I wasn’t planning to write about Kentucky Derby 147, even though Patty and I were in Louisville that week, visiting friends and relatives and betting the Derby online.
But now that the blockbuster story has surfaced about the winning horse, Medina Spirit, having failed a drug test administered shortly after the race, I can’t hold back.
The black hat here is none other than Bob Baffert, the most successful Thoroughbred trainer in the world but also one of the biggest turds to ever walk the backside of a racetrack.
With Medina Spirit having won the May 1 Derby, the 63-year-old Baffert became the trainer with the most Derby wins — seven.
No. 7 would be pulled down, however, if a second drug test, administered by a different lab, confirms that Medina Spirit had the drug betamethasone in his system the day he ran. Betamethasone is a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling. The reason corticosteroids are banned is that they can mask pain and other problems, presenting a distinct danger of horses being seriously or fatally injured while overextending themselves.
Baffert has reacted to the failed test result with a barrage of denials and martyr-like entreaties.
“We didn’t do it,” he whined Sunday morning outside the Churchill Down barn where Medina Spirit was housed before being shipped Tuesday to Baltimore, where he is tentatively scheduled to compete in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
Further trying to shovel the responsibility away from himself, he proclaimed, “There’s problems in racing, but it’s not Bob Baffert.”
Tuesday he went on “Fox & Friends” to continue his moaning, and he later went on the Dan Patrick (formerly of ESPN) radio show and said: “Churchill (Downs) came out with a really harsh statement. I think it was a knee-jerk cancel culture kind of reaction. They violated my due process. Now I have to fight this in public.”
(A Sports Illustrated article earlier this year said Baffert’s political views are hard right and that he is a Donald Trump supporter. Is this a coincidence?)
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I’ve been very familiar with Baffert since before he won his first Derby with Silver Charm in 1997. I remember that Derby particularly well because it snowed and also because I was able to buy two tickets outside the track for two friends but could not come up with two more, so Patty and I ended up watching the race on TV at the home of some friends.
He is, undoubtedly, an excellent trainer, but he’s also a chronic cheat. Winning horses he has saddled have failed drug tests 30 times over the last four decades, including five in the last year or so. Partly because of horse racing’s hodgepodge of rules and regulations, varying from state to state, most cases took months or years to resolve, and Baffert has been able to get away mainly with modest fines or brief suspensions.
…Baffert is a cheater at more than horse racing, though. In the early 2000s, he began dating a Louisville TV anchor woman named Jill Moss. At the time, Baffert, who lives in California, was married to a woman with whom he had four children. A very good friend of mine who lives in Louisville recalled a night, when Baffert was still married, that he saw Baffert and Moss going at it, so to speak, at a bumper car place in Louisville. Baffert subsequently divorced his wife, and he and Moss married in 2002.
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Beyond his cheating at and away from the track, I came to personally realize Baffert was a first-class jerk in 2010, when I had the opportunity to meet him.
Two days before that Derby, I was in the Churchill Downs barn area with Joe Drape, turf writer for The New York Times. Joe is a Kansas City native, and I had known his sister, Mary Ann Drape, many years before meeting Joe.
After Baffert had posed for a photo with some fans, Joe and I approached him. Joe introduced us and then began interviewing him. Among other things, they talked about the unfavorable post position (No. 1, on the rail) that Baffert’s Derby runner, Lookin at Lucky, had drawn. (Ultimately, he finished sixth.) Joe also asked him about the weather forecast — heavy rain — and how Lookin at Lucky might handlea sloppy track.
As the conversation began to lag, I decided on the spur of the moment toask Bafferta question about the horse that I liked, Noble’s Promise, who was coming out of the No. 3 post position.
So, I spoke up and said, “Where do you think Noble’s Promise will be?”
I will never forget this…Baffert fixed me with a hard stare for just a second and said, “I don’t have the slightest idea, and I don’t care.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.
I turned to Joe, and we looked at each other — slightly in shock — for a couple of seconds. I said, “Sorry I f*cked up your interview.”
Here’s a photo I took of Baffert and Joe that day…
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The Baffert who snubbed me on April 29, 2010, that is the real Bob Baffert, not the glib, seemingly affable chap heretofore seen in TV interviews. He’s a cheat and an asshole, and I hope Medina Spirit gets taken down and his connections are denied the $1.8 million first-place check. (The trainer and jockey usually get 10 percent each.)
The only good thing about this story is that after negotiating for Derby tickets for a couple of weeks beforehand, Patty and I decided the day before the Derby not to go. Ticket prices were way too high — several hundred dollars each even for bad seats — and Derby Day is interminable, with the Derby race not going off until 7 p.m. Eastern time.
As in 1997, we watched on TV at our friends’ residence, a beautiful condominium facing the Ohio River. We had a great afternoon; we bet the Derby online; and we all lost.
But none of us bet on the asshole’s horse.
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