Bob Baffert | Horse Racing Free Tips

Taking Stock: Quality of Baffert and Hancock with The Avengers

Bob Baffert is banned from Churchill Downs for two years and his 3-year-olds are ineligible for points in qualifying races for the Gl Kentucky Derby and Gl Kentucky Oaks. He may also get banned (again) from NYRA, which hosts the Gl Belmont S., which could leave only the Gl Preakness open to horses from his barn. So perhaps it's appropriate that he won a race over the weekend–the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate–that gives the winner a guaranteed entry to the middle leg of the Triple Crown.

Blackadder, a son of top sire Quality Road, won the listed race in the colors of Sol Kumin's Madaket Stable from Mackinnon, an American Pharoah colt also flying the Madaket silks but trained by Doug O'Neill. If you haven't noticed, the Madaket silks are ubiquitous across the country these days, particularly in Baffert's barn, which is loaded with well-bred Triple Crown hopefuls belonging to “The Avengers” partnership that includes many entities, headed by principals SF Bloodstock, Madaket, and Starlight Racing. Aside from the three named, Blackadder, a $620,000 Keeneland September yearling, is owned by Robert E. Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Jay A. Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital, Catherine Donovan, Golconda Stable, and Siena Farm. All of the 3-year-olds owned by this group run either in the colors of Madaket or Starlight, and they have become a familiar sight in the winner's circle of quite a few Derby preps lately.

Blackadder is the latest. The colt, who was bred in Kentucky by Arthur Hancock III's Stone Farm, won the race with a rousing finish, and the farm was quick to tweet the news of its latest stakes winner. Stone Farm also bred Baffert's 2019 Gl Santa Anita Derby winner Roadster, another son of Quality Road who was on the Triple Crown trail for the Speedway Stable of Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner, with Hancock retaining a 10% interest. Speedway picked up an Eclipse Award last week when its undefeated colt Corniche, also by Quality Road and trained by Baffert to win the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Gl American Pharoah S. last year, was named the champion juvenile male for 2021–the third Eclipse winner for his sire after champion juvenile filly Caledonia Road and champion 3-year-old filly Abel Tasman.

Baffert trained Abel Tasman, the 2017 Kentucky Oaks winner, for China Horse Club and breeder Clearsky Farm, and he clearly has an affinity for the offspring of the Lane's End-based sire, who stands for $150,000 live foal this year. One reason for this is that the Quality Roads like West Coast tracks. Baffert also trained the Quality Road son Klimt for Kaleem Shah when that colt won the Gl Del Mar Futurity in 2016.

All told, Baffert has trained two of Quality Road's three champions, and four of the stallion's 12 Grade l winners to date, and any owner or breeder with a classic hopeful by Quality Road in Baffert's barn would be understandably hyped. At the end of the day, winning championships and races at the highest level boost bloodstock values, and that's what it's all about to owners and breeders who play at the top of the market.

Abel Tasman, for instance, won six Grade l races and earned nearly $2.8 million on the track but made the ultimate score when selling for $5 million as a broodmare prospect at the 2019 Keeneland January sale. Likewise, the breeding rights to Corniche have already been sold for $17 million, I've been told, even though the colt is unlikely to make the Derby after a lengthy freshening. And that's miniscule compared to the more than $100 million for the breeding rights generated together by the Baffert-trained Justify (Scat Daddy) and Authentic (Into Mischief)–the former a Triple Crown winner, the latter a Derby winner, and both Horses of the Year. SF, Madaket, and Starlight were involved in Justify and Authentic, as they were in Charlatan (Speightstown), another Baffert trainee whose breeding rights made significant millions. There are several others as well, and it's one reason why the group has been loyal to Baffert through the trainer's recent travails.

Hancock connection

Blackadder isn't the only colt for the SF/Madaket/Starlight group with Baffert with a Stone Farm/Quality Road connection. On Jan. 21, the Quality Road 3-year-old Armagnac, flying the Madaket silks and under the same ownership as Blackadder, won a mile and a sixteenth maiden special at Santa Anita by 2 1/4 lengths in his second start. He appears to be another with future stakes potential. Armagnac was bred in Kentucky by Stone Farm and Joseph W. Sutton, and he was purchased by the SF group at the 2020 Keeneland September sale for $210,000 from the same Stone Farm consignment as Blackadder, as mentioned earlier a $620,000 buy.

There's no question that Arthur Hancock knows how to breed and raise a good horse at Stone Farm. He raised Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence, stood his sire, Halo, and raced him with trainer Charlie Whittingham and another partner before selling him to Zenya Yoshida for a reported $10 million (after initially selling a quarter of the 1989 Horse of the Year to Yoshida for $2.25 million in early 1990 when the colt was four); bred and raced 1982 Derby winner Gato del Sol with Leon J. Peters; bred with Peters and sold 1988 Preakness and Belmont S. winner Risen Star; and bred with Stonerside and sold Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus for $4 million at the 1998 Keeneland July sale, among others of note. And he's raced more than a few partnership horses in the Derby aside from the colts mentioned, including homebreds Menifee, who lost the Derby by a neck in 1999; and Strodes Creek, a Whittingham-trained colt who was second in the 1994 Derby.

A savvy commercial breeder with a great understanding of the potential of winning big races on the values of sires, dams, and female families, Hancock has tasted Derby success doing things his way and knows how the sausage gets made with the right trainer, such as a Charlie Whittingham, at the helm.

After Fluor and Weiner, clients and friends of Baffert, purchased Roadster for $525,000 from the 2017 Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September, they offered Hancock the opportunity to stay in for 10%, and Hancock took them up because he was well in the black on the colt and was high on his chances for success. He'd bred Roadster when the Ned Evans-raced Quality Road was standing for just $35,000, and he'd purchased the colt's dam, Ghost Dancing, a few years earlier from the Ned Evans dispersal for $220,000, in foal to Candy Ride (Arg).

The Candy Ride, named Ascend, was gelded and initially raced by Hancock with Graham Motion, but sometime in 2016 when Ascend was four, Madaket became a partner in the gelding with Hancock. In 2017, a few months before Roadster was sold at Keeneland, Ascend won the Gl Manhattan at Belmont, which was pivotal in enhancing Roadster's value at auction.

After Roadster won the Santa Anita Derby–defeating Baffert's juvenile champ, Game Winner–and was headed to Churchill Downs, Hancock was sitting pretty because his mare Ghost Dancing was now the dam of two Grade l winners, something that would greatly enhance the value of her Twirling Candy yearling; and Hancock had a minority stake in a potential Derby winner, trained by Baffert.

In an interview with Zoe Cadman in the week before the 2019 Derby, Hancock was asked about his trainer, who'd won five Derbys at the time, including two Triple Crowns, and he said: “I can see, just being around Bob, his record speaks for itself. I told him the other day, you're Charlie junior, talking about Charlie Whittingham. He laughed.”

Unfortunately, Roadster finished 16th of 19, but, thanks to Baffert, he did have that Grade l on his resume, which helped Hancock later that year when his Twirling Candy half-brother made $950,000 at Keeneland September. Twirling Candy's stud fee the year the colt was conceived was $20,000.

Blackadder is from the Pulpit mare Chapel, a Hancock homebred from a family he has cultivated through generations. Baffert jumpstarted this mare and her family as well, training Chapel's first foal, the Hancock-bred Quality Road filly Gingham. She'd been purchased by Sarah Kelly for $420,000 from the Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September in 2018.

For Baffert, Gingham won a listed race at Santa Anita and was Grade ll-placed and Grade lll-placed, earning $214,000. The black type helped her realize a price of $1 million at the 2020 Keeneland November sale as a broodmare prospect.

Moreover, her black-type success with Baffert obviously contributed to SF/Madaket/Starlight paying Hancock $620,000 for her full brother, who is now a black-type winner himself and one with a pedigree suggesting further improvement. With two Quality Road stakes winners on her resume, Chapel's value has skyrocketed, especially as she was bred to Quality Road for a 2022 foal.

But with the Baffert runners out of the Derby as things now stand and the Avengers group showing no signs of switching trainers to make the Derby despite holding a full house of promising candidates, the financial ramifications for the ownership group potentially extend to the breeders of these colts as well.

That's something that must be disappointing for Hancock and others.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Baffert Legal Team Optimistic After KHRC Hearing

A full 289 days after the running of the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby, the Churchill Downs stewards finally got around Monday to holding a closed-door hearing regarding the positive post-race test for Medina Spirit (Protonico). And while a decision may not be imminent, Clark Brewster, the lawyer representing trainer Bob Baffert, emerged from the hearing hopeful that his side will prevail.

“Upon an honest and fair-minded review, Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit will be fully exonerated,” Brewster wrote in a text.

As has been the case with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) since the running of last year's Derby, the hearing was shrouded in secrecy, which left many questions unanswered. Brewster said he did not know when a decision would be announced.

“How long is a string?” he texted, using a phrase that meant he did not know the answer and did not want to venture a guess.

Medina Spirit tested positive for the medication betamethasone.

Should the Churchill stewards decide to disqualify Medina Spirit, Brewster, Baffert and owner Amr Zedan would have the option of appealing the decision to an administrative law judge. It seems likely that's an option they would take in a legal battle that could drag on interminably.

At first Baffert denied that Medina Spirit had ever been treated with betamethasone, but then changed his story. He said the horse was treated with a skin ointment before the Derby to deal with a rash and the ointment contained betamethasone. The Baffert team subsequently had a split sample from the race tested and said it proved that the betamethasone came from the ointment, which meant that it was not injected into the horse, something that, possibly could have improved performance. The stewards may decide that it does not matter where the drug came from and that its presence in Medina Spirit warrants a suspension, no matter the circumstances.

“We are now left to trust that the stewards will apply the uncontroverted facts to the Kentucky Racing rules as they are written,” Brewster said in his text. “Medina Spirit was treated by veterinarian prescription with a topical salve for a skin infection. The Kentucky rules expressly permit use of topical salves and the treatment given to Medina did not violate any rule. The post-race specimen positive reporting 21 picograms of betamethasone was caused by the topical salve. The Kentucky Rules (and all other jurisdictions) restrict only Betamethasone Acetate or Sodium Phosphate (which appears in a horse's system when injected with betamethasone). These formulations are Injectable solutions into a horse's intra-articular joint. Medina Spirit was never injected with betamethasone and the evidence presented today proved that conclusively.”

Brewster wrote that Baffert has been treated unfairly.

“The false narrative regarding this case was sprung early and spread widely by uninformed or malevolent accusers and spread by careless reporting,” he said.

Even should the stewards decide to maintain Medina Spirit as the winner, Baffert could still be on the outside looking in when it comes to the 2022 and 2023 Derbies. He is under a two-year suspension issued by Churchill Downs and the track would be under no obligation to lift its ban if Baffert is cleared by the KHRC.

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Medina Spirit Necropsy: Cause of Death “Undetermined”

The cause of GI Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit's (Protonico) sudden death on Dec. 6 at Santa Anita remains undetermined, according to the findings of a necropsy on the horse.

In a news release issued in tandem with the necropsy report Friday, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) stated that a “definitive cause of death was not established despite extensive testing.”

As per the CHRB news release, while omeprazole—an anti-ulcer medication—and the ubiquitous diuretic Lasix were detected in blood and urine samples, these findings were consistent with the medication report filed with CHRB by the attending veterinarian.

“No other drugs, heavy metals (including cobalt), or toxicants were detected,” wrote the CHRB.

The necropsy report itself summarises the findings of the study, which experts say are indicative of sudden cardiac events in racehorses.

“The most remarkable gross and microscopic changes were pulmonary congestion and edema, with milder hemorrhage. There were also congestion and small hemorrhages in multiple organs. No significant evidence of prior episodes of pulmonary hemorrhage other than a single and mild focus of hemosiderosis was observed,” the necropsy report states.

According to the report, “detailed microscopic examination” of the heart revealed minimal changes in the myocardium, the muscular layer of the heart.

“Although the significance of this finding remains undetermined, it is likely incidental because of the limited extension and severity, and also because similar changes have been seen before in horses dying of non-cardiac related causes (e.g. euthanasia). In addition, mild remodeling (thickening of the adventitia) of the intra-pulmonary veins was observed. This is also likely an incidental finding,” the report states.

Extensive toxicologic testing using “multiple samples” obtained at necropsy proved “unrewarding,” the report states.

“Considered altogether, the results of the post-mortem examination, histopathology, and ancillary testing, are supportive of a sudden cardiorespiratory arrest as it may occur with acute cardiac failure. A defect in the cardiac conduction system should be considered as a possible cause of cardiac failure,” the report states.

Unrelated to the sudden death, the pathologists discovered degenerative joint disease in Medina Spirit's four fetlocks and both elbow joints. These sorts of issues are typical in racehorses.

The necropsy was performed at the California Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) San Bernardino laboratory, by a team who form part of the diagnostic laboratory system of the University of California-Davis (UC Davis) School of Veterinary Medicine.

In its news release, the CHRB outlined the mechanics of the necropsy, which included the collection and examination of tissue samples from the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, stomach, intestines, muscle, brain, spinal cord, testicles, and other glands. Additionally:

– Liver tissue was tested for various substances including heavy metals like cobalt, anticoagulants, pesticides, environmental contaminants, and drugs.

– A blood sample was sent to Cornell University to be tested for thyroxine.

– Blood, urine, and aqueous humor samples were screened for “hundreds” of legal and illegal drugs and substances, including erythropoietin (EPO), clenbuterol, and betamethasone.

– Heart tissue samples were sent to the University of Minnesota and to the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory as part of ongoing collaborative research program with the CHRB investigating possible genetic causes of sudden death in racehorses.

– The finalized report—including necropsy photographs and microscopic sections—were sent to experts at the University of Kentucky and the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, for independent review.

In his response in the necropsy report, Grant Maxie of the University of Guelph, explains how cases of sudden unexpected death in racehorses are “frustrating to deal with, and frequently remain unresolved, as in this case.”

Without the monitoring of cardiac rhythms, Maxie writes, “cardiac electrical activity remains unknown.”

Maxie adds that “minor lesions of myocarditis (“very rare mononuclear infiltrates” in this case) or fibrosis (as in the Swale syndrome) may be the source of electrical instability

and dysrhythmia, but such comments are speculative in postmortem cases.”

Marked acute pulmonary congestion and edema in this case is “consistent with acute heart failure,” he writes.

During a media Q&A Friday morning after the release of the report, representatives of UC Davis explained how the necropsy performed on Medina Spirit mirrored those performed on other racehorses who have died in California, except for one difference: US Davis sent the report for peer review.

The drug testing results, however, were not peer reviewed, said CAHFS director, Ashley Hill.

“We tried to find somebody to look at the drug test but we weren't able to,” said Hill, who explained that the university they approached raised liability concerns.

“We weren't able to get the contract turned around in a timely manner, and we thought it was more important to get the results out,” Hill said.

CHRB executive director Scott Chaney also explained that the samples the agency had taken—a separate process to the necropsy study—had yielded no drug positives.

The Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit collapsed and died after a scheduled workout on Dec. 6 at Santa Anita.

Medina Spirit's death triggered a wave of international headlines, not only because the horse faces possible disqualification from the Derby after a post-race sample tested positive for betamethasone, but also because seven Baffert trained horses infamously died suddenly during training or racing between 2011 and 2013.

A subsequent CHRB report found that those horses had been uniformly administered thyroxine-a thyroid hormone used to treat hypothyroid conditions-and that use of thyroxine is “concerning in horses with suspected cardiac failure.”

During the Q&A, UC Davis's Francisco Uzal explained that while the blood sample sent to Cornell University showed thyroxine levels below the limit of detection, he was unable to confirm if that result was “significant” as such blood samples are typically collected from live animals.

“If this was blood from a live horse, you could speculate that this horse was producing very little thyroid hormone. But because it came from a dead horse, we don't know how to interpret that,” Uzal said.

As highlighted in this TDN article from 2018, a host of unknowns typically surround instances of sudden death in racehorses—a term that comprises many different causes, not simply issues related to the heart.

Sudden death includes massive bleeding in the lungs or abdomen, fractures of the skull or neck, and hemorrhaging from a pelvic fracture-all these injuries can prove swiftly fatal in a manner that, outwardly, resembles a cardiac issue.

Even when post-mortems are performed, when it comes to sudden cardiac death, oftentimes there are no lesions, ruptured arteries or damaged heart tissue that pathologists can point to with authority and say this or that caused the heart to stop.

What's more, sudden deaths happen extremely rarely.

In a 10-year period between 2007 and 2017 in California, 8.2% of all training and racing related fatalities were sudden deaths. So, what are the possible causes of so-called equine heart attacks? Answers aren't always easy to come by.

This comprehensive 2011 international review study points out that pathologists were only able to make a definite diagnosis in 53% of cases, a presumptive diagnosis in 25% cases, with 22% of cases left unexplained.

Indeed, rupture of the aorta-the largest artery in the body-is “anecdotally thought to be a common cause of exercise-related sudden death in horses,” but that it occurs in only 1% of cases, the study found.

There are other possible causes. Unlike human heart attacks due to clogged arteries, the sheer size of the equine heart makes them susceptible to electrical irregularities, like arrhythmias—an irregular heartbeat—and heart murmurs, the presence of irregular heartbeat sounds.

Experts point to a possible connection between the use of substances like clenbuterol, calcium, magnesium and cobalt—those that can alter equine cardiac muscle—and sudden cardiac death. But that connection hasn't been made definitively.

What's more, there have been efforts to try to identify a possible connection between certain genes in horses and a higher susceptibility towards cardiac problems. But again, this is a sphere of research with a lot more leg-work needed.

The investigation into Medina Spirit's death isn't over, however.

A review of the necropsy report will now be performed by official veterinarian Alina Vale, a CHRB safety steward and a member of the Board of Stewards. The CHRB will eventually publish this separate report.

“Any potential rule violations uncovered in this process will be investigated by the CHRB and would result in a complaint and possible disciplinary action. This process takes place for every fatality occurring at a CHRB regulated facility,” according to the CHRB.

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This Side Up: Not Yet a Lost Cause

As one of few institutions of American sport to rival its fastest two minutes, the Super Bowl will reopen some painful old wounds among our community. For while many in the Bluegrass presumably feel some allegiance to their nearest NFL team, they owe a deeper loyalty to the very acres on which the game will be contested–to the memories interred below.

Nostalgia for Hollywood Park will be especially piquant now that Arlington Park is in the sickening throes of a similar demise. It's no longer just John Henry, winner of two Arlington Millions and three Hollywood Invitational Handicaps, that unites these two storied venues. In both cases, it's hard to refute the narrative that football has long superseded horseracing in popular culture; that our own sport is like a faded, black-and-white movie, with a script that embarrassingly preserves outdated attitudes, treasured only by an obstinate minority of aficionados soon to be finally inundated by the inexorable tides of the digital age.

(Click below to listen to this column as a podcast.)

Well, I don't know about that. It wasn't so long ago that everyone was prophesying the demolition of cinemas, outflanked by the domestic miracles of VHS, DVD and streaming. Same with bookshops, which have salvaged a viable market among people who actually feel relieved to drag their eyes from the tyranny of a small screen. But both cinema and publishing first had to be goaded from their complacency. Books were being churned out contemptuously, already halfway to garbage, so cheap was the paper and binding; they had to be made into beautiful objects that you would enjoy handling and possessing. Cinema, similarly, realized that it had to feel like an event, a spectacle, a proper indulgence.

None of us who know the timeless enchantment of the Thoroughbred will ever despair of its ability to captivate new generations of fans; to maintain a glamor once so easily conflated with that of the silver screen, as when founding shareholders of Hollywood Park included the Warner brothers, Walt Disney, Sam Goldwyn, Bing Crosby and Ronald Colman.

But everything depends on our proving equal to the stewardship of these noble animals. And it would be a blithe kind of fellow who congratulated us that we have no need, unlike cinema and publishing when they were in a corner, to raise our game.

As it is, we see a lot of cynics shoehorning high-sounding principles of equity and freedom into the service of their own interests, even when those appear quite blatantly opposed to those of the racehorse and the industry it sustains. Such grubby opportunism is hardly unique to our own walk of life, of course, but you would like to think that even the most self-absorbed and short-sighted members of our community can see how dangerously the stakes have been raised.

Sarah Andrew

Not that these alone need to see the bigger picture. Every time we lose a Hollywood Park, an Arlington, we can't blame only those whose conduct is disfiguring our standing in Main Street. The rest of us need to meet a crisis on this scale with commensurate flair and enterprise. God knows there's no shortage of people in this game with exceptional financial resources and, you know what, maybe some might even owe their wealth to more than hard work and a little luck. Maybe some of them are actually pretty smart, too. In which case, it seems inexcusable if enough of them can't get together and head off the next storied track closure. Just imagine the virtuous circle within their not-for-profit compass: low takeouts stimulating handle, handle stimulating prizemoney and facilities, in turn stimulating field sizes, further stimulating handle.

Coming from a little country like England, I am unqualified to say (though I might guess) why some American horsemen should prefer an existential crisis to fester under the sacrosanct purview of states, rather than tolerate the kind of national solution it plainly requires. As it is, however, that mosaic of fractured interests might well create an opportunity for exactly the kind of dynamism we might sooner hope to see applied to the repair of a dysfunctional system.

Say the current impasse between Bob Baffert and Churchill stays just as it is. Say his attorneys can't prise open the door to the Derby; and Baffert isn't big-hearted enough to absolve his patrons of an invidious sense that their fidelity is being tested in public; and those patrons, for their part, overlook that they are themselves only custodians of a dream for many others, from the breeder to the farrier, who will only ever get one shot at the Derby.

Well, if that remains the case, then what would you expect to be going through the head of any bold racetrack impresario out there right now? He or she will be musing over a first Saturday in May bereft of Messier (Empire Maker), Newgrange (Violence), potentially Corniche (Quality Road), and a whole bunch of other talents being developed by the most powerful barn in the country, maybe Blackadder (Quality Road) if he wins the El Camino Real Derby on Saturday; and not forgetting the fillies, like Adare Manor (Uncle Mo) and Eda (Munnings). How about lining up that lot for a million bucks over 10 furlongs, sometime at the beginning of May? You'd get eyeballs, and you might very well find yourself with a horse that outvotes the Derby winner at the Eclipse Awards this time next year.

Now there's a notion that might concentrate a few minds. And it would certainly conform with the spirit of the age–which is to say, it would bring together two different entities by offering the same answer to the question: “Screw everyone else, how do I gain most?”

Classic Causeway on debut last summer | Sarah Andrew

If that were to happen, then the GIII Sam F. Davis S. will doubtless come to seem so much shadowboxing. I hope not, because it would be wonderful to see Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) emulate White Abarrio (Race Day) in boosting the form of the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S.

This is one of only three colts eked from the final coverings of the great Giant's Causeway before his death in the spring of 2018, and I'm glad to see Brian Lynch laying down such business-like works over six and seven furlongs at Palm Meadows. I'm not sure what the masters of the past might say about modern trainers getting horses fit 48 seconds at a time, but I do know that Lynch will be playing to the genetic strengths of this particular colt.

After Giant Game bombed out in the GIII Holy Bull S., the onus is on Classic Causeway to carve a fitting memorial to their sire, who recently brought up a posthumous landmark with his 100th graded stakes winner. Classic Causeway did have the raw class to dash clear on debut at Saratoga last summer, but as a son of a Thunder Gulch mare he's entitled to the improvement he needs, with maturity and distance, to claw back the McPeek pair who had too much “foot” for him last fall.

Certainly a breakout performance from Classic Causeway would feel like a wholesome development in this whole Derby nightmare, as an evocation of old school principles among horses and horsemen alike. Because it's not just the rebels who have a cause. Don't forget that Mariah's Storm (Rahy), the dam of Giant's Causeway, won four graded stakes round Arlington; and his sire's mother Terlingua (Secretariat) won her first three starts all at Hollywood Park. Everything we do, every single thing we do, is built on the work of those who went before us; and everything we do, accordingly, should be undertaken with a view to handing on their legacy in the best possible shape.

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