Bob Baffert

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Bob Baffert won the past two Kentucky Derbies with the same tactic -- get to the lead quickly, then dare anyone to pass. It worked. Nobody overtook Authentic, Medina Spirit, or Baffert on his way into the history books.

But in the wake of Medina Spirit testing positive for an impermissible amount of the anti-inflammatory betamethasone in a post-Derby drug test, Baffert’s strategy to get out in front may prove more difficult to pull off. Angry internet mobs are notoriously good closers.

It was all Bob Baffert, all the time on Monday morning. Baffert on Fox News. Baffert on The Dan Patrick Show. Baffert talking cancel culture (yeah, he went there). Baffert talking about how post-race specimens can be contaminated, with a particularly cringeworthy story about a groom urinating in a stall and the horse then ingesting the hay -- but not Medina Spirit’s stall (no film at 11).

Maybe Baffert should’ve let Johnny Velazquez get his defense out of the gate.

Unlike his past two Derby winners, Baffert is not having a good trip. His attempt to get out in front of this story and lay out a consistent public narrative has weaved just about everywhere, from his own innocence, to suggesting fault elsewhere, to playing the victim card.

The latest: Baffert says he won’t travel to Baltimore to the Preakness. He says he doesn’t want to be a distraction for assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes as he prepares Medina Spirit and Concert Tour for the race. Unfortunately for Baffert, as he demonstrated Monday morning, he doesn’t need to be in Baltimore to be a distraction. He can do that from anywhere.

At this point, he’d be well-advised to ease himself up as this lengthy process plays out. It’s going to take some time, 2-3 weeks at least for the split sample to be returned. If it comes back with the same result of the first one, Churchill Downs says it will disqualify Medina Spirit and award the 2021 Kentucky Derby victory and winner’s share to Mandaloun, trained by Brad Cox.

Churchill Downs, which suspended Baffert after his announcement that the first test came back positive, may face a legal challenge to that decision from Baffert’s attorney, who said the trainer wasn’t afforded due process.

If Medina Spirit is disqualified, expect even more legal action.

A couple of things worth remembering:

First, while it is all good conversation and possibly more horse racing talk than we’ve heard in years, I feel compelled to point out that ordinarily, at this point, nobody would know any of this yet, except for Baffert and his team and a few Kentucky stewards, and maybe officials at Churchill Downs. Ordinarily, this drug test -- and the subsequent result of the split-sample test -- wouldn’t have become public knowledge until well after Saturday’s Preakness Stakes in Baltimore.

Bob Baffert

Bob Baffert outside his barn at Churchill Downs in 2018.

The great majority of us would be unaware of the spit about to hit the fan. For better or worse.

There are lessons horse racing teaches. I’ve long thought that the sport was a perfect journalism training ground. If you can cover it successfully, you can cover most things. You have winners and losers. You have money. You have crime and punishment. You have to sidestep a good bit of excrement.

Lesson No. 1 of horse racing: You don’t have a winner until the race goes official. That’s why the sign says to hold all tickets.

We are, right now, in a holding pattern. That’s not how public sentiment works today. You form a flash judgment based on whatever you see, whether that information is complete or not, and you loudly voice that judgment and defend it regardless of whatever other information comes down the pike.

But horse racing, both after the race and with these kinds of drug issues, dictates that you wait for a result before rendering a judgement (or at least cashing a ticket). I know, that’s boring.

But with Baffert, that’s what I plan to do. I’m in no hurry to trash him. He’s not going anywhere. I know where he is. I know what he’s done wrong in the past, but right now the issue before us is this race, and this race deserves the respect of a full examination of the facts that come forward.

Second, if I were Baffert, I think I’d be wondering if I’d said too much. He wanted to get out in front of the news on Sunday morning when he announced the result of the test to a handful of reporters and began to roll out his defense. I’m not sure he recognized the magnitude of the response.

His continued efforts to manage the message aren’t likely to help him, or the sport. His best hope is that his horses are allowed to run in the Preakness, and that they come back clean and one of them wins.

I’ve written it many times: In American sports, winning is the ultimate penance.

This story has dozens of twists and turns still to take, and with each, there will be new reaction.

But no amount of argument from him is going to help Baffert slow the snowball of public sentiment against him -- or the horse he rode in on.

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