Trainer on the stand for over three hours
Bob Baffert took the stand for the first time in his pre-suspension hearing with the New York Racing Association on Thursday. The trainer was there to defend himself against accusations that he has harmed the sport of horse racing and is a habitual drug offender.
Baffert, questioned by his attorney Craig Robertson, brought up some of his most memorable moments in New York, including American Pharoah’s Triple Crown win.
“I brought my best horses to New York,” Baffert said.
Attorneys for NYRA tried to discredit one of Baffert’s main talking points in the hearing, that NYRA is biased against Baffert due to board members who own horses that run against him. Henry Greenberg, representing NYRA, did so by bringing up the fact that Baffert had previously accepted rulings from the California Horse Racing Board and the Breeders’ Cup board, both of which also included rival horse owners.
Those boards also included owners for whom Baffert trained.
“Did you have a problem with the chair of the California Horse Racing Board, while he’s sitting in judgment of your case, had an interest in a horse you were training?” Greenberg asked Baffert, referring to former CHRB chairman Chuck Winner and Justify’s scopolamine case. “Did it bother you? Did it trouble you? Did it annoy you?”
Baffert responded by saying it did not.
“I know he’s an upstanding individual,” Baffert said of Winner.
Baffert testified for more than three hours Thursday at the Manhattan hearing, discussing the seven medication overages mentioned in NYRA’s case against him. The trainer defended his actions in most of the cases, although he acknowledged that, as the trainer and absolute insurer, he was ultimately responsible.
Baffert explained his post-Kentucky Derby media tour, wherein he said the reaction to Medina Spirit’s positive drug test was “cancel culture." The trainer said he regretted using that terminology and wished he had said “knee-jerk reaction” instead.
Baffert also spoke of the press conference at his Churchill Downs barn he eight days after the Derby, when he announced the positive test and claimed Medina Spirit had never been treated with betamethasone.
“I was pretty upset,” Baffert said. “That was just raw emotion, knowing that I did not inject that horse with betamethasone, and I was very upset about it.”
Baffert also steadfastly maintained his innocence in the Medina Spirit matter, saying the betamethasone found in the colt’s blood after the Derby resulted from the use of Otomax cream and not an injection. The trainer and his team have said that theory has been proven through further testing of the colt’s split urine sample.
Greenberg asked Baffert if he felt his actions immediately after the positive test was revealed were hurtful to racing.
“Do you recognize that?” Greenberg asked.
The trainer did not take sole responsibility, saying he felt the entire situation surrounding Medina Spirit’s positive test had been detrimental to the sport.
Baffert’s was not the only testimony on Thursday. Two veterinarians, Clara Fenger and Steven Barker, were brought up by Baffert’s attorneys, and both said the levels of medications found in all the the positives in question would not have impacted performance.
Those two stood in direct contrast to the Tuesday testimony of Dr. Pierre-Louis Toutain, who said the levels would affect the horses. Barker said he felt the permissible levels were too low.
“These are trace amounts,” Barker said of the medications found in Baffert’s horses. “Below trace, these are very small quantities.”
Fenger noted that in many jurisdictions, the phenylbutazone positives for Cruel Intention and Eclair would have been counted as one violation due to how close in time they occurred.
The hearing will continue Friday with closing statements from both sides. After that, hearing officer O. Peter Sherwood, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice, will create a report, which will then be heard by a panel in charge of making a final decision about whether to suspend of Baffert.
