'He's here': What trainers are saying about Bob Baffert's absence from Kentucky Derby

On the one hand, Kenny McPeek doesn’t get all the fuss.

Sure, it’s different to be barreling toward a Kentucky Derby in the absence of fellow trainer Bob Baffert, who on Derby Day will be a little more than a month into a 90-day KHRC suspension levied after a test found betamethasone in the blood of Medina Spirit, the Baffert-trained horse who finished first in last year’s Derby.

But ask McPeek what it’s like to build up to a Derby without Baffert, and he literally shrugs.

“He’s here,” McPeek said.

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Messier and Taiba — two horses once under Baffert’s charge — are expected to be factors in the race. They’re now trained by Baffert’s former assistant Tim Yakteen. So it’s true that Baffert will have a presence Derby week.

But he won’t be a presence. And that’s significant.

“It’s going to be flat, and he’ll be missed,” trainer D. Wayne Lukas said. "He was unjustly beat up on and he was literally the face of racing here this week. That will be a big void. Whether you like him or you don’t, he was here and he was a part of it. You have to accept the fact that he was a big part of it.”

Buffet’s outsized personality — and his track record of massive success — separated him from the pack on the backside. He gives good quotes. He’s an instantly recognizable figure on the Derby broadcast. And his horses have won a record six Derbys, even with the late Medina Spirit’s win stripped.

“What he’s accomplished is pretty amazing,” McPeek said. “Hard to understand he’s in that position now.”

McPeek doesn’t think he should be.

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The trainer of 2022 Derby horses Tiz the Bomb and Smile Happy, McPeek doesn’t believe in trainer suspensions for what he said are “therapeutic overages” of betamethasone and other drugs.

Betamethasone is considered a Class C drug in Kentucky. As such, its use is permitted in racehorses, but it requires a 14-day withdrawal time. The way McPeek sees it, “there’s a big difference between therapeutic and illegal.”

“Let’s say a trainer gets an overage — and this might be a little controversial, but — let’s say a trainer wins a $10,000 race,” McPeek said. “The purse is $6,000 to the winner. The trainer typically receives 10%. So if you get an overage in a $10,000 race, the fine should be $600. But if you get a fine in a $3 million race and the purse is a million and a half to the winning owner and the trainer would have received $150,000, then the fine should be $150,000. I think the fine should equate to the gain.”

'He's here': What trainers are saying about Bob Baffert's absence from Kentucky Derby

If those overage fines pile up, McPeek said, then governing bodies should consider suspensions for repeat offenders. Offenses like Baffert’s, he said, should be penalized only with fines.

“The suspensions are problematic, because you can’t just take a trainer’s business and just move it,” McPeek said. “We’ve got too many pieces of equipment. You’ve got staffing, you’ve got payrolls, you’ve got so much there.”

Like it or not, though, Baffert will be absent this Derby Day. And it figures to be an impactful absence. Though his horses are in Yakteen’s barn, it won’t be the same.

“You won’t know (Yakteen is) here,” Lukas said. "He’s real quiet and reserved. He won’t be front and center.”

Baffert almost always was.

This year no eyes will be on him. And if his are on the race, it’ll be from afar.

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Lukas keeps in touch with his friend and rival and said that after a period where “I think it was starting to get to him pretty good,” Baffert has “accepted the fact that it is what it is” after exhausting his appeals options.

He’s “handling it better” now, Lukas said.

Still, his absence means this Derby will have a little less glitz — even if it won’t necessarily take the long-term shine off Baffert.

“He’s had very good horses,” McPeek said. “Very good horses win very big races. He has a lot of very good horses, and that makes all the difference. It’s not drugs that have been allowing him to win. It’s very good horses that have been allowing him to win.”

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: How Bob Baffert's absence at the Kentucky Derby is felt by trainers