Findings of doping finally moved Kentucky racing officials to strip Medina Spirit of last year’s win in the Kentucky Derby and suspend its famous trainer Bob Baffert. Unfortunately, the only news is that the punishment was so lenient. Because here in part is what I wrote in “Baffert ‘Baffled’ as Doping Dogs Derby Winner. Ha!” May 10, 2021:
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Everyone knows doping is as commonplace in horse racing as it is in professional cycling. In fact, I commented on this open and notorious secret just last year in “Big Doping Syndicate Behind Horse Racing Finally Exposed … and Indicted!” March 12, 2020. …
[Trainer Bob Baffert] would have you believe that Medina Spirit suddenly upstaged Mister Ed by anthropomorphizing into a dope fiend who was sneaking off in the middle of the night to toke on betamethasone-laced hay. I mean, even that old dog-ate-my-homework excuse is more credible than his. …
Baffert is the big fish that keeps getting away. … This includes power brokers in the sport covering up a failed drug test that should have disqualified Baffert’s horse Justify from even competing in the 2018 Kentucky Derby. We know now that a doped-up Justify went on to win the coveted Triple Crown that year. I duly expressed my cynicism in “Justify Wins Kentucky Derby. But Horse Racing Is Still Unjustified,” May 7, 2018. Yet here they go again …
At the very least they will have to disqualify him for cheating in this race. But I submit that, to emerge from this scandal with even a shred of credibility, they must strip him of every one of his 7 record-setting victories in the Kentucky Derby, and bar him from competing in any other Triple-Crown race.
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Given that, you will appreciate the mixed feelings I had reading this about Baffert’s horse Medina Spirit being stripped of the 2021 Kentucky Derby title:
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission announced Monday that Medina Spirit’s victory at the 2021 Kentucky Derby has been disqualified.
The horse failed a drug test after crossing the finish line first at the Derby.
The KHRC also announced a 90-day suspension for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who trained Medina Spirit, and fined him $7,500.
(CNN, February 21, 2022)
I have long maintained that the difference between men (and they are invariably men) who train horses to race and those who train dogs to fight is tantamount to the difference between men who enslaved Blacks in houses and those who enslaved them in fields. The former shows a distinction without a difference in man’s inhumanity to animal; the latter shows the same in man’s inhumanity to man.
Some try to dignify horse racing by calling it “the sport of kings.” But this reeks of slapping lipstick on a pig.
Indeed, nothing betrays just how barbaric horse racing is quite like trainers routinely doping horses to death. Baffert is just the most famous of those trainers, and his horses the most celebrated.
This is why nobody should’ve been surprised when Medina Spirit dropped dead last December. But stripping it of the Derby title posthumously only damns Medina’s spirit for eternity.
Meanwhile, fining Baffert $7,500 and suspending him for only 90 days is every bit as unjust as letting a drunk driver who killed a pedestrian off with a speeding ticket. Clearly, if the price of cheating is that cheap, he will continue doing it.
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Medina Spirit…