Why Bob Baffert’s Churchill Downs Ban Requires Him To Assign His Derby-Bound Horses To Other Trainers This Week

On January 29, the third year of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert's long and painful racing ban by Churchill Downs rolls, again, into effect: In order for any horse currently trained by Baffert to be considered for the 150th Kentucky Derby this May — specifically, for a horse to be qualified on the Derby prep "points trail" toward earning a berth in the Derby over the next months — that athlete must be in the hands of a certified, current, non-banned trainer by this date.

The ban and its legal wranglings have been an odd fixture on the larger horizons of the sport for the last couple of years: The Derby is the nation's rite of spring passage for each year's crop of three-year-olds, and as such, it's the greatest stage for equine athletes in the world. Baffert has won six Kentucky Derbies and has had runners in quite a few more than that. Prior to 2022, the first year of his ban, he was a fixture in Kentucky come May.

Although no announcement of transfer has been made at this writing, Baffert's storied barn out in California currently has two rather hot three-year-old contenders who have run up respectable performances and not least, who are currently riding well up on the Vegas Derby futures markets. The promising horses are: Muth, sired by Good Magic, who just won the Grade 2 San Vicente out in California on January 6, and Nysos, whose daddy is the hard-charging Nyquist, who has also been racing out California and has been banking enough wins for Vegas to put on the books as a prospect.

It's important to note that there's no law stating that these colts have to be pointed at the Derby. If that's the way the plans have been forged between Baffert and their owners, then there will be no problem keeping them in the Baffert barn. As the world and his sport noted from his thrilling victory in last year's Preakness and from the January 27 Pegasus World Cup victory with National Treasure, Baffert is most welcome at 1ST tracks. Likewise, he is welcome in New York. Which is to say: Two legs of the Triple Crown, if he likes, are possible for any horse the trainer feels might be profitably gotten ready for them.

It's fair to say that the six-time Derby winner is in a strange position: The ban stems from the events surrounding the 2021 Derby, as we know. In that race, the front-running Medina Spirit, trained by Baffert, crossed the line indisputably first but was disqualified from the victory because a blood sample taken on race day registered positive for betamethasone, a legal corticosteroid used to treat joint inflammations, that's banned in Kentucky on race days.

Baffert consistently maintained that the horse had not been injected with the drug — and then later himself learned that an ointment with which Medina Spirit was treated (via external administration, as opposed to injection into a joint) to combat skin lesions in the weeks before the race, Otomax, contained a form of betamethasone. Churchill's position was clear: a positive test for the drug is a positive test, no matter the manner in which it was administered. Baffert was given a two-year suspension by Churchill (at all Churchill-owned tracks), and served a 90-day national ban levied by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

Last July, stating that Baffert had not shown contrition or awareness of the gravity of his violations, Churchill Downs extended the ban by a year, which encompasses the 2024 Derby season. In 2022, Baffert transferred his Derby hopefuls to fellow Californian Tim Yakteen, who had previously worked with Baffert.

More recently, just days before he won the January 27 Pegasus at Gulfstream with National Treasure, Baffert and Medina Spirit's owner Amr Zedan gave up their years-long judicial appeal to reverse the Medina Spirit's disqualification. Churchill Downs' terse response to the dropping of the suit was that this legal move would have no affect on the extended ban of the trainer from Churchill and all Churchill-owned tracks for their 2024 meetings. Churchill Downs Incorporated owns Louisiana's Fair Grounds, Pennsylvania's Presque Isle Downs, Kentucky's Turfway and Ellis parks, as well as the beautiful twin-spired home place, Churchill itself.