BALTIMORE — Bob Baffert’s hair remains snowy white, and his eyes still water beneath his ever-present shades. It is a heck of a thing that a horse trainer is allergic to horses. At 62, his mouth moves faster than his legs. Then again, it always has.
If there is a “been there, done that” air to Baffert as he loiters around the stakes barn, entertaining anyone who sidles up to him, it is for good reason. Three times before this year he has brought a Kentucky Derby winner to this old and scuffed but charming Pimlico racetrack, and three times he has left it with an opportunity to sweep the Triple Crown with a win at the Belmont Stakes.