Wearing American Pharaoh’s jacket, Bob Baffert showed up at Churchill Downs. It’s been a bit since anyone spotted the Hall of Fame trainer at the racecourse. Why so? Well, he ended up with a three-year suspension after Medina Spirit’s drug test revealed a banned substance in his system. But do you remember? It didn’t all just get sorted out in a few days. It really took months!
So, while Baffert was busy filing lawsuits to challenge his suspension, one of the standout legal moves came from Amr Zedan, who owns Zedan Racing Stables and has some notable Baffert-trained horses. Zedan took legal action against Churchill Downs Inc. in April 2024, looking for a temporary injunction to challenge the track’s ban on Baffert. This ban was keeping horses trained by him, like the Arkansas Derby winner Muth, from participating in the 150th Kentucky Derby. So, a Kentucky Circuit Court judge ended up denying the injunction, and the appeals that followed didn’t go through either.
Now that he’s back on the track, the 72-year-old trainer has opened up about what happened during the last few years of his racing career. “In racing, you have to accept when you get beat. You accept when things don’t go right. It was one of those things, ‘Well, I can’t change it.’ When I don’t have any control of it, I don’t worry about it,” said Baffert, according to the Courier Journal’s official website.
Bob Baffert has been around for decades and has definitely faced his share of challenges. Even though he wasn’t really looking forward to this experience since it did put a dent in his reputation, the trainer just went with the flow of whatever happened between him and Churchill Downs.
Baffert is eager to close this chapter and focus on the bright future ahead in the sport. So, how does the trainer actually feel about his horses that are taking part in the Run for the Roses?
Bob Baffert gets honest about his horses
If you’ve been keeping up with the Kentucky Derby, you probably know that Bob Baffert has two horses in the Grade 1 race. Rodriguez is sitting at 6-1 odds, and Citizen Bull is at 20-1. Not exactly the odds the 72-year-old trainer was hoping for, but with all his experience, he knows he can always make a comeback. How? The results at Churchill Downs on May 3 are really what counts the most.
When he was asked about the horses he had in the running, particularly in the prep races, he mentioned, “I actually had four qualified for it (including Getaway Car and Madaket Road), but I’m only running two. I could have had five, maybe or six or whatever, but it just didn’t happen. The Derby horses, they bring you along. They get you there. You can’t force the issue. They get you there, and you want to go there with horses that have a chance. You don’t want to go there with a horse just because he qualified and he has no chance. That’s not fun. When you do it once, you go like, wow, I’m not going to do that again, because you have the Preakness, and you’ve got the Belmont. All three races are exciting.”
Along with Rodriguez and Citizen Bull, Baffert had Madaket Road, Barnes, Gaming, Cornucopian, and Mellenchamp in the lineup too. So, it turns out that out of all the horses, only three really made the cut. At the last minute, he switched Madaket Road to the Pat Day Mile Stakes. You know, with his experience, he gets that while these prep races are important, it’s really the performance at Churchill Downs on May 3 that will be the true test for these horses.
Anything can happen, and there’s definitely still hope as we head into the first leg of the American Triple Crown. Baffert also mentioned that he’s really looking forward to the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, not just the Kentucky Derby.
The post Bob Baffert Addresses Churchill Downs Suspension Year After Kentucky Derby Lawsuit Defeat appeared first on EssentiallySports.
