For the third time in three years, we have Kentucky Derby controversy. In 2019, Maximum Security was disqualified after coming off his line and impeding War of the Will, handing the Derby win to 65-1 longshot Country House. In 2020, Authentic claimed the roses in a September Derby that arrived after the Belmont Stakes. Finally, this weekend, a little over week after Bob Baffert appeared to claim his seventh Kentucky Derby victory, Medina Spirit returned a positive drug test, and pending a split sample (a second positive), looks set to be disqualified. It’s a run of chaos that has turned America’s highest-brow sporting event into overtime three-on-three hockey, and it gets even crazier . . .
Folks, if this isn’t the most batsh*t, bullsh*t “I didn’t know what I was taking” excuse in sports' long history of "I didn't know what I was taking" excuses, we simply don’t know what is. To recap: Some stall groomer allegedly relieved himself in the hay after taking cough syrup and Medina Spirit ate the cough syrup urine soaked hay in enough quantity that he still had 21 picograms of betamethasone in his system at post time. Is betamethasone even in cough syrup? Do grooms make a habit of urinating in the stalls at the most hallowed ground in horse racing next to animals worth six figures and up? Are we actually expected to believe this? All questions without answers for now, but if Robitussingate is too far out there for you, Baffert also gave the ol' "CANCEL CULTURE" bailout a try on Fox & Friends on Monday.
Whatever the truth may be, we know one thing for certain: Bob Baffert will now go down in the Hall of Asterisks alongside Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, and more. Arguably the most successful trainer in horse-racing history is about to have the first Kentucky Derby champ disqualified for a prohibited substance the since Dancer’s Image in 1968. If there isn’t some fire to go with all that smoke, we’ll happily eat the hay ourselves.
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