This of course doesn't mean I don't have opinions; it means I don't think Twitter is where they belong. So when after the announcement that Bob Baffert, now the winningest trainer of Kentucky Derby winners with seven has once again had a horse come back with a positive drug test and is, until further notice, suspended from entering horses at Churchill Downs, I openly asked Joe Drape, the racing columnist for the NYT, "Where did Bob get his degree in chemistry?"
Chemistry seems to be a key word. Years ago DuPont the chemical company used an advertising tagline: "Better things for better living through chemistry." Indeed.
I've never had such Twitter traffic, as many people have "liked" a Tweet I was named in, and correspondingly, "liked" someone else's comments about Teflon Bob.
One Tweet from @KarlSemkow was most interesting. It went:
Quick story...once at Aqueduct, I stood under a TV watching a race next to Allen Jerkens who had a horse in the race. I asked him why he didn’t win more.....he looked me straight in the eyes & said “because I’m not a chemist, son."
Trainers are not spotted often with the general public, but I can remember once being at a refreshment stand counter with Elliot Burch of Rokeby Stable and Sallie Baily, who trained the great turfer Win, who was running that day. It happens.
Interesting in the Churchill Downs ruling so far is that Baffert is prohibited from having any horses in his barn be entered under an assistant trainer's name. In days gone by, this was a common tactic, like a manager getting thrown out of a baseball game but still managing from the dugout tunnel.
To illustrate how well known Baffert is to the general public consider my wife, who is not a sports fan in any sense of the word, who yesterday leaned out of the front door as I was gardening and asked me, "What does it mean that the Derby horse tested positive for a drug?" I replied, "It means Bob Baffert is not going to have a good day."
Bob is quoted as being "shocked" at the positive result. He's beginning to remind you of Captain Renault in Casablanca who has just been asked to close Rick's casino by the Nazi Major Strasser because he's mad at a patriotic display by the resistance fighter Victor Laszlo.
Rick asks on what grounds can Renault order his casino closed. Louie responds, "I am shocked, shocked to learn gambling is going on," just as Renault is handed his payoff in the form of "winnings." The wagons are starting to circle Bobby B.
Even this morning the Tweets keep coming. Stories of how back in Bob's quarter horse days he was felt to be drugging. He has so far escaped anything resembling a suspension or fine that would put him out of business, despite five positive results in the past year or so. He's not just Teflon Bob. He's Houdini.
The drug detected this time was betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling. Other drugs were scopolamine, found in tainted hay. It never seems to be the same drug. It's even been an allergy medication supposedly inadvertently transmitted from the assistant trainer's hands to a horse. The explanations are starting to sound like how Nixon's secretary accidently reached out with her arms and legs and somehow deleted 18½ minutes of Watergate tapes. Oops.
I thought horses in big races were quarantined for a few days before the race, kept in a separate barn with security supervision to prevent the administration of race day, or near race day illegal medication. I don't know if this was he case in Churchill.
If the split sample comes back positive and Medina Spirit is removed from the purse distribution, and Bobby B. suffers a genuinely serious suspension/fine, the legal activity is going to rival that of the bankruptcy case of Penn Central in Philadelphia Federal courts. The song "On and On" will go on and on.
In 1968 when I started my love affair with racing at the Belmont Stakes by hitting a cold Daily Double for $22, the Dancer's Image disqualification from the Derby was the news roiling the sport. Dancer's Image had been disqualified for a positive drug test, and Forward Pass was declared the winner. Forward Pass went on to win the Preakness, and therefore set up a possible Triple Crown by winning the Belmont that no doubt would come with a giant asterisk. (Stage Door Johnny won the Belmont that year, so the asterisk was avoided.)
Peter Fuller, the owner of Dancer's Image started a series of lawsuits that pretty much followed him to his grave. At one point, Dancer's Image was reinstated by the courts as the winner, only to have that ruling reversed. Fuller died having his horse finally irrevocably disqualified.
The owner of Medina Spirit, Amir Zeden, no doubt will be suing, probably not just Churchill, but Baffert himself for what will be the forfeiture of a $1.8 million purse payout. On and On.
Going back over my past performances, it's not as if Medina Spirit went from a plodder to a world beater. The horse's last four Beyer speed ratings were: 94, 95, 94, 99. I've read his Derby rating was 102, not an impossible, legitimate improvement.
It is interesting to note that when I read Joe Drape's NYT story about the Derby result on the following Sunday it struck me as a little dour, emphasizing Baffert's past troubles, rather than writing about John Velazquez's front-running, creative ride. Thinking of the story now, it seems Mr. Drape was prescient in his writing, because today his Derby story is front page, below he fold. Racing again is getting the bad light, like what shines on the Tour de France and Olympic sprinters. Nobody seems to compete cleanly.
A race gets declared official and the bettors paid off very soon after the result is posted. There is no wait for the toxicology report to come back. I played Baffert's horse thinking to myself, "well, if he wins and gets a positive result, they're going to pay out anyway." And of course that's what happened.
A suspension from one track can be recognized by other tracks. Thus, Baffert's string in California could find him frozen out of Santa Anita if they choose. But even most interesting is that Bob intends to race Medina Spirit in this Saturday's Preakness. Plans to. We'll see what happens
And why not? Even when it's over, it's not over. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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