ARCADIA, Calif.— As exiles go, Bob Baffert’s has been a comfortable one. Most mornings, the horse trainer who is barred from competing in the Kentucky Derby, can be found beneath the rouge-tipped San Gabriel Mountains, holding court at Clockers’ Corner, the open-air bistro at Santa Anita Park.
Hands shoved in pockets on a recent morning, he talked basketball with a cluster of jockey agents and horse owners before shuffling on toward the eighth pole to watch his horses work. Once there, Baffert lifted his binoculars to study his Light Brigade like a jeweler sizing up uncut gems.
The horses in the Baffert barn are the most expensive in Southern California, if not the world.