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In the fall of 2015, as American Pharoah was finishing up his incredible career at the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, Bob Baffert stood in the paddock minutes before the big race, telling a small collection of reporters hilarious stories from earlier in his career. At one point the most famous man in horse racing shared that he had bled through his cheap white dress shirt at his first Breeder’s Cup, courtesy of nipple chafing.
We all laughed uproariously and scribbled furiously, the tale making for reporting gold. Since Sunday morning, Baffert has been spinning a few more yarns as he tries to explain away how his Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, tested positive for an excessive amount of betamethasone. For anyone who knows a teenager, his defense should sound familiar — “I dunno’’ coupled with “it’s someone else’s fault.’’ He’s claimed complete ignorance, suggesting that either a bogeyman snuck into the horse’s stall or he’s the victim of a witch hunt. He’s also opined that drug testing regulations are so outlandishly restrictive that a horse could test positive if a groom on cough medication peed on some hay that a horse ate, and suggested the whole thing is just another example of the world’s new “cancel culture.”