Starting to see Baffert as a villain?
 

After yesterday’s Kentucky Derby win.......

I think the shine is off Baffert.

Used up his allotment of good will?

I agree. He's an obvious cheater. Horses that run fast early slow down in the final quarter. Occasionally there will be a freak like a Secretariat that can run fast early and late, but that's rare. The only other way to get a horse to finish like that is to pre-race them.

I posted three articles on my Facebook page, one about Justify's hidden drug positive, one about the 7 horses of his that dropped dead mysteriously (and he wasn't even fined), and another about the two positives for banned substances at Oaklawn this spring.

Before the Derby, on NBC, Randy Moss did mention the two drug positives that Baffert had at Oakawn. So people who might be new racing fans hear that and then a half-hour later they find out that the same guy just won his sixth Derby.

both of his horses sure seemed geeked up, one was scratched... perhaps, a little too amped up? the other... winner, winner.

Villain? How about Hall of Fame Great? 'Legend' even...
 

Bob Baffert / Best trainer over the dirt surface in the game. In the world.

Great owners, great stock.

Generates a lot of revenue, and he's a class act.

Hall of famer.


don't fall for the conspiracy theorists, or the haters on Twitter...

Baffert is a winner. :ThmbUp:

Conspiracy theories would be a rationale if he didn't have so many horses that got drug positives. With the 7 horses of his that dropped dead from cardiac seizures, that was because of drugs that he was giving them.

Baffert is a good interview and he's trained some of my favorite horses in the past 30 years, but how are the seven dead horses and the drug positives a "conspiracy theory"? Did the horses not really drop dead out of nowhere? Ignoring the bad things he's done (and, in your case, claiming they are fake) because he's a good interview is pretty weak on your part.

Yes, there's no question that generally speaking, Baffert has shown a good face to the sport most of the time (not always, he whines and complains when he doesn't get his way in Southern California). But his cheating is as obvious as it can be because you just don't get that lucky to have superstar horses, even if you buy expensive horses. Other trainers get to train very expensive well bred horses, like Pletcher, the Godolphin stables, and horses trained by Bill Mott, etc., and they win a lot of stakes races, but their horses run good races, not sensational races. Naturally, if you train a lot of good horses for a long time, eventually you may be lucky enough to get one horse that sets world records and does amazing things. But not a whole slew of them.

Baffert didn't win the Derby, TIZ THE LAW lost it. he was compromise'd before the race even started.. he ran that race with glue on shoes. on his front feet. all you had to do was look at the shoe board before the race to know. or in my case, have a friend tell you.. it stopped me 100% from betting him to win.

and by the way, i knew he ran with those things on most of the year, but he had already lost on the Churchill Downs surface. he is not at his best on that oval with front glue on's.

I agree that the stats for Baffert indicate his ponies are not just running on hay, oats and water. Naturally, it doesn't prove anything, but reading between the lines it should give everyone pause. And in a sport that has significant public relations problems with perceived integrity, it's an excellent question to ask if Baffert is a net good or bad influence overall.

I think trainer Barclay Tagg, who has won over $63 million in purses in his career, knows how to shoe a horse. The other time Tiz The Law raced at Churchill the track was sloppy, yesterday it was very fast.

this horse has front foot problems, he has the best person in America shoeing this horse. glue ons generally hamper the ability of a horse to perform as well as horses that wear nail in shoes.

trust me, if there was a spot on this horse's front foot to bang nails into, he would have run with normal shoes.

Looking at the numbers it was a formful result really.. especially given that the favorite who is obviously a classy horse got floated out on the first turn, worked hard to finally get a head in front and then was understandably empty after switching leads. Without the float he's two in front mid stretch and Bob's not coming back even with the best clen program in town which everyone should know by now. He's also the king when it comes to wiring grade ones on moderate paces which are usually assisted by stablemates playing watchdog but in this case Paco gets the assist. Give the guy credit under the current system he somehow usually finds a way to bulk them up like linebackers and make them stay the distance.

Baffert horses secure the lead comfortably over and over again. I'm frustrated that other jockeys continually let Baffert speed horses off easy on the lead.

With Gamine, I guess she really didn't want the distance as she didn't have it late.

The media loves him and has loved him even dating back to the 90's.

No matter what he does or doesn't do, he will always get positive coverage.