Still swirling in winds of controversy, trainer Bob Baffert resolved to 'keep the noise out'

ARCADIA, Calif. — Bob Baffert lifted himself off the couch.

He was in his barn office at Santa Anita Park less than 72 hours before the Breeders' Cup, which began Friday at the Southern California track. Baffert, the Hall of Fame horse trainer and the most controversial figure in the sport, has 3-year-old Arabian Knight — the favorite in the $6 million Classic, the richest race during the two-day championships.

But from Baffert's seat on the couch, something else captured his attention. He walked over to a wall lined with framed photographs and pointed to some of his favorites. One shows Baffert standing on a jockey scale in the 1970s.

"I weighed 123 pounds after I spit my gum out," he told USA TODAY of his brief and undistinguished career as a jockey.

Now 70, Baffert has retained his sense of humor despite the horse racing scandal that has engulfed him since May 2021.

There was a one-year ban from the New York Racing Association he completed in January for medication violations and his ongoing ban at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. The discipline from Churchill Downs came after Medina Spirit, the Baffert-trained horse, finished first at the 2021 Kentucky Derby only to be disqualified after failing a post-race drug test.

Since 1997, Baffert-trained horses have won in fast conditions, sloppy conditions and just kept winning – six times in all, a record for most Derby victories by a trainer that Baffert shares with the late Ben Jones. He became part of the fabric at America's biggest horse race, not unlike the Churchill Downs' twin spires, mint juleps and the extravagant hats.

Then he was gone, initially suspended in June 2021 for two years.

"It was tough," said Baffert, who tried and failed to get the suspension overturned in court. "l want to say it was very humbling and humiliating at times what I went through at the Derby."

Drawing intense criticism from animal rights activists, Baffert has been called a horse killer, a liar and a cheater. He has flatly denied it all, but something came to mind after he looked at those photos in his barn office this week.

"What I will say is I was a bad jockey," Baffert said, with a grin.

Was Bob Baffert careless?

For years, Baffert took to media attention like horses take to hay and carrots.

Now?

"I don't want to be the story," Baffert said this week.

But his story, at Santa Anita Park, is unavoidable. This is the track where Medina Spirit won his last race – and took his last breath.

D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Fame trainer, quickly came to Baffert’s defense after news of Medina Spirit’s positive drug test broke in May 2021.

"He did not have a great fan base in the trainer colony," said Lukas, who said he discovered as much when fellow trainers criticized Lukas for defending Baffert. "He was an easy target (because) when you’re in our business, jealousy is part of it."

The notion dovetails with Baffert's narrative.

"There was a great quarterhorse trainer, and he sent some horses up to Nevada to run in these trial races," Baffert said, adding that he asked the trainer how things went. "And he says, 'Oh, I sent my (assistant) up there, and all he did was make a lot of friends.' He didn’t win a race."

Grinning, Baffert said, "So that’s the way it works here," implying that a winning trainer – say, one who has six Kentucky Derbys and two Triple Crowns to his credit, as Baffert does – makes more enemies than friends among the competition.

Yet Lukas suggested Baffert might bear some responsibility.

The post-race drug test showed the presence of the steroid betamethasone, a legal therapeutic that is banned on race day. Baffert said the steroid was in an antifungal ointment that had been used to treat Medina Spirit daily before the race. He denied the horse had been injected with the steroid or that it had been used for performance-enhancing purposes.

"If he’s only guilty of one thing," said Lukas, a longtime friend of Baffert, "that would be (being) a little bit careless."

Responded Baffert, "There’s no carelessness here. There hasn’t been carelessness since quarterhorse days or whatever. We run a pretty tight ship, and I just wanted to clarify that."

Bob Baffert and dead horses

Since the 1980s, Baffert’s operation has been based in California. As of 2021, he led the state’s trainers not only in prestigious victories with 17 Triple Crown races and 18 Breeders' Cup races, but also in rate of horse deaths, according to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post reported in June 2021 that at least 74 horses Baffert trained between 2000 and June 2021 died.

Baffert ranked first among trainers with a rate of 8.3 dead horses per 1,000 starts, according to the Post, which reported the average death rate in California was 7.2 horses per 1,000 starts. 

But Clark Brewster, an attorney representing Baffert, said the Post's data was misleading because the death per-start rate does not take into consideration the large number of horses Baffert trains. He also said Baffert's rate of horse deaths in training and racing is among the lowest in California.

The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) has collected such data from 2018 to 2023 and its website shows Baffert had nine deaths in training and none in racing for that period. His rate of 6.37 deaths per 1,000 starts during that period does not rank among the highest for California trainers, although the CHRB does not provide those calculations on its website.

Mike Marten, public information officer for the CHRB, confirmed the figures on the state agency's website.

Between 2011 and 2013, seven of Baffert's horses stabled at Hollywood Park, the since-closed Southern California racetrack, died. The cause of death in each case was ruled "sudden death" and led to an investigation by the CHRB, which described the clustering of sudden deaths as "highly unusual."

"Sudden deaths are most often defined as acute collapse and death in a closely observed and previously apparently healthy racehorse,'' according to the CHRB investigative report. Artery and vessel ruptures are causes of sudden death, according to an online post by Virginia B. Reef, a veterinarian and faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.

An executive summary of the CHRB investigation reads, "There is no evidence whatsoever that CHRB rules or regulations have been violated or any improper activity played a part in the sudden deaths."

Then in December 2021, after a morning workout at Santa Anita Park, Medina Spirit collapsed and died.

Baffert said the cause of death was an unpreventable heart attack. The CHRB later announced the necropsy report on Medina Spirit revealed he may have suffered a heart attack but the cause of death remained "undetermined." No banned drugs were found in the horse's system, according to the CHRB.

"It’s painful," Baffert said. "With something like that, you find what you might have done different. But there’s nothing. Those things happen. There’s no rhyme or reason."

But Elizabeth Banicki, a former exercise rider who said she worked for Baffert from about 2003 to 2010, said his operation is a conveyer belt of expensive horses being subjected to a "hammering" training regimen.

The regimen "makes them or breaks them," she wrote to USA TODAY in a Facebook message.

Baffert denies such allegations, saying, "We don’t take any chances (with the horses). We’re very careful."

Digging into the drug tests

In November 2020, the New York Times reported that Baffert’s horses had failed 29 drug tests over four decades.

"The cases took months, if not years, to adjudicate and were met mostly with modest fines or brief suspensions, as Baffert asserted he did nothing wrong and blamed the results on environmental contamination or human error," the Times reported.

Brewster, the attorney, noted Baffert's horses have never tested positive for a banned drug but rather for more than the allowable amount of permissible medication.

In 2000, the CHRB suspended Baffert for 60 days after it said one of his horses tested positive for morphine, a banned substance. The matter ended up in court, and in 2005 the CHRB dismissed the case when Baffert presented new evidence, according to a BloodHorse report.

"His regulatory history with medication violations, if you look at it in a thoughtful way, is minimal compared to other trainers' records," Brewster said.

In suspending Baffert for a year, the New York Racing Association cited seven medication violations – including Medina Spirit's failed drug test at the 2021 Kentucky Derby – at various tracks between 2019 and 2021.

Churchill Downs, in extending Baffert’s ban through the 2024 season following an initial two-year suspension, said Baffert had yet to accept responsibility for Medina Spirit’s failed drug test.

Fatalities at the Breeders' Cup

When talking about Medina Spirit's death, Baffert referred to another horse fatality.

Practical Move, which was entered in $1 million Dirt Mile at the Breeders' Cup, collapsed and died after a gallop Tuesday at Santa Anita – the same track where Medina Spirit collapsed and died 11 months ago. A necropsy will determine the official cause of death, but Breeders’ Cup officials cited a suspected "cardiac event."

"There's no way you can prevent that," Baffert said.

It was more grim news the following day. Geaux Rocket Ride, a contender in the $6 million Classic, was euthanized after injuring its front right leg during a workout four days earlier. Neither horse was trained by Baffert.

Just like that, the controversy over horse fatalities reared its head again and conjured up memories of the recent past.

In 2019, the last time the Breeders' Cup was held at Santa Anita, a 4-year-old gelding named Mongolian Groom had to be euthanized after fracturing a hind leg during the Classic. The horse was one of 42 that died at the track that year, according to the Associated Press, and fueled outrage over the death rate of racehorses.

The Stronach Group, which owns Santa Anita Park, implemented a number of safety measures and pushed for reforms that have coincided with a drop in horse fatalities at the track. But in 2023, horse deaths on the day of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes have kept the horse racing industry under scrutiny.

Of course that includes Baffert.

"I focus on the horses," he told USA TODAY, "and you got to keep the noise out."

There was no audible criticism during two days of morning workouts for the horses, when Baffert arrived wearing a bright blue parka and his signature sunglasses. There were handshakes and a hug and at least one fan asking for a photo with Baffert. He complied.

"You can finally be useful," Baffert told the guy taking the photo, and grins split their faces.

He also held court among a group of men, chatted with others and then got down to business: watching his Breeders' Cup horses, nine in all, including the star – Arabian Knight, the favorite he has prepped for the $6 million Classic.

Sun splashed on the San Gabriel mountains in the distance. Horses snorted as they galloped across the dirt track. One of the biggest events in racing approached.

"How’s the best trainer in the world?" someone asked.

"I’m doing great," Baffert said.