Brewster has claimed NYRA board members are out to get Baffert because he races against their horses. At Thursday's hearing, Greenberg turned the conversation to the fact that members of the California Horse Racing Board, who were sitting in judgment of Justify 's scopolamine positive after the 2018 Santa Anita Derby (G1), also raced horses in competition with Baffert. Baffert said he had never thought about it. As things turned out, Baffert was cleared of wrongdoing in that case.
Baffert said events have harmed him professionally and personally. However, he acknowledged in his testimony that racing has been harmed too.
Greenberg drove home the point that Baffert bears responsibility for making sure that nothing like betamethasone in any form got "within a million miles" of Medina Spirit so that this "terrible cloud" would not be cast over the Kentucky Derby. Baffert admitted he understands the whole situation is, using his word, "horrible."
Following that exchange, it was revealed a Kentucky stewards hearing on the Medina Spirit case is set for Feb. 7, and the hearing was adjourned for the day. It's unclear what is scheduled for Friday.
Baffert's Experts
Testimony from Dr. Clara Fenger and Dr. Steven Barker opened the morning session, and they offered similar opinions when called to the stand by Robertson.
Fenger has a PhD in veterinary science from the University of Kentucky, and Barker, also a PhD, was state chemist for the Louisiana Racing Commission from 1987 to 2016, when he retired.
Both of them had reviewed records of the medication overages listed in charges brought by NYRA, and both of them said the overages would have no pharmacological effect, no performance-enhancing effect, and no injury-masking effect. They admitted, however, the overages were out of regulatory compliance.
The Medina Spirit case, which is the most important of the allegations against Baffert, is one on which Fenger has worked. She was involved in delivering a urine sample of Medina Spirit, along with members of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, from Kentucky to Dr. George Maylin for testing in New York. In the meantime, she said, Maylin has applied Otomax to test animals in a research project to see if it can be detected by lab testing.
According to Fenger, the urine sample was tested in New York to see if Otomax "could have" resulted in the positive test after the Kentucky Derby. She said betamethasone acetate, which is used in an injectable, was not detected in the urine sample, and that Fenger said that means the horse was not injected. However, this isn't the last word. According to her, "We consider this to be a research project that will be presented for peer review."
