After one of the most memorable days in the history of Godolphin with an unprecedented transatlantic Classic double, few things would give me greater pleasure than to reflect on the victories of Adayar at Epsom and Essential Quality at Belmont Park.
After all, it takes something for a fine G1 1-2 from Charlie Appleby’s Dubai stars Althiqa and Summer Romance to be forced into second billing, but to win two such historic races within about eight hours of each other in Britain and the U.S. was momentous indeed.
But,as wonderful as all this was, it would be remiss of me to ignore the elephant in the U.S. racing room – Bob Baffert and the impending DQ of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit now that the split sample has also come back positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone.
As a result, Baffert is currently banned from all New York’s main tracks – no Belmont, Saratoga or Aqueduct – and, perhaps even more damaging, one of the most garlanded trainers in the history of the sport will not be able to add to his Kentucky Derby tally until 2024 at the earliest after he was banned from racing and training at Churchill Downs and any of the tracks it owns for two years.
Of course, this may well run and run, with a lengthy appeals procedure and due legal process almost a certainty. There is a precedent: In 1968, Dancer’s Image beat the favourite Forward Pass at Churchill Downs before post-race analysis revealed traces of the banned substance phenylbutazone in the winner’s urine. It wasn’t until April 1972 that the courts had their final say and m’learned friends formally ratified Forward Pass as the 1968 Derby winner.
Swingeing ban
Unless Medina Spirit’s connections go gentle into that good night - and of course initial indications suggest quite the reverse, it will probably be some time before the Brad Cox-trained Mandaloun gets his belated roses.
Frankly, it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to contemplate two years without arguably the most recognisable face in the racing world being barred from U.S. racing’s main stages, and, given the negligible amounts of a non-performance-enhancing drug involved in the probable Kentucky Derby DQ, it is a swingeing ban.
Make no mistake, it could end a legendary career. He is able to function at his home base in California, where Santa Anita and Del Mar have not reciprocated the ban, but taking away the nation’s other main circuits and its most historic races leaves the Baffert operation seriously denuded.
Truth is, Baffert may conceivably have had a point in his emotional outburst about how these trace threshold levels of otherwise legal substances are so small they hardly matter.
That said, I am bending over backwards to some degree, and Baffert’s self-justifying stance flies in the face of the prevailing mood amid the introduction of the Horse Racing Safety and Integrity Act in the U.S.
So please be clear on this – I’m not saying he is justified, but I am saying this is not about a systemic attempt to cheat via the sort of designer drugs at the centre of the FBI investigation involving Maximum Security’s disgraced trainer Jason Servis and Florida-based Jorge Navarro.
Baffert’s transgression, though, minor as it seems in comparison, comes in the wake of a doping scandal that has rocked the U.S. racing community to its very core. Understandably, the mood is zero-tolerance – and then here comes Uncle Bob, caught on the wrong side of the rules on racing’s biggest occasion. It is hardly what the sport needs, and heaped upon real evidence of systemic cheating elsewhere, it doesn’t exactly look good in image terms.
Listen to Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen. “Mr Baffert’s record of testing failures threatens public confidence in Thoroughbred racing and the reputation of the Kentucky Derby,” he said. “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.”
Yet is Baffert being hard done by? Maybe, were this a one-off. A legal ointment used to treat equine dermatitis (and arthritis) has lingered in the system too long; an ‘overage’, in ungrammatical common parlance, for a commonly used steroidal treatment banned on raceday for trace amounts.
Embarrassing list of offences
So Medina Spirit is out, and a Hall of Fame trainer’s reputation bites the Kentucky dust. This is not industrial-scale doping for corrupt advantage.
It is, though, negligence from a trainer who has admitted he needs to do better. It is also not anything like an isolated occurrence, because Baffert has an embarrassing list of other offences (and excuses) to be taken into consideration.
There has been a nasty smell emanating from Baffert’s barn for at least the last couple of years. Let’s recap:
- In April 2018, Justify failed a drug test for scopolamine after winning the Santa Anita Derby before his Triple Crown; amid claims the test had been hushed up, news did not emerge until September that year. The cases were finally dropped a year later, with Justify and six other horses (including G1-winning stablemate Hoppertunity) from various barns found to have ingested adulterated feed, cross-contaminated via wild-growing jimson weed).
- Arkansas Derby winner Charlatan and star filly Gamine were initially disqualified after winning at Oaklawn in May 2020, testing positive for lidocaine, used to alleviate pain. Cross-contamination was blamed, the horses having been innocently exposed to the substance via Baffert’s top assistant Jimmy Barnes using a patch for human back pain. The DQs were overturned in April this year but Baffert was still fined $10,000.
- Merneith tested positive for dextrorphan after finishing second in a claimer at Del Mar in July 2020. Baffert appealed, saying contamination by cough syrup (Dayquil and Nyquil, to be specific) contained in an employee’s urine, said employee having urinated into hay subsequently ingested by Merneith.
- Gamine failed a drugs test after coming third in last year’s Kentucky Oaks in September. This, like Medina Spirit, was anti-inflammatory medication betamethasone.
Baffert may have railed wildly against ‘cancel culture’ after news of Medina Spirit’s positive test broke – but, as they say, the optics don’t look good.
Think Team Sky in the besmirched world of professional cycling. While insisting they have never broken any rules, all the evidence suggests they’ve pushed their ‘marginal gains’ envelope as far as it can be pushed. Similarly, what seems clear is that Baffert – and he is not alone in this – has a heavy reliance on the vet. That is not to imply any wrongdoing – but still, for various reasons, a string of high-profile horses from his barn have tested positive.
Indeed, over four decades he has 30 drugs positives to his name – often minuscule amounts for substances perfectly legal outside raceday.
But, come on. Someone’s not done the weeding, a groom has peed on the hay after taking NyQuil for his cough, an assistant trainer has a bad back, we forgot about the skin ointment … would you really want your million-dollar horse residing in a stable with this level of negligence?
It simply isn’t good enough, as Baffert himself admitted at last year’s Breeders’ Cup.
“I want to have a positive influence on the sport of horseracing,” he claimed in a statement issued at Keeneland in November.
“Horses have been my life and I owe everything to them and the tremendous sport in which I have been so fortunate to be involved. We can always do better, and that is my goal. Given what has transpired this year, I intend to do everything possible to ensure I receive no further medication complaints.”
In short, even Baffert admitted enough is enough. He pledged to sort it out. Perhaps if he had done so we might have been spared such a grubby, unfortunate aftermath to one of the world’s showpiece contests. Even if it was all just an innocent mistake.