Childs Walker: After a record-setting victory, Bob Baffert remains a messy figure atop a messy sport

Of course a Bob Baffert-trained horse won the Preakness Stakes.

Thoroughbred racing exists in a perpetual gray zone between tragedy and uplift. So what result could make more sense than a Baffert horse winning a captivating Triple Crown race on the same track where a stablemate broke down, fatally, five hours earlier?

The juxtaposition of Havnameltdown’s grim accident in the sixth race at Pimlico Race Course and National Treasure’s gallant Preakness battle with Blazing Sevens again forced us to reckon with the two sides of Baffert’s massive legacy.

The 70-year-old trainer embodies everything thrilling and unsettling about the sport he continues to dominate. No one does a better job preparing horses to meet their potential on the most watched stages in racing. No one inspires greater distaste from those who see racing as corrupted by drugs and death.

Some of the wealthiest, winningest horse owners in the country stick with him because he delivers glory and fat purses. Animal welfare activists say he shouldn’t be allowed to run horses at all.

How do we reconcile these opposing visions of Baffert in the wake of his record-setting eighth Preakness victory? The most honest answer is that we cannot and need not. He’s a messy figure atop a messy sport.

It’s not as if these complexities are peculiar to Baffert and to horse racing. When Jim Brown’s death was announced Friday, there were those who wanted to remember him only as the greatest football player of all time and a bold advocate for civil rights. Others felt accusations that he repeatedly committed violence against women should eclipse his great achievements. The reality is that you can’t tell Brown’s story without including all the pieces, brilliant and ugly.

Baffert does not see himself as an example of what ails racing. As he spoke with reporters outside National Treasure’s stall at Pimlico on Sunday morning, he said, unprompted, that Preakness day was more sad than jubilant for him.

“It was nice to win the race, but to me, it was a pretty sad day,” he said, referring to Havnameltdown’s death. “It’s unfortunately something that, we try our best, and these things happen. … It happens and you’re just like, in shock. It hurts. All I’ll remember from this race is that we lost a good horse.”

He spoke to jockey Luis Saez, who was thrown in the accident and taken by ambulance to a hospital from which he was discharged later Saturday. “He said [Havnameltdown] was traveling beautifully. He was moving; it wasn’t like he was falling back or something,” Baffert recounted. “It’s something that nobody wants to talk about, but in our sport, it’s a part of our sport.”

Critics will accuse him of spilling crocodile tears, and there’s really no way to bridge their perspective and his.

What’s unquestionable is that Baffert remains the signature figure in his sport. A fan who watches three races a year probably could not pick Steve Asmussen or Chad Brown out of a lineup. But Baffert, with his trademark white hair and sunglasses and his talent for narrating the stories of great racehorses, transcends.

His story — the Arizona ranch kid who made his way in the quarter-horse world and did not switch to training thoroughbreds full time until he was approaching middle age, the guy who then started winning Triple Crown races at an unprecedented rate and proved to be just as gifted in front of a camera as he was in his barn — is remarkable.

It’s just that we can no longer tell that tale without some less pleasant, recent chapters.

In February of last year, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission stripped Baffert-trained Medina Spirit of his 2021 Kentucky Derby title because he tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone after the race. The commission suspended Baffert for 90 days, on top of a two-year suspension levied by Churchill Downs, home of the Derby. The 90-day ban also kept him away from the Preakness last spring, and the 2023 Preakness was his first Triple Crown race since 2021.

In announcing the two-year suspension, Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen made no bones about casting Baffert as an enemy of clean racing: “Mr. Baffert’s record of testing failures threatens public confidence in thoroughbred racing and the reputation of the Kentucky Derby. Given these repeated failures over the last year, including the increasingly extraordinary explanations, we firmly believe that asserting our rights to impose these measures is our duty and responsibility.”

Baffert sued the track operator in response, arguing that Medina Spirit’s Derby win should stand and that Churchill’s accusations damaged his reputation and earning power.

Baffert has said he was unfairly vilified for treating Medina Spirit with an ointment that was permitted for therapeutic use but not allowed on race day. More broadly, he has blamed medication violations from his barn on everything from exposure to a staffer’s lidocaine patch to the presence of a contaminant, jimson weed, in the feed of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify.

In his version of events, he’s sloppy at worst, the victim of an inconsistent, broken enforcement system. He said Sunday he welcomes federal medication rules, enforced by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, that will take effect this week.

It’s certainly true that most of Baffert’s chief rivals have also been penalized for medication violations. Most recently, Todd Pletcher, the leading money winner in history, was suspended 10 days because Forte, the scratched Kentucky Derby favorite, tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug meloxicam after a victory in September.

But Baffert’s critics are not inclined to give him a pass just because he’s surrounded by other violators.

“Bob Baffert being allowed to run at Pimlico this year reminds us again of how the long-standing system of promoting track safety for thoroughbreds and jockeys is broken,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Washington-based nonprofit Animal Wellness Action. “If Baffert was rightly excluded from a Triple Crown venue [Churchill Downs] in 2022 and 2023, then that prohibition should have applied to other race venues during that same time period and especially the Triple Crown tracks.”

Pacelle went further after Havnameltdown broke down: “If a trainer has a horse who dies in a race in the run-up to a Triple Crown contest, he or she should not be able to run a horse in that premier event. There must be consequences for trainers whose young, fit horses die in competition. Bob Baffert should not have been allowed to have a horse compete in the Preakness.”

Maryland officials had no grounds to make such a ruling, and Baffert, with a big assist from his most trusted jockey, John Velazquez, did what he does, sending National Treasure out for a tactically perfect victory in the Preakness. The bay colt will stay at Pimlico for at least a few days and could go on to run in the June 10 Belmont Stakes. Baffert foresees continued improvement for his latest winner, and why would we doubt him?

Anyone who thinks he will go away soon is deluded. Baffert is already working with a gifted group of 2-year-olds and will be allowed back at the Kentucky Derby next May. Could he have the favorite at the same track where top executives have crusaded against him? Don’t put it past him. Baffert was asked Sunday if he had thought ahead to that possibility.

“I think it just depends on what kind of horse,” he said. “I just hope I have a horse good enough.”

155th Belmont Stakes

Elmont, New York

Saturday, June 10

Post time: Approximately 6:50 p.m.