Bob Baffert inexplicably blames ‘cancel culture’ for horse-doping controversy

Trainer Bob Baffert’s horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby on May 1, tested positive for a banned substance. Apparently, according to Baffert, this happened because one of the groomers decided to take a piss on the hay in the horse’s stall after taking cough medicine, and the horse consumed it. This seems not at all weird and perfectly normal. Now, Baffert is playing the victim and blaming his ban from Churchill Downs on “cancel culture.” Clearly he’s the victim here.

“With all the noise… We live in a different world now. This America is different. It was like a cancel culture kind of a thing so they’re reviewing it. I haven’t been told anything. We’re prepared to run,” Baffert said Monday on Fox News.

Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, seems to have had enough of Baffert’s bullshit.

“To be clear, if the findings are upheld, Medina Spirit’s results in the Kentucky Derby will be invalidated and Mandaloun will be declared the winner,” Churchill Downs officials said in a statement. “Churchill Downs will not tolerate it. Given the seriousness of the alleged offense, Churchill Downs will immediately suspend Bob Baffert, the trainer of Medina Spirit, from entering any horses at Churchill Downs Racetrack.”

“It did not happen. That horse has never been treated with (betamethasone). Actually, it’s a legal therapeutic medicine and the amount that was in it wouldn’t have any effect on the horse anyway. But we don’t … That horse was never treated with that and so that’s the disturbing part of it,” Baffert said.

So it’s fine and it’s legal and it shouldn’t have been an issue… but let me backtrack real quick and reiterate that it didn’t happen. Cool.

So, which is it, Baffert? Did it happen, did it not, are you being conspired against, were you unaware, or is the racing world overreacting? It sounds like he threw the spaghetti of excuses against the wall to see what sticks, and unfortunately for him, nothing is. Blaming it on “cancel culture” when you’re approaching 30 drug violations in your career is a cringeworthy display of entitlement. Good on Churchill Downs for standing up to this twit.