BALTIMORE — Bob Baffert marched into a familiar spot — the winner’s circle of a Triple Crown race — but the spring in his step looked a little less buoyant. Still quick with a quip — after posing with a few Navy Midshipmen he yelled, “And stay off Twitter” — he seemed almost subdued, as if he was trying to process a day that encapsulated present-day horse racing.
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The sport still has magic, producing heart-stopping moments like the race to the Preakness finish, where Baffert’s National Treasure sneaked past Blazing Sevens by a head, with Kentucky Derby-winning Mage charging to finish third.
But it also produces unspeakable heartache, and the two wound up once again mirrored under the glitz of a Triple Crown race. Earlier in the day, Baffert’s horse Havnameltdown had to be euthanized on the track after breaking his left leg and tossing his jockey, Luis Saez. (Saez was taken to a local hospital, but X-rays were negative.) The colt’s death came on the heels of seven horse deaths surrounding the Kentucky Derby and news of another horse breaking down Saturday at Churchill Downs.
It makes the whole thing hard to reconcile, the same crowd that gasped in horror when Havnameltdown broke down reveling in National Treasure’s victory.
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That it is Baffert in the middle of the good and the bad, the joy and the agony, only complicates it all the further. The Hall of Fame trainer is the face of a sport where the real athletes blur together, unrecognizable to the casual fan. His shock of white hair is the sport’s most easily identifiable marker.
But Baffert had not been at a Triple Crown race in two years, suspended after his horse Medina Spirit was disqualified from his Kentucky Derby win. In the chasm in between, horse racing finally agreed on national standards, with the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority set to begin Tuesday with national safety and drug-testing standards. But caught in the vortex is Baffert. Some think he’s wrongly accused, others tab him as everything that is wrong with horse racing.
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And now this: One of his horses dies after a wobbly break at the gate, which happens when 1,000-pound animals charge on pixie stick legs. But it happened to a trainer charged with a positive test for an anti-inflammatory. Six hours later, he lofted a trophy and celebrated the Preakness.
“We’ve been through a tough go,” he said. “We had some tough moments. But it’s days like this, it’s not really vindication. It’s just the moment where we can enjoy it. I’m just so grateful to this horse for giving us this moment.”
Moments are, in fact, fleeting in horse racing. Baffert sat with his gold tie and perfect pocket square but insisted people don’t understand the work, not to mention the tragedy, pain and disappointment, that comes with the moments. Over in the Turfside Terrace, a group of 80 or so people could relate. Two weeks ago, Mage’s ownership group turned the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby into a mosh pit, crowding the space to its edges. The horse is partially owned by a syndicate, Commonwealth, meant to help bring the sport of kings to the commoner. Buy-in costs no more than $50, and 391 people owned a piece of the Derby winner.
Some 80 of them followed the horse to Baltimore, convening a perfect melting pot of a party. Mark Post is a 69-year-old retired FBI agent from Tennessee who went to his first horse race in 1977, rolling up to the gravel-lined parking lot of Churchill Downs while stationed at Fort Knox. Andrew Ehrenberg, 25, is a New Yorker with an eye for investments and not a clue about horses. Susie Martin is a Louisville, Ky., native who grew up going to the Derby, spent her 20 years of marriage in a box near the finish line and this year hosted Post for a pre-Derby brunch, the two only meeting after both invested in Mage.
“I was worried about finding something to do after retirement,” Post said, a Mage baseball cap perched on his head. “This has been amazing, not just the horse racing, but the community. I’m in heaven.”
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All of them clogged together to watch Mage vie for the second leg of the Triple Crown, standing along the rail of the turf course to watch as the horse sped by, and then doubling back to crowd around a TV to watch him finish. Commonwealth owners Brian Doxtator and Chase Chamberlin watched front and center. Both admitted this was different, that going to the Derby as the 16-1 shot versus the Preakness as the favorite amped up the anxiety and the pressure.
“We’re the only ones here chasing history,” Doxtator said. “Everyone else wants to win the Preakness. We have a shot at the Triple Crown.”
As Mage walked over from his barn, Chamberlin waited for his 89-year-old grandfather, Gordon, who used his mobile home to trail his grandson around the country as he showed horses. Gordon broke down in tears as his son led him on the Pimlico track.
But storybooks aren’t always written at the track, and just as the Mage people started to get excited, watching their horse come to the front, National Treasure found his stride. The group may represent the new world of horse racing — a mobile-app future at your fingertips — but the past still has a pretty strong hold.
Say what you want about Baffert, but the man knows his way around a racetrack. He opted early this week to put blinders on National Treasure, assuming rightly that the depleted seven-horse field didn’t have a lot of speed. If he could get his relatively untested horse to the front and focus on just running, he thought he’d have a chance.
Which is exactly what happened. National Treasure led wire to wire in a moderately paced race, sending his trainer to his 17th Triple Crown win. D. Wayne Lukas is the next closest at 14. But Baffert admitted it took him a while to find his rhythm watching the race, the usual taut excitement muted by what had happened earlier.
After Havnameltdown was put down, Baffert said he had been so overcome with emotion, he doubled back to the barn and never returned to the frontside until it was time for the Preakness. In the quiet of those barns, moments before it was time to walk over for the big race, the Mage folks congregated at one end of the path, while Baffert stood a few feet away. Doxtator and Chamberlin made their way down to say hello, hugging Baffert’s wife, Jill, who wiped tears out of her eyes.
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“We just wanted to wish you good luck,” Doxtator told Baffert.
The Hall of Famer smiled.
“Enjoy it all,” he said. “This is all cream now.”
The cream of horse racing wound up rising. As the Mage folks left crestfallen but determined to keep their quest for an everyman avenue for horse racing alive, Baffert walked to the winner’s circle. After the trophy presentation and his post-race news conference ended, he wandered out of the interview tent.
Eventually, he would make his way back to his barn, where in one stall the Preakness Stakes winner rested, while another stall stood unexpectedly empty.
(Photo of Jill and Bob Baffert: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
