Did Taiba ever test positive? Is Yakteen banned from running in the Kentucky Derby?

For all of the Baffert enthusiasts here, listed below are Bob's starts in the past five plus years with the amount of starts in graded stakes races along with win percentages.

Year Starts Graded Stakes
2022 - 68 (33%) 35 (37%)
2021 - 341 (32%) 118 (28%)
2020 - 323 (30%) 96 (30%)
2019 - 325 (24%) 96 (18%)
2018 - 348 (32%) 103 (26%)
2017 - 313 (27%) 99 (31%)

Baffert is not a choir boy. He's treated as if every horse he ever raced was drugged. He wins a lot, I get it. He's got the best clients in the business with some of the best stock in the world. Runs in a circuit with dwindling amount of average starters. I think his win percentages should be high.


Baffert is the perfect magician's distraction using sleight of hand in that he has nearly 100% of the eyeballs on him while a large handful of the industry's trainers enter way more horses and move them up way beyond reasoning on a daily basis to pull rabbits out of hats.

If Baffert is dirty, I trust that the system would catch up to him. In the meantime, I don't find it difficult to avoid betting on small horse fields in California anyway. Which only leaves the few dozen times Baffert enters horses elsewhere in the country, which I can use my handicapping judgement to determine if I want to invest or not.

Question for Jerry Brown if you are comfortable to answer: With all of the data that you've been collecting on "move up" trainers, is Bob Baffert a blip on your radar?