LEXINGTON, Ky. — It’s all up to Bob Baffert now.
The 90-day suspension levied against horse racing’s most famous trainer by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and reciprocated by tracks around the country, including his home track at Santa Anita, ends July 3. After that date, the six-time Kentucky Derby winner can begin training horses again and entering them in races.
Not at Churchill Downs. The Louisville track has a year left on its private-property ban of Baffert instigated when the now late Medina Spirit tested positive for betamethasone after winning the 2021 Kentucky Derby. That came one year after a Baffert horse tested positive for the same drug in the Kentucky Oaks. Baffert has legally contested Churchill’s ruling, to no avail.
