Bob Baffert’s shock of white hair has been a signature part of Triple Crown horse racing for decades. But to those that follow the sport closely, his decades of cheating, doping, denying, and litigating are his real calling card.
In March of 2020, Baffert wrote this op-ed in the Washington Post calling for federal regulation and the passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act. In the 13 months following publication, Bob Baffert Racing Stables horses tested positive for banned substances five times in three states, including Medina Spirit at the 2021 Kentucky Derby.
Despite crossing the finish line first, Medina Spirit was disqualified for doping and officially did not win the Run for the Roses. The horse then died on the track during a workout at Santa Anita seven months later. It added to Baffert’s record number of dead horses per race participated in through the years. The most successful trainer in history has been cited for doping-related offenses at least 29 times.
With Medina Spirit, Baffert blamed cancel culture, then possibly a groom at one of his tracks that urinated in the barn after drinking cough syrup. It wasn’t first time his grooms have been leveraged for their potential consumption.
In 2000, Nautical Look tested positive for morphine, and a member of stable staff was then repeatedly asked by Baffert to testify he was eating poppy seed bagels and muffins around the horse to explain the positive test. The groom left the stable instead. In 2020, he said an assistant in the barn had a patch for his back pain that triggered two additional positive tests. So, yes, we’re going on almost a quarter-century of everyone being at fault except the trainer, whose excuses go far beyond strained credulity.
In a sport of rogues, what Baffert has done is combine the most prized thoroughbred horses in the world with a veterinary program giving him as much plausible deniability as possible, and a legal arm that ensures his billable hours are as impressive as his wins.
He doesn’t just compete on the track, but in preliminary injunction hearings, regulatory hearings, courtrooms, and anywhere else he can deflect and deny what has been obvious for a generation; that he’ll push the limits and break rules in ways that endanger championship-level horses, regulations and rules be damned, much less the health of the animal.
Now after a three-year suspension from all tracks owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated, Baffert is back in his usual barn in Louisville for the First Saturday in May. He first returned last November, after dropping litigation against CDI in January 2024. He’ll have Citizen Bull running in the first position. Rodriguez was going to run out of the fourth position, but was a late scratch on Thursday.
Baffert has 17 Triple Crown wins, including six at the Kentucky Derby, and by the numbers he is by far the most successful trainer of his era with over $320 million in prize money won. He’s captured the Triple Crown twice, with American Pharoah in 2015 breaking a 37-year drought by winning the three biggest races for three-year-olds in six weeks.
He did it again in 2018 with Justify, who was caught doping weeks before the Kentucky Derby in his qualifying race at Santa Anita, but Baffert and his team got those hearings moved behind closed doors. Justify never should have been allowed to compete in the first place. And if the New York Times didn’t dig, we’d never know how the California Horse Racing Board changed the rules on the fly to keep the bad PR away from a Triple Crown winning campaign.
On one cloudy Baltimore day in 2023, he had a horse filled with drugs that never should have been racing put down on the track, and then won the Preakness Stakes a couple hours later. It was just another day at the track for Baffert.
These are all things to remember when NBC interviews Baffert during their Saturday coverage of all the Derby Day races. And while there’s no doubt who the most successful trainer of his era is, the question is how much of his winning has been on the level. And how many horses have unnecessarily suffered and died while in his care to fuel those championships.
We’ll probably never know. But with decades of repeated missteps on his resume, we can continue to wonder how Baffert is still allowed to ply his trade anywhere. And how many more horses will die or suffer because of it.
