Funny Interview for the Horse Race Justify

Barn 33 was ghostly quiet nine days before the 148th Kentucky Derby, cipher but naked lightbulbs and empty stalls. There were 2 pairs of shoes leaning against the wall in the shedrow, only no humans or horses were present. The blank biscuit wall by the archway to what has been the mecca of the Churchill Downs stable area for a quarter century screamed a silent message:

Bob Baffert is not hither. Non welcome here. All but scrubbed from here.

The signs commemorating the white-haired trainer's record-tying six Kentucky Derby wins and two Triple Crown triumphs are gone. The visitor line is that the racetrack took everything off the walls everywhere to repaint the barns during a renovation break last twelvemonth—it was and then upward to the inhabitants of each befouled to rehang them. With Baffert non around, the signs never went support.

Merely Churchill had long enjoyed a symbiotic human relationship with Baffert—he has been great for the Derby, and the Derby has been great for him. His barn was a constant stop on stable tours, and fans flocked in a dozen deep just to go a glimpse of his best horses or mind to the glib Californian's steady stream of wisecracks. In happier times, track officials probable would have had those signs back on the Barn 33 wall the minute the paint dried.

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

That's not all. On the second flooring of the clubhouse, a partitioned area that had been labeled the Baffert Lounge is now the Ben A. Jones Lounge, named for the other winner of half dozen Derbies. Baffert's proper name and face can nonetheless exist institute on displays in the Derby Museum that award Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify, but that's near information technology.

The de-Baffertization of Churchill is a stark reminder of his abrupt fall from grace and the bitter battle that has ensued between the well-nigh famous person and nigh famous venue in U.S. horse racing. When his record-breaking seventh Derby champion, Medina Spirit, was found to have failed a drug test after last yr's Run for the Roses, information technology set in motion a chain of events that resulted in Baffert's 2-twelvemonth ban from Churchill Downs and Medina Spirit's disqualification as the winner.

Lawsuits, calls to ban Baffert in states hosting other legs of the Triple Crown and inflamed rhetoric ensued. This was a bad breakdown, and at present it is the commanding story line of this yr's race. Bob Baffert vs. the Kentucky Derby has become the defining flashpoint in the sport's ongoing struggle to properly medicate horses.

When the trainer's final of many legal challenges to the Medina Spirit ruling was rebuffed in March, the owners of his top iii-year-onetime horses had no choice if they wanted to chase racing'south biggest prize—they had to motility their colts to another trainer.

The beneficiary is the previously bearding Tim Yakteen, a former Baffert banana nearly ii decades ago who was rarely involved with the barn'southward top horses. Yakteen arrived here Sunday with three former Baffert trainees: Doppelganger, who is entered in a race on the Derby undercard; and Taiba and Messier, who both will endeavor to win a Derby by proxy for arguably the greatest trainer in the history of this ancient sport.

"Messier and Taiba are phenomenal horses, and what matters most to me is that they get the opportunity to compete and win," Baffert said in a written response to questions submitted past Sports Illustrated. "I can't expect to cheer them on this Saturday."

Baffert volition cheer them on from afar, thousands of miles away. He'due south been purged from the premises, and the trappings of his glory run have disappeared with him.

The only evidence that Baffert was ever in Barn 33 is a bumper sticker on a weathered, dark-green office door that reads, "I like Kentucky-bred Roadster," referring to one of Baffert'southward more forgettable Derby entrants, the 15th-place finisher in the 2019 race.

Roadster. Rosebud?

The proper noun and the sticker'due south enigmatic presence as the concluding Baffert barn artifact conjure thoughts of the dying utterance from the atomic number 82 character in the classic movie Citizen Kane. Weathering a scandal in exile, grandiose plutocrat Charles Foster Kane dies alone later saying the proper noun of his childhood sled, which served as an emotional link to a more innocent time in his life.

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The 2019 Triple Crown campaign was, for all intents and purposes, a more innocent time for Baffert—the last innocent time, if in that location is such a matter in a sport that has never been simon-pure, the final time Baffert worked without a cloud of suspicion hovering overhead.

Churchill Downs is among the entities bankroll the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority, which was created by Congress in December 2020 in an attempt to more uniformly regulate the sport.

Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

That summer, The New York Times reported that his 2018 Triple Crown winner, Justify, failed a drug test after winning the Santa Anita Derby—the April race that gear up him up to become merely the 13th horse in history to sweep the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Justify's positive test for an overage of scopolamine did not result in the equus caballus's DQ, which could have kept him out of the Kentucky Derby, and the positive test was non fabricated public.

By the fourth dimension Justify's carve up sample had been tested—and also came dorsum positive—the horse had already won the Derby. All the same, news of the positive test remained out of the public eye. The California Horse Racing Board voted in August 2018 not to proceed with the scopolamine case against Baffert, citing other horses who had tested positive for the same substance (but below the legal racing limit) subsequently ingesting what was believed to be a contaminated shipment of feed to Santa Anita. The feed contained naturally occurring jimson weed, which can trigger a positive test for scopolamine. Although the CHRB's process was disturbingly opaque, its ruling to exonerate Justify and Baffert seemed, well, justifiable.

Only that was just the beginning. Side by side came the May 2020 disqualifications in Arkansas for two standout Baffert 3-year-olds: a colt, Adventurer, who won the Arkansas Derby; and a filly, Gamine, who won an allowance race. Oaklawn Park said the two tested positive for an overage of the painkiller lidocaine. Baffert's chaser in the instance, Westward. Craig Robertson, argued the positive test was a consequence of Baffert assistant Jimmy Barnes's wearing a medicated patch on his injured dorsum that inadvertently transferred the lidocaine from the patch to his hands and ultimately to the horses.

It took nearly a year, simply the Arkansas Racing Commission overturned the DQs of both horses and lifted a 15-twenty-four hours suspension for Baffert, though it imposed a fine of $10,000 for the trainer. Evidence presented to the ARC said Gamine had tested positive for 185 picograms of lidocaine and Charlatan for 46; the drug has a legal limit of 20 picograms. Robertson argued that measuring medication overages in such small amounts—a picogram is a trillionth of a gram—dramatically complicates a trainer's chore.

Before that entreatment had been heard, Gamine had tested positive and been DQ'd from a 2nd race—this time the 2020 Kentucky Oaks, in which she finished third as the heavy favorite in a race postponed to September by the COVID-19 pandemic. That positive exam was for a race-day overage of the anti-inflammatory betamethasone (a medication that would haunt Baffert more several months later). Baffert said in an October 2020 statement that Gamine had legally been given betamethasone 18 days before the Oaks after being advised by veterinarians that it would be at an allowable limit in the horse's system within xiv days.

That didn't occur. Gamine'southward DQ was upheld past the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, and Baffert was fined again. A DQ in Churchill Downs' 2d-biggest annual race was problematic. What happened next, in its biggest race, was catastrophic.

Medina Spirit, pictured here with Baffert in 2021, died later that year. The equus caballus collapsed after a 5-furlong workout at Santa Anita Park.

Pat McDonogh/Courier Journal/Us Today Network

Eight days afterwards Medina Spirit pulled off the 2021 Kentucky Derby upset at 12–1 odds, give-and-take erupted that the colt had failed the post-race drug test for an overage of betamethasone. Churchill rapidly applied an indefinite break. Baffert originally said Medina Spirit had never been treated with the medication, and so reversed course and said it was an ingredient in a topical ointment, not an injection, used to treat a rash. (Baffert and Medina Spirit's possessor, Amr Zedan, unsuccessfully argued the ointment created no competitive advantage and should non be ruled a violation.)

By then, many fans of the sport had grown weary of the recurring positive tests and explanations that all of this was merely bad luck, bad medicine or bad legislation. Baffert'south response to the Medina Spirit positive test was especially off-putting, not just in terms of cumulative doubtfulness merely likewise in defiant tone. In an interview with Dan Patrick, he alleged himself a victim of "cancel civilization" and criticized Churchill'southward "knee-jerk" reaction.

(The Medina Spirit controversy deepened when the equus caballus collapsed and died after a workout in December, though a necropsy did not reach a conclusive finding on cause of decease. The Los Angeles Times previously had reported final Oct that Baffert had 75 horses die since 2000, either past racing, training, illness or in non-exercise accidents. Still, Baffert trainees were a minor percent of the spate of horse deaths that rocked Southern California racing in the last three years.)

Sports history is littered with forceful denials and fanciful excuses in the wake of positive drug tests, many of which did not age well. Horse racing has a drug history that dwarfs even cycling and track and field, not to mention a grisly rail record of racetrack equine deaths. The sport'southward reputation was farther tarnished two years ago when the U.S. Attorney's Role announced it had charged 27 people in an alleged "systematic, international scheme among trainers, vets and others to cheat using misbranded and adulterated drugs." Among the allegations: that designer drugs could not be detected by standard testing.

Baffert was non implicated in that FBI investigation, and his attorneys have argued his career number of failed tests is low for a trainer who campaigns and so many horses. Literature from a public-relations firm hired to piece of work with Baffert and his attorneys declared his testing record "enviable" and said he is "at, or nearly, the very top echelon of medication rule compliance." Just the most successful trainers have long had to fence with an undercurrent of pessimism, and no ane has been more successful than Baffert. That brings its own level of dubiety across what the examination results indicate.

Still, the do good of the doubt is by and large extended to horses that win the big races—as long as they test clean. Baffert constitute himself facing a spate of high-contour positives.

From jimson weed to a medicated patch to an injection timeline gone wrong to a surprisingly powerful ointment, his succession of explanations were not well received. Especially later Baffert pledged, in November 2020, "to do everything possible to ensure I receive no further medication complaints. … I want to raise the bar and prepare the standard for equine rubber and rule compliance going frontwards." (That annotate came after some other Baffert positive test, for Dextrorphan in the system of the horse Merneith, at Del Mar in July 2020. Attorney Robertson attributed that test consequence to a groom who was taking both DayQuil and NyQuil, which got into the horse's system.)

Messing with the Run for the Roses is considered a mortal sin in racing, and Baffert had washed exactly that. Medina Spirit became just the 2nd medication DQ in the history of America'southward oldest continuous sporting upshot. Even the biggest name and most recognizable figure in the sport had to face this truth, as delivered by Churchill Downs: No i is bigger than the Derby.

Churchill Downs Incorporated CEO Bill Carstanjen told Sports Illustrated that Kentucky's race-solar day medication rules and Baffert's test results were both unambiguous, and the trainer "was treated fairly. We were clear-eyed and rational and addressed the facts. We were disappointed that Bob didn't have responsibility for his actions. I think this is 1 of those circumstances where in that location isn't much controversy other than the rhetoric from Bob's attorneys."

Carstanjen used the words "cheat" or "cheater" three times in regard to Baffert in an interview. He bristled at the trainer'southward attempts to deflect blame for the failed drug tests, saying Baffert issued "disruptive and oft ridiculous" explanations. "I call back he embarrassed the entire industry and all of usa felt we were being attacked."

Baffert told SI he previously had a "practiced relationship" with Churchill and requests to see with the runway's leadership "to resolve these issues" take non been reciprocated. A Churchill Downs spokesperson told SI that they had denied the asking.Some other Baffert chaser, Clark Brewster, provided SI with a more pointed response to Carstanjen: "What is perplexing and very damaging for the industry is that Churchill Downs would indicate to a commonly used and harmless topical ointment that no scientist says could have had an impact on a equus caballus's performance and call it 'a medical overage.' Churchill Downs is hopelessly conflicted and continues to be in denial of the truth and the facts."

Given the varying levels of allowable medication and sanctions applied to trainers or jockeys in Arkansas doesn't necessarily apply in California, the Horse Racing Integrity and Condom Authority (HISA) was created by Congress in December 2020 in an endeavor to more uniformly regulate the sport. HISA's racetrack condom rules have effect July 1, and the authority is working with Drug Free Sport International to establish a Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit that oversees medication teaching and enforcement. Churchill Downs is among the entities backing HISA. "Currently, medication is really balkanized and handled state by state," Carstanjen said.. "Nosotros're big proponents of a national approach."

"For far too long, Bob Baffert's scandals have completely engulfed and overshadowed the then-called 'Sport of Kings,'" says Marty Irby, executive director of the watchdog group Animal Wellness Activity. "If Baffert truly wants thoroughbred equus caballus racing to continue to be defined as a legitimate American sport, and then he'll step aside until his break is over and permit other trainers, breeders, owners and jockeys the opportunity to enjoy a clean Triple Crown without his controversy in 2022."

Given the adversarial positions, it's reasonable to assume Churchill would prefer someone other than Messier or Taiba to win the Derby and provide Baffert secondhand validation. Because if you enquire most anyone in the game, that would exist the inference drawn.

"They're even so Bob'south horses," said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, himself a iv-time Derby winner whose relationship with Baffert has evolved from adversarial to amiable across 25 years. Added swain trainer Norm Casse: "Even when he'south not involved, he's involved."

Yakteen was a quondam Baffert assistant nearly ii decades agone, simply has never come close to saddling a Derby horse earlier now.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

The van bringing his horses to the Churchill stable expanse was running late, so Tim Yakteen took a brief walk from Barn 37 to the backstretch railing. There was a Sun silence at the ancient edifice; the morning preparation hours were long over and there were no races that sunny afternoon. The giant grandstand stood empty. The merely things stirring were birds in the trees and flags rippling in a strong breeze.

Dressed in his characteristic barn attire—blue jeans, a pressed blueish dress shirt and a baseball cap—the 57-yr-old Yakteen strode up to the gap in the backstretch where horses tin enter the track from the stable surface area. He was alone. Yakteen placed his hands on his hips, glancing right and left and straight ahead.

If this nobody trainer wins the Derby with a horse he inherited six weeks before the race, a dramatized version of that scene volition be in the inevitable movie. The place where Yakteen stood offers arguably the best view of the fabled Twin Spires and, in the film, he would certainly linger there to take in the scene and contemplate what fate has put in his hands.

The reality was decidedly less poignant. That glimpse of the Spires was brief and pragmatic.

"I had time to impale; information technology'due south a beautiful day," Yakteen said with a chuckle. "I just wanted to get a wait at the racing surface."

Nevertheless, the moment did carry some symbolic freight. Yakteen didn't know it, just he alighted precisely where Baffert had stood many times over the years. Baffert always drove around to the Churchill front side when his horses recorded major breezes, but on mornings when a routine jog or gallop was on the work tab, that runway gap was where he watched many of them. Yakteen was, literally, following in Baffert's famous footsteps.

Tin he follow those footsteps effectually to the winner's circle on the front side of the track Saturday? It's a dizzying proposition. Yakteen has been an banana to a pair of Hall of Famers in Baffert and the late Charlie Whittingham and has been grooming on his own since 2004, simply he's never come close to saddling a Derby horse before now. "Since going out on my own, these would exist the best 3-year-olds in my career," Yakteen said.

He'due south had some dainty moments prior to inheriting Baffert'due south stars: ten graded stakes victories, three of them Class Is. About of those came with two large horses: Mucho Unusual and Points Offthebench, the latter earning the 2013 Eclipse Honor as the nation'southward champion sprinter. Simply in a sport that gains significant mainstream attending only during the spring Triple Crown serial and autumn Breeders' Loving cup, Yakteen has been invisible.

Scour the internet for stories about him and the returns are slim. Just an interesting one pops upwardly from July 2021: nearly a fight Yakteen had with beau trainer Richard Baltas at Santa Anita, which reportedly stemmed from an argument in the wake of the Arkansas Racing Commission's ruling on Baffert's '20 medication violations there. According to a Los Angeles Times story, Baltas was "bad-mouthing" Baffert and "Yakteen came to his defense, verbally and physically." Both trainers were fined for the atmospherics.

Taiba, one of the two horses previously trained past Baffert that is racing in the Kentucky Derby, had health issues earlier in the year.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Logic dictates that Yakteen's loyalty to Baffert played an of import role in being called to inherit Taiba and Messier (not to mention inheriting do passenger Humberto Gomez, who rode Justify in the mornings in 2018). Tom Ryan, bloodstock and racing manager for Messier owner SF Racing, too had logistical reasons for the conclusion to tab Yakteen: "It made sense to keep them in the same surroundings—California, aforementioned racetrack. If you send them to Florida, they have to conform to the water, accommodate to the hay, arrange to more things. And Tim is a very good horseman."

Although there is nothing in the rules—in California or Kentucky—that prohibit consultation and communication with Baffert, Yakteen said the two have not talked since the horses changed hands. Even if they haven't spoken, it wouldn't be hard for a quondam assistant to replicate Baffert's customary grooming pattern for horses leading up to the Kentucky Derby. But it is noteworthy that Yakteen has not followed the usual route with Taiba, a $1.7 million buy.

The powerful chestnut colt might be the about unseasoned Derby runner ever, running just 2 career races and somewhat ominously landing on the Santa Anita "vet's list" after winning his debut in early on March. That means veterinarians had a physical concern nearly Taiba, who is owned by the owner of Medina Spirit, Amr Zedan. Taiba was listed as "unsound," indicating a likely leg issue. According to Santa Anita blogger Jeff Siegel, who was there, jockey John Velazquez eased the equus caballus up quickly later the race and walked him slowly dorsum to the winner's circle. At the fourth dimension, Baffert told Siegel, "Johnny thought he felt something funny behind, so he pulled him up. By the time he got dorsum to the winner's circle, the colt was fine. I don't know if he was put on the vet'south list, but it was nil."

Once on the vet's listing in California, Taiba had to await vii days earlier recording whatever timed workout and 15 days before an official workout (which is different from any timed piece of work, per the California Equus caballus Racing Board's Mike Marten). Taiba likewise had to pass pre- and post-piece of work vet examinations, come across a minimum fourth dimension standard and submit to post-work sample testing.

Taiba returned to the work tab March xviii and recorded three official workouts before surprisingly inbound the Santa Anita Derby off i career showtime, then more surprisingly winning it by passing Messier in the stretch and pulling away. That punched his ticket to Louisville, but Yakteen has worked him only in one case since that race, xix days afterward and ix days before the Derby.

Baffert customarily works his horses hard and has them dead fit for large races. Yakteen has taken a different approach, putting a lightly raced and lightly conditioned filly into a 20-equus caballus aisle fight. Information technology's a bold divergence. "I wanted to make sure I was bringing a horse to Kentucky with a full tank," he says. "It would practise me no good to take a horse that I misread to Churchill and take him underperform because I over-trained him."

Yakteen is finding out what it'southward like to have his every decision scrutinized on a grand scale. When 15–20 media members huddled around him outside Barn 37 on Mon morn for their starting time chance to talk to the trainer since he got to Louisville, Yakteen disarmingly reached for his phone and shot a quick video of the throng. "My boys will never believe this," the father of two said earlier taking questions and providing clipped, sometimes nervous answers.

He's inexperienced in these settings, but not unaware of the story he'southward become. The gravity of the moment and oddity of the situation is not lost on a guy who has made a living at the racetrack without getting rich there. This could be viewed every bit an incredible opportunity or a heavy burden, or both.

"I've sort of had a lottery ticket dropped in my lap," Yakteen said. "I'm trying to go to the window and greenbacks it."

Ane of the continuing displays in the Derby Museum is a statue of a horse with a jockey on its dorsum and the garland of roses draped over its withers. Each year, they change the silks of the jockey and the words on the horse'southward saddle cloth to stand for with the new winner.

This twelvemonth, Churchill had to invent a scene.

Mandaloun, winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby by disqualification, never got to vesture the roses. Never stood in the winner's circumvolve. Never was feted publicly every bit the winner of America's biggest horse race. But the statue says otherwise, with historical accuracy taking a back seat to museum continuity.

Trainer Brad Cox was in his home in New Orleans, packing to go to a race in Saudi Arabia, when his phone started blowing up with texts. They were from media members informing him that he had just won the Derby. Months after the fact, the DQ of Medina Spirit was fabricated official and Mandaloun was elevated to the meridian spot.

Baffert, i of the winningest trainers in horse racing history, is in the midst of serving a two-twelvemonth ban from Churchill Downs.

Pat McDonogh/Courier Journal/USA Today Network

"It simply really wasn't any thrill of victory," Cox said. "It was just, 'O.1000., cool. It is what information technology is.' Information technology didn't have that experience to it. It's the end of a long, drawn-out deal that's unfortunate. Maybe something good comes from it—maybe pre-race testing instead of post-race testing, that's my biggest thing. A race of this magnitude, we should know when the horses go over there that we're all playing on a level playing field and nosotros don't take to worry about a result a week later."

The debacle of 2021 casts a shadow over the 2022 Kentucky Derby. Bob Baffert is just a spectral non-presence this time around, but his absence is felt—all the more so if 1 of his former horses wins the race.

As for the future? Ane of the questions SI submitted to Baffert was about a possible render to the Derby later on his suspension is served. His written response: "The simply thing I'yard fighting for is to overturn this unfair suspension because I want to go along doing what I love, which is to train horses and compete. I have every confidence that, when my case gets before a neutral judge, the court will run into that the facts and the law take been with me the whole time."

If there is any incertitude about the 69-year-old Baffert'southward future intentions, consider this: Only two weeks agone, he and bloodstock amanuensis Gary Young entered a winning bid of $2.iii one thousand thousand for a 2-year-erstwhile colt in Ocala, Fla., on behalf of Zedan, the possessor of Medina Spirit and Taiba. That'south a large number, and a clear signal.

Bob Baffert has no intention of leaving the sport, and every intention of trying to win its biggest races again—including the Kentucky Derby, where he has been scrubbed from existence.

Read more of SI's Daily Comprehend stories here:

• Inside Hue Jackson's Tanking Allegations Against the Browns
• The Spirit of the NWSL As Information technology Turns x
• He Followed His Golf Dream. In the End, It Was a Nightmare
• Behind the Spectacle of Colin Kaepernick's Improvement Bout

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Source: https://www.si.com/horse-racing/2022/05/04/kentucky-derby-bob-baffert-medina-spirit-controversy-horses-daily-cover

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