Thirty dead horses at a California track. Federal indictments accusing more than two dozen trainers and veterinarians from Florida to New York of doping their animals. All in the past two and a half years.
Is there anything the sport of thoroughbred racing holds sacred?
On Sunday, we found out: the Kentucky Derby.
Almost as soon as Bob Baffert announced that his colt Medina Spirit had failed a drug test after winning the 147th running of America’s greatest race, officials of Churchill Downs made it clear that if a second sample confirmed the presence of betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling, the colt would be disqualified and Mandaloun, the runner-up, would be declared the winner.