Medina Spirit fails drug test

[smoofox]

I also recorded Breeders Cups from Day One… but I was a bit older than 12.

I do remember Mr. Nickerson and Shaker Knit… and then later that day Go For Wand breaking down in her stretch drive with Bayakoa in the Distaff. That was supposed to be the End Of Racing… as per animal rights groups etc.

I painfully remember the head on shot of the stretch after Go For Wand got up from where she had fallen and staggered towards the outside rail/grandstand - it was but a few seconds before the director cut that camera but I can still see it clearly in my mind.

I had YEARS of Breeders Cup tapes - all of them labelled with the year and the winner of the classic. Well, except for 1991 - that one said Dance Smartly (who won the Distaff) - a personal favorite of mine at the time. Sorry, Black Tie Affair…

[Lauruffian]

Oh God, you’re right. I edited my post to correct the year.

That was a horrific day of racing and it just wrecked me. Bayakoa was like a local hero to me, and I adored Go For Wand. I looked forward to that race more than anything else on the card. The breakdown so shocked and sickened me, teenaged-me shrieked and starting sobbing loud enough my mom came running from another room to see what was wrong. That race chased me away from racing until Silver Charm charmed me back into it.

[ASB_Stars]

I have an aortic aneurism as well. You never know!

I remember Go For Wand, Eight Belles, and Ruffian vividly. I’m still happier watching reruns of the races.

[Mara]

I was trying to get my then-boyfriend infected with racing fever. Needless to say, I couldn’t have picked a worse day for the introduction.

Holy Bull and then Cigar pulled me back in.

[MorganMaresVT]

@smoofox

I painfully remember the head on shot of the stretch after Go For Wand got up from where she had fallen and staggered towards the outside rail/grandstand - it was but a few seconds before the director cut that camera but I can still see it clearly in my mind.

Same. I had seen breakdowns in person as a kid at Saratoga, but something about that image on TV seemed much more brutal to me, not sure why.

[Mara]

That shattered leg swinging uselessly as the panicked filly tried to run on three legs is something I will never forget.

And then years later we saw Pine Island standing quietly on the rail waiting for help, her fractured and dislocated ankle hanging at a grotesque angle.

[BrendaJane]

I saw a horse snap a leg right in front of the grandstands once. It was awful!

Looking at Medina Spirit though, I keep thinking of Ken Caminiti, Flo-Jo…so many top athletes from the 80s and early 90s who did not grow old.
Looking at his mortality rates, I don’t think, I’d put a horse with Baffert. I mean, one can have a stretch of bad luck, but at some point, one has to look at management (and his hot drug tests) and wonder.
So far he had not lost a headliner, I guess.

[Larksmom]

Did horses back in the 30s and 40s breed sounder than they do now/ Wasn’t it commom for 2 yr olds to run all season? They started breeding to a very fast but unsound line iirc maybe Native Dancer line? or am i remembering wrong?

[halo]

The Go For Wand race was also a life changer for me. I remember it to this day. I had purchased a stallion share in a young stallion named Carnivalay, who was a Northern Dancer half brother to Go For Wand. Needless to say I was glued to her every single race. That race…I cant even describe the pain, for her, for racing, for her connections. Since that day…and Ive had hundreds of starts and dozens of race horses since then and currently…I have never…ever…watched a race live. Ever. My friends know how I am, and when I won a Florida Stallion Stakes, my friends called me immediately and said “watch the race!!!”.

[Ghazzu]

@Larksmom

Did horses back in the 30s and 40s breed sounder than they do now/ Wasn’t it commom for 2 yr olds to run all season? They started breeding to a very fast but unsound line iirc maybe Native Dancer line? or am i remembering wrong?

They ran as 2 yo, short distances, IIRC, whips were not allowed.
But they also bred horses for longevity then, rather than retiring a winning 3 yo as is so common today.
The focus has shifted to horses that show speed as youngsters, and long-term structural integrity has gone by the wayside.
Probably because a horse who retires with a winning record is worth more today than one who lost a few races after their initial triumphs.

[BrendaJane]

I watched ‘Dream Horse’ the other day. Knowing it would have a good ending I was almost unable to watch the horse’s last race after injury.

[WinterTriangle]

[quote=“skydy, post:923, topic:759608”]
leaves everyone wondering.[/quote]

Well yeah, that’s become a feature of the Baffert barn, sort of like how sloppy code writing gets justified as a feature of bad software programs.

Considering he got away with experimenting on healthy horses with Thryro-L that resulted in deaths; wrangled CHRB to hide a drug positve on Justify, a morpihine positive was just poppy seeds from a bagel; a urinating groom on cough medicine was the cause of another positive; Jimmy Barnes Salonpas was the reason for Gamine and Charlatan’s positives; and then there were dermatological ointments; the sudden death of Arrogate, and now Medina Spirit.

Where does it end…perhaps in the court of public opinion, which he “spun” as cancel culture.

At any rate, I think both the public, as well as many of his peers, have run out of both violins and (stubbborn) naivete for him at this point.

[dressagetraks]

I don’t see how Baffert is implicated in the death of Arrogate. Arrogate was euthanized after an “undetermined illness” (never saw the necropsy reports released), but the stud farm did say the illness had begun the week before, and it sounded neurological, since he eventually couldn’t stand. So sick for a week, getting worse, euthed. But he’d been at the stud farm for a good while, and we know Prince Khalid thought the world of him. I’m sure he had the best of care there. I’m just not seeing the connection between sudden death on the track by Medina Spirit and neurological illness at the stud farm long after leaving training by Arrogate.

[skydy]

Arrogate was euthed after being at stud for 2-3 years? for what sounded (to me) like a neck injury. I don’t think that Bob gets the blame for that one.

I agree, his reaction to the Medina Spirit positive was very weird. He’s always had some very sloppy barn management (see having barn help putting the Thyroxine in the horses feed as if it was a supplement) and has never once addressed the issue of his vet prescribing an ointment with Betamethasone clearly listed as an ingredient on the label, to a Derby horse.

Hopefully this nightmare will increase support for HISA.

As we all knew Peter Miller didn’t step away from training just to spend time with his family. He’s had 5 horse fatalities in 2021. More than Baffert.

$5K Multiple Medication Fine For Miller

[Syrynx]

Oh I remember watching the match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure on tv. I was just a kid but was so excited to see the girl beat the boy. So heartbreaking and I’m getting chills just remembering…and not the good kind either.

[snaffle1987]

the only thing I am honestly sad for is the horse in this sad situation and the grooms and exercise riders(and the breeder) who watched their charge suddenly leave this world amidst a cloud of controversy drug violations as they stood by the wayside unable to act or fix the impending situation

the drug violations cant overshadow the fact that Medina Spirit was a handsome, well made individual and the fact that he had a ton of heart and always tried. At the end of the day there is an empty stall in Baffert’s barn and the grooms and riders who were in charge of loving and caring for this horse everyday are suddenly without him under tragic circumstances.

This entire situation, preventable or not, just compounds this Baffert situation. There was not one major news network or local news station that did not post about this death online and social media and/ or air it live on their tv stations. A further black eye in the homes of millions of Americans to see.

I am thinking of the horse’s connections who had no say in what occurred with him under the supervision of his trainers; but loved him immensely and ensured he was happy and welled cared for as best they could everyday.

[Lauruffian]

Oh man, yeah. That scene of her leg dangling so freakishly…I remembered it as the camera following her for several long moments because of how it seared into my memory. When I braved rewatching the footage decades later, I was stunned it had actually been maybe 1-2 seconds at most.

I do remember Sports Illustrated having a rather gruesome play-by-play photo spread showing every G-ddamn moment, from the fracture to the fall to the 3-legged gallop to the euthanasia.

I recently watched all of Ruffian’s races (I was only a few years old at the time) and was surprised she never switched to her right lead in the stretch. I’ve since heard racing skuttlebutt that “everyone” on the backstretch knew that filly was sore, and her never changing leads had me wondering. Has anyone else in the racing world heard similar rumor? Has anyone every explained why she never changed leads?

[skydy]

So now what will happen with the DQ hearing, the NYRA legal case, and the Churchill ban?

It will be interesting to see. I can’t see Churchill Downs changing their minds out of sympathy but I wonder if the DQ decision may be subject to it, since KHRC has made no move to DQ Medina Spirit for all this time. If they don’t DQ him they’ll have to change the rules.

[Where_sMyWhite]

The DQ still needs to be decided due to purse distribution. In the court of my little brain it already has but…

The Churchill ban, that can still stand as it affects the trainer regardless of what happened to MS. The horse still had a positive betamethasone test. Just because MS is no longer with us doesn’t change this fact (again, fact in my little brain…)

[MsM]

I rarely watch races live any more for fear of seeing a breakdown. I know it may be statistically unlikely, but I am scarred from those I have seen.

I actually saw the last race Ruffian finished live. (Still have the winning ticket!). In a sad bit of foreshadowing, a few races before, a horse broke down in the homestretch. I saw the horse stumble and the jockey pull him up and then leap off. The jockey (I believe it was the same one that rode Ruffian) just walked off, leaving the horse floundering with his leg swinging horribly until his connections could reach him. In her race, Ruffian won but it wasnt as impressive as previous races. The only speculation from the cheap seats was that maybe they were “saving her” for the match race.