The company that owns horse racing’s crown jewel, the Kentucky Derby, announced Monday that trainer Bob Baffert’s two-year suspension will be extended until the end of 2024.
Baffert’s initial ban from racing at tracks run by Churchill Downs Incorporated was scheduled to end this month, pending review.
But the company said Baffert has continued to show disregard for the rules, regulations, safety, integrity and fairness of horse racing at its facilities by promoting what it characterizes as lies about a failed drug test for one of its horses.
“Mr. Baffert continues to sell a false narrative about the failed Medina Spirit drug test,” he said in a statement.
Medina Spirit was stripped of the Kentucky Derby victory nine months after the 2021 win. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission confirmed that a lab found the horse had tested positive for betamethasone after the race.
The episode inspired the ban on Churchill Downs.
Baffert has denied drugging the horse on purpose, and on Monday issued a statement reiterating his claim that a topical treatment administered to Medina Spirit may have tested positive.
He said racing officials are still adjudicating on whether the topical, which he identified as Otomax, is allowed. His own lawyers, Baffert said, assured him that he was within the rules.
“I have been open, honest and forthcoming about these events,” Baffert said. “In no way does this imply a ‘disregard for the rules’.”
Last year, he sued Churchill Downs in federal court over the suspension.
Betamethasone is a legal pain-relieving steroid commonly used to treat horses, but Kentucky and other states ban it in any amount on race days.
Veterinarians say that its excessive use could mask serious bone and joint injuries and lead to fatal collapse.
In 2018, The New York Times reported that another Baffert horse, Justify, who had helped the trainer achieve his historic Triple Crown sweep in 2018, allegedly tested positive for a banned drug and should have been disqualified from the Derby.
The Times reported that California regulators overseeing the drug test took a month to confirm it and then concluded that the horse accidentally ingested the banned substance, scopolamine, by eating jimson weed found at Santa Anita.
Baffert’s attorney at the time said Justify’s drug test report was “little on facts” and sensationalized.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the group Animal Wellness Action, said drugs like betamethasone have contributed to high-profile horse deaths at racetracks coast to coast.
“Churchill Downs Inc., which has been under fire for 12 racehorse deaths prior to the Kentucky Derby, made the right decision to remove Baffert through the end of 2024,” Pacelle said in a statement Monday. The rules speak for themselves.”
Baffert’s Churchill Downs ban was initially set for two years through the spring season that ends this month.
The company, which also owns or co-owns Arlington Park Race Track, Ellis Park, Turfway Park and others, said it will re-evaluate Baffert’s suspension in 2025.
Los Angeles-based Baffert also faced temporary suspensions from the New York Racing Association, the state of Maryland and Santa Anita, his home track.
Baffert, a Hall of Fame trainer, is one of only two to have won all three Triple Crown races in a single year. He, too, has won 17 of the three races leading up to a Triple Crown.
