Trainer Bob Baffert met with the media on the Churchill Downs backstretch Sunday morning, saying he wanted to get in front of a positive finding (21 picograms, or parts per trillion) for the anti-inflammatory series betamethasone in the post-race drug test of his seventh Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit. Baffert said Medina Spirit and Concert Tour remain on target for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. This video is available for any legitimate media use as a courtesy provided by the Kentucky HBPA.
First let’s talk about the uh the preakness horses um concert tour he worked really well i don’t know what they gave him but uh does anybody know what the official time was 100.40 100 and 2000. yeah i i he went out like three quarters galloped out strong and um he looked you know he looked like he looked really well he’s been training really well here it’s been
Working well and so um so i’m happy with the way he went so he’ll definitely be going to the preakness and uh medina spirit we just gave him like a stiff you know little open gallop sort of and uh we were happy with the way he went came out of the race really really well so you know they’ll both be going to the preakness any more preakness questions standing
Tomorrow yeah they’re going to be uh they’re going to leave here tomorrow afternoon so they’ll be they’ll get there about four in the morning maybe three four in the morning okay i’m yesterday i was i got a call from jimmy barnes on my head to the airport and i got some horrible news he said he had some horrible news for me that he’d just been been served by the
Kentucky race commission that uh medina spirit our derby horse had been tested positive for 21 picograms of betamethasone and all i can tell you is that betamethasone even though it’s an allowed drug medical therapeutic medication i we did not give it i my veterinarian nobody here we that matter of fact medina’s spirit has never been treated with betamethasone
So i cannot believe that i’m here before you guys i never thought of being here yesterday i got the biggest gut punch in racing for something that i didn’t do and and this is really it’s disturbing it’s an injustice to the horse um i feel like you know here’s here you here you win a race and you’re you’re still not to me the the i don’t know what’s going on in
Racing right now but there’s something not right and i don’t feel embarrassed i feel like i was wronged and we’re gonna we’re gonna do a complete you know our own investigation we’re gonna be transparent with the racing commission like we’ve always been uh we’re going to show them everything one thing about it in california everything is documented every day
What the horses get this horse was never treated with that and he’s a great horse he doesn’t deserve this he ran a gallant race and to me i just feel you know like this last 18 months what i’ve gone through and it’s just like it’s like all of us right here you just imagine yourselves going to to work every day and if they tested you every day for these levels
These contamination levels and they told you if you tested positive you were going to be fired that’s the way i feel i do not feel safe to train and i it’s getting worse and to me you know going forward i mean how do i enjoy you know to train how do i you know move forward from this knowing that something like this can happen and uh it’s just it’s a complete
Injustice and um but we’re gonna i’m gonna fight it tooth and nails because this horse you know i i owe it to the horse i owe it to the owner and i owe it to our industry and our industry needs to step up and we need to do a better job in race and there’s something wrong right now with what’s going i’ve been talking about it nothing seems to be going uh done
About it but these uh these contamination levels and i’m not a conspiracy therapist i know no everybody’s not out to get me but there’s definitely something wrong why is it happening you know to me you know there’s problems in racing but it’s not bob baffert and i just want to get that across to you guys and craig do you want anything to add to this or you’re
Fine but we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna fight this and uh i just feel it’s just an injustice so bob at that level is that a disqualification from the derby is that the way they tell you well first of all he’s not disqualified yet we we have to go through the process uh we have to do a dna sample was it him um something’s not right here
Something just not right um he uh you know it’s not a it’s not a disqualification until the split sample comes it’s not official until the split sample comes and that’s part of the process we haven’t even got to that yet uh usually we wait for that before it but i knew i want to get i want you know get in front i hate this leaking now everybody everything leaks
Out people knew about it before i did and uh you know that’s very disturbing but uh we’re uh you know he’s not you know we still have to go through the process he’s still the derby winner but we have to go to that process he said 21 picograms what is the level in um kentucky i don’t even know it doesn’t matter because you said you didn’t give it to him so no
We didn’t that’s one thing we didn’t we did not give the horse he’s he he wasn’t nobody here he wasn’t around it so ten is it ten yeah ten so uh so to me i don’t i don’t know it’s just to me i was totally shocked when i heard this news it was just shocking and it’s it’s just you know i still i’m trying to absorb it right now i still can’t believe that i’m talking
About it we should be joyful i mean we went through the you know you win the most prestigious race in america and and the thing is about it i’m i’m under i know i’m the most scrutinized trainer and i have millions of eyes on me but you know what i don’t have a problem with that and the last thing i want to do is is do something that would jeopardize the greatest
Two minutes in sports and i just want to get that out there that uh you know this is this is terrible but um we have to deal with it now bob this was from the post-race sample yeah what is your suspicion of what went wrong you know what i don’t have i’m not going to speculate i have no idea where it came from we don’t know uh we can’t believe it’s in there um
And so um that’s something that we’re just uh you know the the process has to start we’re gonna investigate it thoroughly and so um that’s all i can tell you on that what’s the timetable for the project i don’t know uh you know we really didn’t i i talked to the stewards and it’s uh you know it’s the process it’s you know it’s i don’t know it could be a way i
Don’t know i don’t know what it is have you had conversation you said with the stewards or was there yes i talked to the stewards i talked to the stewards they came here and i talked to the stores yesterday and they told me that they were gonna uh contact um once the owner the one i mean you know they want to contact the owner he was he was in uh he’s in saudi
Arabia or wherever he is are you afraid because with what happened with game last year i mean it’s kind of like there’s a big story when it happens and then kind of when they clear you it’s not as big a story well i mean it was a different story because we we did everything we followed the rules and went extra four days and still uh we’re in trouble we we but we
Admit we we did treat her this horse is not treated with with this and so that that’s the part that’s that’s the scary part and it makes me as a trainer um is this the way is this the life that i have to live from now on we we have to worry about you win a race you have to worry a week later i’ve never had to worry about a you know worrying about the test we win
A race never had to worry about it and so i don’t know what is going on with uh with uh the regulators things are going on but uh i’m just um i’m just you know a lot of work oh yeah definitely we know we’re sitting ducks basically and it’s getting worse and um and this is something that you know has to be addressed by the industry can you tell us what this drug
What what is it used for when it is used um it’s a um i don’t it’s an anti-inflammatory so uh you’d use it in joint injections i’m not you have to talk to that all right what’s your plan for the investigation though well i’m gonna you know um craig robertson my lawyer was here he’s gonna you know he’s gonna restart the process and it just whatever you know just
There’s a lot of things you know just yeah you know we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna pull hair i i immediately i demanded that the state pull hair from him to make sure if he’s ever had pain methadone in his system which he shouldn’t and um dna testing make sure that’s the right test uh we we had a we had to jump through a lot of loops to get to the derby
They do auto competition testing he had that done on the 18th um that samples we’re going to have him look at that again i mean there’s a lot of things just a lot of things we’re going to be doing about how about how long might it be before results of the split sample come back you know those things you don’t know about them well if you took some steps to try
To address the perception there was a problem in your barn you hired how to bring people in what changes have you seen the way you do things yeah i mean the thing is about this tim is that we’re we’re aware of being extra careful clean wash your hands uh everything and for this to happen and especially on the in the biggest day i mean i’m so proud of the body
Of work uh that we’ve had and this has really hurt it it hurts everybody we still be we should be enjoying ourselves uh and then for something like this to happen it just it was shocking i still you know and so this shouldn’t have happened so i don’t know what there’s a problem somewhere it didn’t come from us something happened there so we we don’t know what
It is and i’m not saying your procedures change the way you well i mean i always had really good procedures and everything we did like with a justified i couldn’t have prevented that i mean he ingested hey uh i couldn’t the the the arkansas the light of king we thought it was possible that jimmy with a patches and it turned out there was other horse contaminated
In that day and jimmy didn’t contaminate those so it wasn’t jimmy so we’ve always been upfront with everybody we’ve been very transparent anything we do can mean i was very transparent you know show the vet records we’re going to show the vet records we’re going to you know we’re going to show them everything and they’re not they’re going to they’re not going to
See uh beta method zone and and that’s the way that that’s the way we roll and we’re going to continue to roll that way are you going to publicly release those vote records i i release them to the uh to the um kentucky horse racing commission or whoever you know do you i’ve asked you this before i mean i’ll ask this again do you feel like you’re the subject of
A wish well i mean i i’m i’m not gonna i’m not saying that i just say it just seems odd that why am i the only one that has uh you know the contamination why am i the only one that just seems odd to me of all the races you know we won three races that day and they all got tested and he’s the only one and um and so for some reason i’ve always gone and i always
Asked first thing i asked was there any other positive um and they’ve always told me no and then later on when you get down the road you thought well there was you know so i don’t know there’s a lot to to deal with uh well i’m worried that i’m worried about our sport our sport is this is this is not you know we’ve taken a lot of hit for this warrant and um you
Know this is this is this is not you know this is pretty uh pretty serious accusations here and so um but we’re going to get to the bottom of it and find out we know we didn’t do it and that’s the thing we didn’t have anything to do with it i don’t know how it got in this system if if it’s in the system or was there a mistake or something we’re going to get to the bottom of it
Transcribed from video
Baffert: Derby winner was never treated with betamethasone By Kentucky HBPA