Even in Exile, Bob Baffert Is the King of the Sport of Kings

ARCADIA, Calif.— As exiles go, Bob Baffert’s has been a comfortable one. Most mornings, the horse trainer who is barred from competing in the Kentucky Derby, can be found beneath the rouge-tipped San Gabriel Mountains, holding court at Clockers’ Corner, the open-air bistro at Santa Anita Park.

Hands shoved in pockets on a recent morning, he talked basketball with a cluster of jockey agents and horse owners before shuffling on toward the eighth pole to watch his horses work. Once there, Baffert lifted his binoculars to study his Light Brigade like a jeweler sizing up uncut gems.

The horses in the Baffert barn are the most expensive in Southern California, if not the world. One of the owners he works for, Amr Zedan, paid $3.55 million at auction for a colt named Hejazi and $2.3 million for another, Arabian Knight.

If the name sounds familiar, it should: Zedan, a Saudi venture capitalist, owned Medina Spirit, who won the 2021 Kentucky Derby until he didn’t. The colt tested positive for a prohibited drug on race day and had his victory rescinded. Then Baffert was suspended for 90 days by Kentucky regulators and barred by Churchill Downs, the host of the Derby, from saddling horses in the race in 2022 and 2023. Maryland and New York regulators honored the ban in 2022, so Baffert also missed the other two legs of the Triple Crown, the Belmont and the Preakness.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/sports/horse-racing/bob-baffert-horse-racing.html