The Greatest of All Time - Bob Baffert

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by AndyC

Are there regulators of anything that would qualify under your job qualifications? You might want to add political affiliations too.

Sure. Article III federal judges are actually the best example of this.

But in the regulatory area, it just varies. The Labor board isn't necessarily going to have a ton of interested parties on it; the insurance commissioner's office, if it is an appointed position, often will.

But as I noted, horse racing has particular principal-agent problems that other lines of business don't necessarily have. It's not about political affiliation; it's just about not drawing your regulators from the population of people who are likely to sympathize with horse owners.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

But a jockey HAS to deny a foul. Admitting the foul would cost the owner money. And a trainer HAS to deny doping the horse, for the same reason. If Baffert admits what he did, his fear is that owners will see it as a betrayal of his employers and will no longer hire him to train their top horses. He HAS to deny. He has no choice. The structure of the sport forces people into lying.

I understand what you are saying, but he already admitted it was a legitimate positive. He's just claiming it was an accidental overage from an ointment and not from an injection. You can make that claim, ask for further testing to try to prove it and protect your reputation, and fight the DQ because you believe the rules were written to prevent an injection, all while at the same time accepting responsibility for it, being apologetic, and accepting a suspension for the positive.

Instead he's putting up a bigger fight with split samples, now there are accusations over the urine samples, he's fighting NYRA etc...

Even if you are innocent sometimes you just have to say "I F'd up and have to take a hit for it" instead of making matters worse. He's becoming so hated, a lot of people aren't going to want to do business with anymore no matter what.

[pandy]

Originally Posted by classhandicapper

I've been on the 50 yard line with this case.

I thought he deserved a punishment in line with what can be proven (a therapeutic overage and a history of such infractions). But the more this drags on the less sympathetic I'm becoming. If the DQ aspect of this is going to be fought in court for years. so be it. But no matter how you slice it he had another positive. Just accept responsibility for that much, take some kind of suspension, and move on. If he just said, "I didn't inject the horse, but I'm still responsible for the overage. I need to do a lot better", he probably would have saved himself a lot of legal fees, done better with the public, and may have even gotten a lower suspension than he's ultimately going to wind up getting. At this point, if he gets run out of the sport imo no one is going to miss him.

Baffert never admits to any wrongdoing, ever, and usually makes up crazy excuses. I don't believe anything he says.

[CheckMark]

Saw this on Twitter today:

Twitter

Sh*t going down at the HOF Ceremony on Friday and is that a sesame bagel in his/her left hand?

__________________
Handicapping the world year round'
-Conley

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by pandy

Baffert never admits to any wrongdoing, ever, and usually makes up crazy excuses. I don't believe anything he says.

Give me the story where a trainer gets fined or suspended when they dont say something with some kind of crazy excuse...or is your point all these trainers should not be believed when they get popped?

[AskinHaskin]

Originally Posted by pandy

14% is a good win percentage. Unfortunately, almost all of the trainers that are over 16% lifetime have a lot of drug posititives and the few that don't get the best horses to train.

Uh, 14% is the "idiot score" in a 7-horse race.


Maybe upgrade your awareness of the current state of racing particularly where it pertains to average field size. After that you might be more ready to tackle your misunderstanding of the batting lineup of the New York Yankees of 1961.

[dilanesp]

This is really getting ridiculous. What's Kentucky waiting for?

[Andy Asaro]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

This is really getting ridiculous. What's Kentucky waiting for?

Feels to me like they might toss the positive cuz of the Labs shabby handling of the sample. The Lab should have never been used cuz of their bad history.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

Feels to me like they might toss the positive cuz of the Labs shabby handling of the sample. The Lab should have never been used cuz of their bad history.

If that's what they are planning to do, they are getting very bad advice.

Even if the sample was contaminated (and I highly doubt there was any actual contamination), you let the courts sort that out in Baffert's inevitable lawsuit. If the KHRC says "no disqualification", (1) they are going to get sued anyway and (2) they are going to generate a metric ton of bad publicity for themselves and the sport.

They DQ'd Dancer's Image. (Was that only done to help out their buddies at Calumet Farm?) They have to DQ Medina Spirit.

[Psychotic Parakeet]

I've given up on any sliver of justice in this whole case. I really have. Baffert has won again.

[classhandicapper]

They are still waiting on the urine test results that are an attempt by Baffert to show that the positive was the result of the ointment as opposed to an injection.

If he gets a satisfactory result from the urine test, it almost certainly won't impact the probable DQ, but it would impact how he is personally dealt with. IMO, that has been the point all along. Sure, he'll try to battle the DQ also, but he is very likely to fail and he knows it. However, I'm sure he'd WAY rather any suspensions and fines be in line with irresponsible use of an ointment as opposed to an injection likely to have been done within guidelines. The latter would be way worse.

The interesting thing is that I saw one analysis by someone (I believe a vet) that said the urine tests are very likely to be inconclusive.

[Andy Asaro]

Twitter

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Andy Asaro

https://twitter.com/racetrackandy/st...18221312450560

KHRC may be in the driver's seat, but unfortunately they drive like an 80 year old lady on a Sunday.

[Andy Asaro]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

KHRC may be in the driver's seat, but unfortunately they drive like an 80 year old lady on a Sunday.

[classhandicapper]

I don't see how it's KHRC's fault. The judge required the urine test and now it's taking forever to get the results. The judge is pushing to get it, but I don't think anything can be done until the test results are back.