bob baffert political affiliation

In 2007, he joined the 15-member board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), a nonprofit that represents the roughly 9,000 CHRB-licensed owners in the state. All of the explanations for the positive drug tests are plausible, but collectively they raise questions. But its a lot more difficult when going against a private company, such as Churchill Downs, which can invoke its own penalties. Bob Baffert has supporters and detractors in how he deals with jockeys In 2013 the group hosted a Lasix-focused event at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills at which one owner reportedly said running a race without the drug was like waterboarding your horse in their own blood.. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our equine and human athletes, Baffert wrote, and nothing impacts their health and safety more than the policies and procedures concerning drugs.. 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. With private eyes and political muscle, horse racings elite pushed to punish dopers, Throughout the months-long process, CHRB officials had indicated they planned on filing a complaint against Baffert, which would have exposed the failed drug test. And the Breeders Cup, which will be held Nov. 5-6 at Del Mar, has indicated it will soon make a decision on Bafferts eligibility to run in those championship races. The public backlash, including a letter written by a gay. Theres one thing that I will say positive about Bob is that he is a horseman. I guess I'm more of an "old school" Republican. In 2015, he trained American Pharoah, the first horse to win the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978.. In winning the 141st Kentucky Derby, bringing his total number of victories in the race to four; Baffert also ran the third-place finisher, the previously undefeated colt Dortmund. [citation needed], According to his supporters, Baffert's style and personality, combined with his success, have made him a target for controversy. Baffert says he plans to seek legal recourse wherever necessary. Baffert, a La Caada Flintridge resident who is currently training his horses at Santa Anita, has not officially been charged with anything related to Medina Spirit. But hes a good person, no, a great person. [21][22] Sports Illustrated suggested that the positive drug test was a sign that Baffert's "leaking credibility" had reached "the saturation point. Bob Baffert Suspended 15 Days for Drug Positives The California Horse Racing Boards inner workings during the episode have remained mostly shrouded by official secrecy. The bill was introduced by California Assemblyman Adam Gray, a former aide to Cardoza who had been in office for less than three months. Bob Bafferts horses have incurred numerous drug violations over the course of his 44 years as a thoroughbred trainer. We went there with expectations not very high. Horse trainer Bob Baffert on Monday argued that Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit had been a victim of "cancel culture" after the horse failed a postrace drug test . This whole thing is ridiculous, Baffert texted back, according to messages obtained by The Post via public records request. Nonetheless, in that case, Arkansas suspended Baffert for 15 days. to move forward. Petersen did not respond to an interview request. Hes a very unique personality, a unique sense of humor. His attorney, let me just say, worked very, very hard, recalled former California Deputy Attorney General Jerald L. Mosley, who represented the state in attempting to uphold the suspension. Robert A. Baffert (born January 13, 1953) is an American racehorse trainer who trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. And he does know generally when to stop on a horse.. He won his first race on that 1970 afternoon but not as a trainer. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Testimonies have begun in the case of horse trainer Bob Baffert against Churchill Downs. [39] California's equine medical director found that Baffert's horses were routinely given Thyro-L, or thyroxine, a thyroid hormone, that could cause heart problems during exercise, but concluded the medication, which Baffert said he had been using routinely for the previous five years, did not cause the heart attacks. But by August, the plan had changed. May 10, 2021. The dark side of Bob Baffert's reign. He appeared in an episode of the TV show Take Home Chef. But after learning that Justify and another Baffert horse had tested positive for the same drug, Arthur announced in an e-mail to CHRB officials: The scopolamine cases will be handled differently than usual. Arthur said in a recent interview that he was referring to the logistics of what was clearly going to be a high-profile case that needed to be handled carefully.. He's saddled. Medina Spirit had a legal medication in him, ONeill said. Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has successfully appealed his 15-day suspension to the Arkansas Racing Commission, allowing the six-time Kentucky Derby winner to resume preparations to run Medina . Decorated racehorse trainer who won multiple Kentucky Derbies, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. "This is emblematic of what is happening to our country. He claimed that the horse death data provided by the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) was not possible.. Citrus Feed Companys Larry Bell has long supplied Baffert with feed and has previously testified in Bafferts defense, according to CHRB records. Usually, regulatory agencies do not have the guts to do whats fair and right, Arthur testified during a CHRB hearing in October, and this board made that decision appropriately., He conceded that the lack of transparency was unusual. He has also won the Preakness Stakes five times and the Belmont Stakes once. Four months after that, in May 2014, Arthur issued an advisory that the CHRB was concerned by the apparently indiscriminate use of thyroxine and that the drug must be prescribed for a specific horse for a specific condition. Arthur told The Post that the advisory was a result of the Baffert investigation. Former Democratic congressman Dennis Cardoza, also on the board, was co-owner with Pegram of Shakin It Up, a successful thoroughbred trained by Baffert. Racing lacks a central clearinghouse for data on deaths nationally, and regulators in many states do not track deaths by trainer. 10, 2022. Early life and career [ edit] The new classification simply makes more sense pharmacologically, Arthur wrote. It then changed the classification of scopolamine so that its detection in a horse would trigger only a fine and not disqualification and loss of the races purse. Baffert also trained the 2018 Triple Crown Winner, Justify and the 2020 Kentucky Derby winner, Authentic. The Post separately obtained start data dating back to 2000 from the Daily Racing Form to put the deaths into context. Baffert's attorney argued in court that the trainer's May suspension by the New York Racing Assn. Gray said at the time that the bill also would increase the institutional knowledge of Californias central horse drug-testing lab. The drug was again betamethasone, and Baffert again expressed shock and vowed to clear his name. Its so obvious. Baffert faces unprecedented scrutiny after a positive drug test marred a win by his horse Medina Spirit at this years Kentucky Derby. As the Kentucky Derby approached, officials began discussing the possibility of contamination that the positive test had been triggered by something Justify ingested. Baffert did not have a horse hit the board again in any of the Triple Crown races until 2009, when he trained Pioneerof The Nile to a second-place finish in the Derby. What we knew about horses you could put in a thimble. [7] Baffert became a 7-time winner of the Kentucky Derby in 2021 with Medina Spirit. Closing everything and moving forward is in Bobs best interest and the best interest of horse racing. Medina Spirit died after a training session on 6 December 2021 and an ensuing necropsy on 11 February 2022 was inconclusive. How carefully the dosage was followed was not determined, Arthur wrote. Does the drug that could strip Medina Spirit of a Kentucky Derby win enhance performance? Pegram persuaded Baffert to try thoroughbreds. Yakteen rose to Bafferts defense and it ended with a scuffle that slightly injured a security guard. This article was published more than1 year ago, LOS ANGELES In March 2020, horse racings most recognizable figure, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, declared that his sport was in crisis.. All they show is contamination, and they have really put the trainers heads on the chopping blocks. In the settlement, which records show did not include monetary damages, CHRB agreed to file a complaint against Justify. [38] This reminded the public that since 2000, at least 74 other horses had died while in Baffert's stables. [43] At the post-Belmont press conference, Baffert announced he and his wife would be making donations of $50,000 each to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the California Retirement Management Account (CARMA), and Old Friends Equine, all programs for retired race horses; and to the Permanently Disabled Jockey's Fund in memory of a Quarter Horse Jockey named Robert Z. And he pushes the envelope to the extent that they give their lives for his bank account.. It seems the biggest problem trainer Bob Baffert had during the running of the $300,000 San Felipe Stakes on Saturday was keeping his face covering over his nose. The 69-year-old Hall of Fame trainer is suing Churchill Downs Inc . Arthur called Bafferts blanket use of thyroxine troublesome and said at the meeting, I havent found an example of a barn that uses it in all their horses like Baffert does. Yet he determined that the drug wasnt to blame for the deaths. Its all right there in black and white; thats all I can say., ARCI President Ed Martin said the rules limiting race-day medications have been tightened not out of concern for performance enhancement but to prevent breakdowns. Kentucky regulators taped calls without consent with Baffert after Medina Spirit test. It will all be settled by lawyers and judges and that takes time. Ive heard the rumors on Bobby since we got in the business after winning some Cal Cup races. He told reporters that he would fight the issue "tooth and nail. We have a real conundrum to sort out, Arthur wrote in an email to top CHRB officials, explaining he believed a disqualification would be terribly unfair. More than a year earlier, the Association of Racing Commissioners International, which creates model rules for the sports various state bodies, had reclassified scopolamine from a 3/B to a 4/C drug. Regardless, the indictments appeared to sway Baffert, whose opinion piece in The Post supported drastic action to fix a broken system. Among the provisions in the federal legislation that Baffert supported is a phaseout of Lasix on race day a reform Baffert had opposed for years. Mick Ruis, who trained against Baffert for a couple years but now just manages his own racing business, once admired Baffert and his success, but no longer. We had some thoroughbreds with another trainer and Im thinking how can we make money with Bobby running for $4,000 at night when we could be running for $40,000 during the day, Pegram said. In the court of public opinion, hes a big loser, said Barry Irwin, owner of racing group Team Valor and an outspoken critic of race-day medication and Baffert. After the test result was revealed, Mick Ruis, the trainer and owner of the Santa Anita Derbys runner-up, sued the CHRB, claiming Justifys win should have been erased. When Arthur delivered his report in November 2013, the bill to remove him from office was still pending. 'It was cancel culture': Kentucky Derby winner's trainer defends failed That didnt feel appropriate to those of who wanted to see science prevail, Cardoza said. Baffert often speaks of his life as if its a Shakespearean play, humankinds tragedies mingling with his own existential crises. Medina Spirit departed Churchill Downs in a van before dawn on Monday, bound for Baltimore (a horse van, not Jeff Spicoli's VW bus ). It wasnt long before Baffert was making pocket change riding the horses in match races. 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. The CHRB officially opened an investigation. Baffert trained Lookin At Lucky, co-owned by Mike Pegram, to win the Preakness Stakes in 2010. The board followed their recommendation. The CHRB provided The Post with death data dating back to late 1990 showing that at least 87 of Bafferts horses have died in California since then. Theres a recognition that certain substances are normal in equine care, Martin said, but if that horse still requires that, then maybe you shouldnt run the horse., Martin made a distinction between doping horses with banned substances and running them with too much medication. I thought wed get fourth. Thats the only time I ever had to deal with somebody who tried to go to federal court to stop a state administrative action., Finally, in 2005, after the matter had returned to state court, the CHRB dismissed the suspension after an administrative law judge concluded Baffert had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by the use of a banned substance on this horse., Baffert further solidified his influence in the ensuing years. He was born on January 13, 1953, in Nogales, AZ. We live and work in a fishbowl, with rumors and accusations flowing constantly, Baffert said. By then, Bafferts encounters with regulators dated back decades, to 1977, when he served a yearlong suspension for racing a horse on morphine. With private eyes and political muscle, horse racings elite pushed to punish dopers, Bob Baffert, long horse racings irreverent king, sits on a precarious throne, Bob Baffert, banned from racing horses in New York, sues states racing association. And Noodles died May 22 of a non-exercise induced respiratory issue. Like Baffert, Hollendorfer is in the thoroughbred Hall of Fame. See, I bet you didnt know I was a jockey? Baffert said. On June 2, with the Belmont Stakes a week away, the owner of a feed operation showed up at the CHRB office carrying plant samples he said he found more than a month earlier, the records show. After the Times broke the news of the positive drug test, Ruis sued the CHRB in January 2020. Bob Baffert | National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Horse trainer Bob Baffert before the 2020 Breeders Cup at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky. Trainer Bob Baffert pets an outriders horse while watching workouts at Churchill Downs in April. Garcia left California horse racing the next year, according to CHRB records; he could not be reached for comment by The Post. [10] Though number of racing starts are used to calculate rates of death for all horses in the care of race trainers, not all horse deaths were animals in race training nor were they necessarily race-related fatalities. Baffert is America's pre-eminent active trainer. 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. By Marty Irby. Churchill Downs announced that any points earned in the leadup to the Kentucky Derby by horses associated with a suspended trainer would not be counted a move that seemingly targets Hall of Famer Bob Baffert. EXPLAINER: Why Is Bob Baffert Not in the Kentucky Derby? According to Arthurs report, he found that Baffert was dispensing Thyro-L, or thyroxine, a prescription thyroid hormone, to all horses in his care. It bothers me when hes not considered the Kentucky Derby winner.. Mick Ruis, the owner and trainer of the second-place finisher in the Santa Anita Derby, has sued the CHRB. [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. Both trainers were fined $500. Theres 10,000 other trainers who understand the absolute insurer rule and dont seem to run afoul of it, Gagliano said, referring to the edict that any substances in the horse are the trainers responsibility. Those who have known Baffert the longest, including a core group of owners, recognize his flaws but generally remain steadfast in their support of him. This pattern has bred frustration among some horsemen. The 77-year-old billionaire made headlines last year when he made a $10,000 contribution to opponents of Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance. Ruis horse, Bolt dOro, finished second. He will rub people the wrong way by speaking his mind, sometimes he needs to hit the mute button. The previous August, Bob Baffert Racing Stables had donated $1,000 to the TOCs political action committee, California records show. When asked about that plan, attorney Brewster said that in fact 5 Stones did investigate Baffert at the direction of the Jockey Club. He married his second wife, Jill, a former television reporter based in Louisville, in 2002. The cluster of sudden deaths remains unexplained and there was no evidence whatsoever CHRB rules or regulations have been violated or any illicit activity played a part in the deaths, Arthurs report concluded. The month after that, Grays bill to limit Arthurs term was passed out of a committee. We might have gone to the board sooner, but obviously because of the high-profile nature of this thing we were making sure we had everything buttoned up, he said. Yes, I'm a registered Republican, although I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. It was then that Baffert, one of the most accessible trainers in horse racing, stopped talking until this week. Bob Baffert has moved his way up the ladder to the extent that he has the most influential, the wealthiest owners in the industry, that he takes on the highest-quality horses possible because he wins races. [2] His first winner was Flipper Star at Rillito Park on January 28, 1979. Cherwa also contributes general interest stories from Florida. Baffert has had two fatalities in the last three years, a low number for a barn of his size. 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. Bob is trying to put 2020 behind him and move forward in a positive manner, Robertson wrote in an e-mail to Borden. Shah said the two parted over disagreements that should have been resolved, without being specific. But the scuttled test result remained secret until the New York Times reported it in 2019. In 1997, he trained Silver Charm to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, finishing second in the Belmont. In September, Baffert learned via a text message from Barbara Borden, chief steward for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, that his horse Gamine had tested positive for the anti-inflammatory betamethasone at the Kentucky Oaks. The first two infractions occurred in May 2020, when the horses Charlatan and Gamine tested positive in Arkansas for lidocaine, a numbing agent. Wizards show plenty of heart early but cant find an edge late in Chicago. I went under the radar. It wasn't long after the running of the 123rd Kentucky Derby, where a grey . The TOC, of which Baffert is still a board member, did not respond to requests for comment. The legal records, which draw from dozens of emails, memorandums and other materials that have not previously been made public, show how officials delayed action, contradicted their own plans and rewrote existing rules to Bafferts advantage. This in turn led to a ban from all California Horse Racing Board facilities beginning April 4 due to a rule removing any trainer under a 60 day or higher ban from all CHRB facilities. Thats much higher than the Jockey Clubs widely cited national rates, which never exceed two deaths per 1,000 starts. But Bafferts critics say his conduct after penning the article calls into question his seriousness about reform. Bob Baffert has taken up more of my time than I ever should have had to deal with, Arthur said, before again coming to the defense of Bafferts treatment of his horses: He certainly puts the pedal to the metal, but he doesnt close his eyes. He started at The Times in 1980 and left in 1995 to be sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Co. sports coordinator in 2002. The majority of the deaths in Bafferts care are attributed to breakdowns, though others have died suddenly without explanation and some of the horses suffered illness including his most recent death, Noodles, in May where pneumonia was the suspected cause. Baffert grew up on a ranch in Nogales, Arizona, where his family raised cattle and chickens. Board member Michael E. Pegram had for decades hired Baffert to train his top horses, including the winner of the 1998 Kentucky Derby, Real Quiet. In 2021, the post-race test of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit showed 21pg/mL of betamethasone. The Jockey Club has a database of thoroughbred breakdowns meaning deaths stemming from track injuries but said it is barred from sharing its data because of its contracts with racetracks.