Latest news with #DailyRacingForm
12-05-2025
- Sport
Junior Alvarado considering appeal of fine and suspension for excessive whip usage in Kentucky Derby
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Jockey Junior Alvarado is considering appealing a fine and suspension for using his whip eight times on Sovereignty in winning the Kentucky Derby on May 3. Alvarado was fined $62,000 and suspended two days by the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority, whose rules allow a rider to use a whip six times in a race. He has 10 days to inform HISA if he plans to appeal. "I would like to just get it over with and put it behind me, I don't want to carry this one extra day, but at the same time I don't want to give up that easily like they were right,' Alvarado told the Daily Racing Form last weekend. 'I would like to move forward and fix something. As everybody can see, it's unfair the penalties we're facing. Maybe (by appealing) we can get something good out of this.' On Dec. 1, Alvarado was found to have used his whip seven times in winning the $250,000 Cherokee Mile, also at Churchill Downs. He met with Churchill Downs stewards via video last week to discuss the Derby. 'I didn't abuse the horse,' Alvarado told DRF. 'Nobody can tell me, even if they can prove that I hit the horse two extra times, it was in an abusing way, it's just ridiculous. The punishment doesn't fit the crime and I don't think there was any crime.' If Alvarado does not appeal, he will serve the two day suspension May 29-30. He is based in New York, which isn't racing those days.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Junior Alvarado denies he abused Sovereignty with whip during Kentucky Derby win
Junior Alvarado, who rode Sovereignty to victory at this year's Kentucky Derby, is considering an appeal against the fine and ban he received for overuse of his whip during the race. The jockey was found to have used the whip 'more than the permitted amount' the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) said on Saturday. Under HISA regulations, jockeys are allowed to strike their horse six times during a race; Alvarado used the whip on Sovereignty eight times. It was his second such offense in the last 180 days, meaning his fine was doubled to $62,000 – 20% of his winnings from the Kentucky Derby. Alvarado was also banned for two Kentucky racing days, on 29 and 30 May. Related: Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty won't run in Preakness Stakes The jockey has 10 days to lodge an appeal and he denies that he overused his whip. 'I didn't abuse the horse,' he told the Daily Racing Form. 'Nobody can tell me, even if they can prove that I hit the horse two extra times, it was in an abusing way, it's just ridiculous. The punishment doesn't fit the crime and I don't think there was any crime.' Alvarado said he will weigh up whether an appeal is worth his time, or whether to put the incident behind him. 'I would like to just get it over with and put it behind me, I don't want to carry this one extra day, but at the same time I don't want to give up that easily like they were right,' Alvarado said. 'I would like to move forward and fix something. As everybody can see, it's unfair the penalties we're facing. Maybe [by appealing] we can get something good out of this.' The 38-year-old rode Sovereignty to a thrilling victory in last weekend's race, pulling away from the heavy favorite Journalism down the final stretch. Sovereignty will not compete in this month's Preakness Stakes, the second leg of US horse racing's Triple Crown.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Junior Alvarado denies he abused Sovereignty with whip during Kentucky Derby win
Junior Alvarado, who rode Sovereignty to victory at this year's Kentucky Derby, is considering an appeal against the fine and ban he received for overuse of his whip during the race. The jockey was found to have used the whip 'more than the permitted amount' the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) said on Saturday. Under HISA regulations, jockeys are allowed to strike their horse six times during a race; Alvarado used the whip on Sovereignty eight times. It was his second such offense in the last 180 days, meaning his fine was doubled to $62,000 – 20% of his winnings from the Kentucky Derby. Alvarado was also banned for two Kentucky racing days, on 29 and 30 May. Advertisement Related: Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty won't run in Preakness Stakes The jockey has 10 days to lodge an appeal and he denies that he overused his whip. 'I didn't abuse the horse,' he told the Daily Racing Form. 'Nobody can tell me, even if they can prove that I hit the horse two extra times, it was in an abusing way, it's just ridiculous. The punishment doesn't fit the crime and I don't think there was any crime.' Alvarado said he will weigh up whether an appeal is worth his time, or whether to put the incident behind him. 'I would like to just get it over with and put it behind me, I don't want to carry this one extra day, but at the same time I don't want to give up that easily like they were right,' Alvarado said. 'I would like to move forward and fix something. As everybody can see, it's unfair the penalties we're facing. Maybe [by appealing] we can get something good out of this.' The 38-year-old rode Sovereignty to a thrilling victory in last weekend's race, pulling away from the heavy favorite Journalism down the final stretch. Sovereignty will not compete in this month's Preakness Stakes, the second leg of US horse racing's Triple Crown.
New York Post
01-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Notorious horse trainer Bob Baffert's rise, fall and return to the Kentucky Derby is ‘deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease'
Bob Baffert has had at least 75 racehorses — including two just last month — die under his care since 2000, according to the California Horse Racing Board and Daily Racing Form data, but a new book asserts that the legendary 72-year-old trainer has been unfairly maligned. '[The] public pillorying [of him] for the past three years has felt more like a scapegoat for racing's biggest problems than a solution,' writes Katie Bo Lillis in 'Death of a Racehorse: An American Story' (Simon & Schuster, out Tuesday). Framing him as the sole villain for the rampant drug use in horse racing feels like 'a deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease.' All eyes will be on Baffert this Saturday when he returns to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance on a winning horse. 5 Bob Baffert is returning to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance with Medina Spirit (pictured). Pat McDonogh / Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services, LLC He has two horses — Citizen Bull and Rodriquez — competing in the Derby, the latter of which the Washington Post picked as the 'clear choice to win.' The Arcadia, California-based Baffert trained the famed race's 2021 winner, Medina Spirit. But afterwards, the colt tested positive for betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory drug that's commonly used in the equestrian world but can't be in a horse's bloodstream on race day. On December 6, 2021, Medina Spirit collapsed during a training run at Santa Anita in California, dying of a heart attack. Two months after his death, Baffert was officially stripped of his Derby victory. Churchill Downs also suspended Baffert for two years, and he responded with a lawsuit, insisting that he'd done nothing wrong. A federal court in Kentucky dismissed the case in 2023, and Baffert's suspension was extended for a third year because of his insistence on 'peddl[ing] a false narrative,' according to Churchill Downs. It finally ended last summer, with Baffert taking full responsibility for Medina Spirit's positive test. Though rumors had circulated for decades that 'the most dominant trainer in the country was giving his horses a little chemical help,' Lillis writes, it was a huge reckoning for the sport. Baffert has had a record-tying six Kentucky Derby wins (not counting Medina) and twice clinched the Triple Crown — with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. 5 Baffert has had 75 horses, including Medina Spirit, die since 2000. REUTERS 'Before Baffert, no one had won the Triple Crown since 1978,' writes Lillis. Focusing solely on the tragic death of Medina Spirit is shortsighted, she asserts. '[It] wasn't the first time one of Bob Baffert's horses had dropped dead of a heart attack,' writes Lillis. 'It wasn't even the second, or the third. A decade before, seven horses in Baffert's stable had died abruptly of suspected cardiac-related causes in less than two years — nine times the rate of other trainers stabled in the state of California.' He is also hardly the only questionable trainer within the industry. In recent years, more than two dozen trainers and veterinarians have been indicted for 'juicing' horses with performance-enhancing drugs, like 'blood building drugs, which… can lead to cardiac issues or death,' according to the Department of Justice. One industry veteran told The Post that 60% of Thoroughbreds are drugged by trainers. 5 A new book asserts that Baffert isn't so much a disease as a symptom of problems in horse racing. In 2020, just a year before the scandal that briefly cost Baffert his career, 'the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing was in a moment of profound peril,' writes Lillis. Drug use was widespread, with horses receiving everything 'from sedatives to joint injections to a deeply controversial drug designed to prevent spontaneous hemorrhaging of the lungs during intense exercise, sometimes in untested combinations with unknown outcomes.' In 2024 alone, there were 161 race-related horse deaths, with 15 of them occurring on Kentucky tracks and six at Churchill Downs, according to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. When he was finally exposed for Medina Spirit, Baffert pushed back. He gave media interviews and press conferences insisting that his horses — particularly Medina Spirit, despite the toxicology report—had never received betamethasone. 'He was widely mocked for rambling, speculative explanations that at times bordered on the absurd,' writes Lillis. 5 Baffert has won the Kentucky Derby a record six times. Getty Images He made a brief comeback in 2023, winning the Preakness Stakes for a record-setting eighth time with a horse named National Treasure. But the victory was overshadowed by the death of another one of his horses, Havnameltdown, who'd been injected with betamethasone. 'It was an unsettling reminder that Baffert, like so many trainers who had run afoul of racing's petty regulations before, had simply gone back to business as usual,' writes Lillis. According to her, at the Preakness, Baffert had an encounter with Shaun Richards, the new director for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, the anti-doping authority. Baffert told the author that Richards warned him, 'I'm gonna be watching you guys, and you better not mess up because I know how to find you.' (According to Richards, Baffert's version of events 'was fabricated, other than I said 'hello.'') 5 Baffert won the Triple Crown with Justify in 2018. Getty Images Lillis is hopeful that the drug scandals of horse-racing, personified by Baffert, may be behind them. 'Some horsemen have quietly told me that they have seen attitudes toward the animal begin to shift,' she writes. 'Whether that change will happen fast enough to catch up to the outside world's expectations remains to be seen.'
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Kentucky Derby 2025: Journalism, Sovereignty, And Rodriguez In Works
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - APRIL 27: Journalism during the morning training in preparation for the 151st Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on April 25, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by) A rain-soaked Churchill Downs track caused trainer Michael McCarthy to move their Saturday, April 26 five-furlong breeze for top Kentucky Derby favorite Journalism to Sunday, April 27, with Journalism's regular race jockey Umberto Ruspoli, who had flown into Louisville from Santa Anita, in the irons. It was a good gamble — the track dried out and was fast. Journalism posted 1:01.24 in the breeze, galloping out in 1:13.52 at six furlongs and hitting the seven-eighths pole in 1:26.73, according to the Daily Racing Form timer Mike Welsch. Notably, the Churchill timer had Journalism at 1:01.4 for the five furlongs. Trainer McCarthy wasn't looking for a blistering time; this was to be a pre-Derby breeze simply as a barometric reading of how his athlete was feeling as well as delivering Journalism the tonic of getting him out and moving. After the work, the trainer was mobbed by the press at 7:30 in the morning, as any leading Derby trainer is and forever will be during Derby week. With what we can describe as hilariously Delphic understatement, he said: 'Just a nice leg-stretcher. He got to see the whole place,' adding that jockey Umberto Rispoli 'seemed like he was very happy' with his mount. But before we get into other contenders' works, here, a refresher on the field and its morning line. Post Position, Horse, Trainer, Jockey, Morning Line 1. Citizen Bull, Bob Baffert, Martin Garcia, 20-1 2. Neoequos, Saffie Joseph Jr., Flavien Prat, 30-1 3. Final Gambit, Brad Cox, Luan Machado, 30-1 4. Rodriguez, Bob Baffert, Mike Smith, 12-1 5. American Promise, D. Wayne Lukas, Nik Juarez, 30-1 6. Admire Daytona, Yukihiro Kato, Christophe Lemaire, 30-1 7. Luxor Café, Noriyuki Hori, Joao Moreira, 15-1 8. Journalism, Michael McCarthy, Umberto Rispoli, 3-1 9. Burnham Square, Ian Wilkes, Brian Hernandez Jr., 12-1 10. Grande, Todd Pletcher, John Velazquez, 20-1 11. Flying Mohawk, Whit Beckman, Joe Ramos, 30-1 12. East Avenue, Brendan Walsh, Manny Franco, 20-1 13. Publisher, Steve Asmussen, Irad Ortiz Jr., 20-1 14. Tiztastic, Steve Asmussen, Joel Rosario, 20-1 15. Render Judgment, Kenny McPeek, Julien Leparoux, 30-1 16. Coal Battle, Lonnie Briley, Juan Vargas, 30-1 17. Sandman, Mark Casse, Jose Ortiz, 6-1 18. Sovereignty, Bill Mott, Junior Alvarado, 5-1 19. Chunk of Gold, Ethan West, Jareth Loveberry, 30-1 20. Owen Almighty, Brian Lynch, Javier Castellano, 30-1 Also eligible 21. Baeza, John Shirreffs, Flavien Prat, 12-1 Source: Churchill Downs, 4/29/2025 Rodriguez at work in preparation for the 151st Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on April 26, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by) For his part, the Bob Baffert-trained Rodriguez, pictured above on April 26, was just a shade snappier on Sunday at the five furlong mark, putting in a strong 59.02, according to the Daily Racing Form, and 1.00:00, according to the track, just a shade of negligible difference there, but enough to be the biggest sort difference with the Derby's $5,000,000 purse in play. Returning to Churchill after his infamous two-year-plus-one-year Churchill ban dating from Medina Spirit's 2021 betamethasone disqualification, Baffert was buoyant about the work. 'Right over there, on our shed-row rail, that's where the roses are going to hang,' the six-time Derby winner joked to the assembled press. More seriously, Baffert noted that he'd been pleasantly surprised by the increasing maturity Rodriguez had exhibited in training recently, which, in Baffert-parlance, is the trademark laconic New-Mexico-cowboy sort of praise that handicappers would do well to take seriously on Saturday. Translated into lay language, it means that Rodriguez isn't flighty or much spooked by anything foreign; and, unusually for a three-year-old, he gets down to business on the track with increasing amounts of focus. It means Baffert himself, a man who knows something about saddling Derby winners — namely, six of them — has a growing measure of confidence in Rodriguez' ability to handle this particular field's version of Derby chaos Saturday afternoon. The athlete's ability to shut out the massive Derby chaff and focus on the job at hand is one of the three great pillars, along with athletic talent honed by careful conditioning, that makes a Derby runner. Looks Like A Breeze: Sovereignty in his 5-furlong workout in preparation for the 151st Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on April 27. (Photo by) Veteran trainer Bill Mott's Sovereignty, pictured above, was definitely not to be left out of the final Churchill works. For his five-furlong breeze in company — meaning, with a workhorse stablemate alongside — Mott had Sovereignty kept in hand, and the colt clocked an intentionally slow 1:01.8. Generally, trainers, and especially that rare subset of Triple Crown trainers, are deathly shy of blowouts six days before a big, tough race like the Derby. Hewing to form, Sovereignty's work was about gaining familiarity with Churchill, including the architecture of the track, barns, paddock et al., as well as about maintaining the fitness levels to which all these young Thoroughbreds have been brought. Because Sovereignty is known as a deep closer and the book on him is that he will take to the Derby's mile-and-a-quarter.
