Last year on Arkansas Derby day, two of Bob Baffert’s horses, including Division 1 winner Charlatan, tested positive for lidocaine and were subsequently disqualified. Baffert was fined and suspended. Yesterday, the Arkansas Racing Commission lifted that suspension and restored his horses’ wins. By doing so, Mr. Baffert’s earnings were also restored – some $330,000, which dwarfs the $10,000 he paid in fines. This, of course, should come as no surprise to anyone who follows racing, for this is, as Tim Sullivan of the Louisville Courier Journal suggests, Teflon Bob.
30 Comments
Comments are closed.
Someone in the barn was wearing a lidocaine patch? Gets more absurd every time. They just can’t admit that people cheat, bad for business.
“Charlatan,” indeed.
Was there a doubt?? Really
His legal team came through, right? Obviously, money takes priority over true horsemanship or truth, period.
This is WHY their gambling racket is going down. Horse racing is as CORRUPT as you can get. It’s going down you sleazy lying creeps. If I was the owner of the horses who WON, because they DIDN’T cheat, I would SUE their corrupt commission ! People are SICK and tired of lazy ass Teflon Bob, I KNOW they are, believe me I KNOW it!!!!!!!!!!! They are not gonna sit back and take this heaping pile of total bullshit. You are a CHEATER and a scumbag Bob. You little man.
Bob Baffert is the Omega Man of horse racing. Horse abuse through and through
If this was a modest no name trainer does anyone believe he or she would even get a hearing? NO.
A modest no name trainer would not have the financial backing that Barbaric Buffoon has. This FILTHY, lying two-faced @$$hole has cheated his way to the Hall of [SH]ame, but he couldn’t get away with all of the illegal doping without an “army” of enablers!!!! His attorney, Craig Robertson, must be real proud of his despicable self to come up with this bull$*** theory (along with Baffert) that it was due to the assistant trainer wearing a LIDOCAINE PATCH for a bad back that somehow magically contaminated the horses. The long line of enablers must be receiving undisclosed amounts of cash in unmarked envelopes in order to pass off the imaginary case scenarios instead of relying on solid facts or solid science or solid common sense. By the way, I have not heard any reports of any horses being burned to death at the Linda Rice Training Stable at Belmont Park. Have you?
Reblogged this on Armory of the Revolution.
I’m not seeing the transparency and reform the racing industry is always bragging about. Nor is this at all convincing that this is just “one bad apple” in a large group of honest trainers like so many apologist insist.
I guess the question “do you people in racing have ANY scruples” has a very disturbing and obvious answer.
Of course the racing commission lifted the suspension – no doubt in my mind there were “PAYOUTS” there to justify that decision. Again never ever about the horses and their care – always and forever about the god damn dollars. You are all so f*cking corrupt it is unbelievable.
George Soros, the owner of charlatan, really needs more money 🙄. This whole thing stinks to HOLY hell.
How can anyone with any common sense or common decency defend this? Only the morally depraved could do this and defend it.
Teflon Bob.
Way back around 2000 he had several morphine positives only this time it was the poppy seeds on a bagel that his grooms were eating – laughable isn’t it?
https://www.espn.com/horse/news/2001/0621/1217145.html
I suppose the general population of California who had a poppy seed bagel on the way to work were all high that day right?
Then a bunch of high powered highly paid Attorneys who are also racehorse owners pretty much threaten the CHRB with long term non-stop litigation unless Baffert gets his way more or less.
What has changed?
20 years later the only thing that has changed is that the poppy seeds on bagels are now morphine patches, but were actually jimson weed on the hay before that.
Darn those stable workers!
If all Trainers were able to get away with this the way that Teflon Bob has and continues to then you would have won 6 Kentucky Derby’s as well.
Bob Baffert is not an exceptional Trainer, but an exceptional cheater surrounded by high level people who financially gain from his system of cheating (mainly attorneys) while the rest of people in the business go broke watching him and a small group win all the purse money.
His other hallmark is that he kills a whole bunch of racehorses along the way because when racehorses can’t feel their pain, due to morphine/shock wave therapy/nerving/doping, they will run until they snap their bones.
In the midst of this deeply corrupt business the racehorses are the biggest losers.
Just this one example alone should clearly show that this business can never be cleaned up and those who are in the power to do it simply don’t or can’t.
Horse racing is one big slime ball that needs to slide into an abyss never to be seen again.
Those poppy seeds must have been the size of watermelons.
That’s the best comment of the day. I LOLd so hard I almost spit my tea out. Ty for that, it’s been a rough day and I needed that!
You know….something else I think about often 🤔 I wonder how many people of means pay stall hands to “do something” to a horse,because they know how much workers need a hand. This is just something I am forever thinking about. It’s such a corrupt evil little entity. Just another worry…..
Bonnie, if a groom were approached with a bribe to “do something” to a horse, do you also wonder about the threats, the fear and intimidation, to the groom in the event that the groom refused? It’s sickening to think what the human demons like Baffert and many others could and would be capable of doing to their hired help (or someone else’s hired help) if they did not “cooperate” with their demands.
This man needs to stopped before he hurts another innocent animal!
All of these demented human demons need to be stopped. All of the abusers of horses and all of their enablers need to be stopped.
#endhorseracing
Quite frankly, many of the Stewards on state racing commissions are corrupt themselves even owning racehorses so I’m sure there may have been some backroom talk going on.
I don’t think we ever get the full story because this business is about lack of transparency so it seems reasonable to assume that they have something on the Stewards who are supposed to be implementing the rules and regulations.
This is precisely why horse racing can never be cleaned up – they are all crooks, but what’s so sad is that the racehorses are the ones paying the price every single day as Kill List after Kill List shows.
Moreover, this business gets billions in taxpayers and/or casino money.
It’s like our politicians are knowingly supporting an organized criminal enterprise with the public coffers.
It’s definitely state-sanctioned racehorse abuse and a total waste of money that should be going to our community essential services like education.
Gina, I would like the humans who draw a paycheck from this corrupt torture factory to have to be locked in a tiny closet for 23 hours a day…they would go INSANE..totally insane. I could not hate you EVIL lazy slugs more than I already do. May you “CHOKE” on your bloodmoney.
It’s still wrong to demand that 18 to 24-month-old baby Thoroughbreds carry the weight of a saddle and rider even without the rest of the corruption. One of the things that the drugs are used for is to mask painful injuries that most outsiders to racing would not be aware of without someone to “educate” them. Horseracing is abusive to the horses from birth to death, start to finish, and most of the deaths are pre-mature deaths/kills. Confinement of a herd animal in a stall for 23 hours a day that was born to graze on a pasture with other horses is one among many of the abuses of horses. Horseracing is horse ABUSE on so many levels and in so many ways. As long as horseracing is supported by government, there will never be horse racing without the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. The rich people will never stop abusing Thoroughbreds for the Triple Crown races, etc. as long as it is approved of in any way by State and Federal governments and funded by taxpayers’ dollars.
#endhorseracing
Horse racing needs to be shut down just like most of the dog tracks. Abuse, Cruelty, Torture, and Murder. Of course it is always the horrible non vegans who support this. Guess how many poor horses they send off to be murdered in an unimaginable way. More than anyone thinks.
Yes, totally agree Teresa. As a former meat eater….and I am not gonna lie… I was a big time meat eater,I have almost totally gone meat free (it wasn’t easy for me).And, you know what..just last night I made us veggie burgers and it was satisfying and delicious.Like I said it was very hard for me, but I’m proud I did it, little by little.
Yeah Bonnie!!!
I’ll never forgive Baffert for dropping Tweebster, who was clearly unsound, down the claiming ladder until he killed him. A worse human is hard to find.
Baffert stated to the commission in ARKANSAS that he is proud of his organization, among other things related to “clearing his name” for a drug violation. It’s in Tim Sullivan’s article.
Baffert is repulsive and despicable. Baffert is proof that horseracing is a corrupt gambling game that abuses innocent animals.
Regarding Tweebster, this is just one of the disgusting animal abusers words “Tweebster was healthy and happy,” Baffert said. “I felt he was in need of a confidence booster and thought this would be an easy spot for him to get it. I understand a severe drop in class can indicate a horse is unsound, but I assure you that was not the case with Tweebster.” – I guess run in to the ground with his injuries is considered “healthy and happy.” I think Baffert should be locked in a closet for the rest of his life.
Yes, right there, Katie, you provided the idiocy these abusers spew. So dropping a horse lower (and lower) in the claiming ranks is for a “confidence booster”? – guess the industry-employed who purchased Conquest Big E, all freaked out he was entered for a $3500 tag, didn’t get that memo. They denied him that big boost to his confidence!
I’m convinced – those involved in this industry must take classes in how to talk out of both sides of their mouths.