Thoughts on Derby: Medina Spirit DQ/Mandaloun
Mandaloun is now the Derby winner due to Median Spirit lab results DQ. Should bettors who had Mandaloun and other winning bets (exactas, tris, supers, etc.) be given their money?
As a lifelong Derby handicapper I have my thoughts on this, but am curious what people here think about Churchill Downs current decision to withhold payouts from those that had Mandaloun as the winner.
Not sure about the money part... just wondering how a horse holds a syringe in their hoofs.
Right, or did some secret agent sneak into the stall and inject him with it, as a conspiracy to frame Baffert? I suppose it’s possible but unlikely. Prove it was a setup or else you gotta DQ him and pay the people who bet the runner up. Otherwise no deterrent.
Apparently Mr. Ed had a debilitating opium habit that nobody knew about.
Baffert's always struck me as a guy who's secretly a hippie. I'll bet he went with the tried-and-true dosing of a sugar cube. Horses seem to blow the shit all over the place if you ask them to snort it.
Bojack Horseman would have something to say about this.
I’ve always thought the payout is pending official results. The official result is that Mandaloun won the race. Why is it any different because the DQ happened due to drug testing as opposed to, say, obstructing or some other in-race infraction?
Mandaloun picks should be awarded. Median Spirit picks shouldn’t have been awarded anything until official results were in.
The results were made official after the race with Medina Spirit as the winner, the DQ came after that during drug testing. Kind of like how people have had to give up gold medals or other trophies for failing drug tests after race results were made official.
I agree but it must be a nightmare from a gambling standpoint because its tough to withhold payment for days (or longer depending on appeals) and to take back money that people have already "won".
There was something online last night about that nightmare; it's why bets are paid on the official results.
If there is a DQ or something down the line, it doesn't matter. Sucks for the bettors though but as that article stated, that's why they call it "gambling".
Not to mention trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube! Um, yeah, is this the Mr/s. Bleu residence? We've got a little problem... that payout from a couple of weeks ago, yeah, that's right, all $50,000 of it, ummmm, we're gonna need that back to give to someone else.
Fair enough then. If that’s clear up front then I have no problem with it.
I would do drugs with a horse
found you a taker
Saddest show ever
Although it would be nice if for one damn weekend it wasn't, "ketamine, ketamine, ketamine."
Would you do Horse with a horse, though? Also, is the drug testing to piss like a racehorse in cup?
Supposedly official results were in after the race concluded, unless those are only tv official results.
Should be no change to current payouts. You're gambling, not only on the results, but that there isn't a cheater. How can you go back anyway.
I lost a lot of money on sporting events only to find out people were juicing later. Never got any change to the whereabouts of my money.
I'm about as shocked to hear about cheating in horse racing as I am to hear about it at Alabama or Ohio State.
And I should have gotten my payout on the 2013 Men's Basketball NC, but that didn't happen either. It's part of gambling.
What do I think? I think that now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, is a junky. This is emblematic of what is happening to our Country.
"That was some weird shit." - Bush 43
But seriously, this issue of horse junkies is no joke. Buster Bronco, mascot at Western, is still clearly showing up to events completely baked. Look at his eyes.
Might have spit out some of my drink. ?
in all seriousness, I hope Buster gets the help he needs.
One day at a time Buster.
Has this been made official? Last I saw was that they were appealing and re-testing the sample to verify, but I haven’t looked at ESPN yet today...
Same thoughts, I saw the post and figured some news must have broken about the 2nd test but when I google Medina spirit I see that nothing has changed. He'll probably get DQed, making Mandaloun the winner but that hasn't happened yet.
Of course the OP did call it Median Spirit rather than Medina Spirit, so maybe they've been partaking in a little too much average alcohol.
Same here, I just browsed espn.com and si.com, and as far as I can tell, Medina is still the winner.
Having never gambled on horses I don't know how payouts occur but I assume you can't run up to the booth immediately and get your money, even if the race is "finalized" if they are still doing drug testing and the like. I assume the decision will be that Mandaloun, being the "official" winner, is the horse that nets people payouts. But if payouts occur before the final drug tests and the like I assume it'll be Median Spirit bettors who got paid and Mandaloun's supporters will just have to console themselves with moral victories.
Baffert just released a statement blaming "cancel culture." The surest marker of a lying piece of shit.
Those SJWs (Social Jockey Warriors) ruin everything.
Betting is based on official results at the time of the event.
After that, regardless of cheating that comes to light, the winning and losing bets remain the same.
As a practical matter, it's impossible to track down all winners and, even if you could, it'd be VERY hard to persuade them to give up their money.
My thought is that Baffert is a clown.
I would have said "horse's ass." He's blaming "cancel culture." Totally serious.
Wow, before that interview I figured there was a chance he didn't do it.
Now I'm positive he was cheating.
I thought that interview was a prime example of why criminal defendants are better off invoking the right not to testify.
I'm more interested in what horse racing fans think of Bob Baffert. Is this a surprise? Were there rumors of him juicing before this year? Is it like the Lance Armstrong thing where, yes he was doping, but so were the other top 100 guys?
I don't follow horse racing at all but I always assumed Baffert was a cheater and a slimeball based on the couple of times I heard stories about him.
Personally, I believe the horse racing industry is in a position here to lose all credibility and integrity, and although this would be a first, I think they need to reimburse the winning bets, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is essential for the long term health of horse racing's future betting pools.
Betting on horses is different than most sports. There are no regional interests, alumnae and casual rooting fans. But also the track is the casino and not a third party (vegas) and finally there is too much time between races for someone to implement a doping program without any available data to the public.
1. Testing needs to be done faster and the results need to be quicker
2. The industry needs to take out some sort of insurance to cover this scenario
3. The industry needs to bite the bullet and pay out the (data recoverable) true winners of this race immediately.
It is basically the integrity of the sport on the line. Payout or stop racing. Baffert's horses have been statistically performing in the Derby in ways that are almost impossible to comprehend. Justified's Schwarzenegger body and crazy derby fractions, Authentic's derby fractions, and Medina Spirit's somewhat average prep season Beyers and now this. Time and time again he is showing up with horses sitting on a powder keg that nobody has witnessed, save the folks back at his barn. He is almost making the sport impossible to bet using any historical models taking into account what "horses" are supposed to be able to do.
You can't ask people to bet any more moving forward if this is the result, unless you pay up.
To repeat my earlier post, betting is based on official results at the time of the event. That practice stays the same regardless of cheating that comes to light, the winning and losing bets remain the same.
However much it feels as if cheating should be fixed, it's impossible to track down all winners, much less persuade them to give up their money.
But don't worry about the betting industry. This will be little more than the splash of a rock in the Pacific Ocean.
OP, I think you're jumping the gun a bit.
At the time of this writing, this is the most current ESPN article:
https://www.espn.com/horse-racing/story/_/id/31422292/medina-spirit-heads-preakness-minus-trainer-bob-baffert
So positive test -> appeal -> waiting on additional test presently.
That is correct. Mandaloun is a split sample drug test away from becoming the winner. I wrote as if the original test would be upheld.
I am still pretty mad my bets were spoiled by Baffert's tainted horse.
I would be too.
I hit a jackpot once on a machine in Vegas. The casino wouldn't pay it though because they said the machine malfunctioned. Grrr. How am I supposed to know that?!
It just keeps getting weirder:
Baffert says one test issue was created by a groom urinating in the stall after the groom had been taking cough medicine. Horse ate some of the hay.
This is the exact same drug, betamethasone, his filly Gamine was caught with at the Kentucky Oaks. Previously Gamine had been once disqualified for Lidocaine. In the Lidocaine incident he blamed a stable hand who had broken his pelvis and was wearing a pain relieving patch that somehow got into the horse.
Now someone on cough medicine is peeing on hay.
This is starting to look like a pattern.
I bet Baffert reads Playboy for the articles too.
And then I wonder what kind of affect does 21 picograms of betamethasone really have on a 1,000 pound animal?
Picogram. 0.000000000001.
And then I think even more, maybe that's Baffert's strategy -- dope just above the noise floor to make it look not like cheating or something?!?!?
Everybody leaves out that it's pg/ml and the half-life is like 7 hours. Betamethasone has to be withdrawn 14 days pre-race, so from my quick math it looks like they treated him in that 14 day window and probably missed the cutoff, to pass the test, by about a half day.
Cool... thanks for the info.
Didn't know that.
Still trying for figure out what the fuck I watched last night with the field hockey game?!
What's hilarious to me is that my wife lost out on a club "pool" in 2019 worth $250 due to her horse, Maximum Security, being disqualified 20 mins. after the race. Fast forward to last weekend she drew Mandaloun (who was a long shot) came in second and she won't see a dime of those winnings now!
As a horse racing fan and occasional better I think it is just part of the risk you take when betting on an event, whether horse racing or any other sport. Granted it would be nice but I think the difficult part comes from getting money back from the original payouts, I guess we could all file a class action against Baffert or something.
For the record I had Medina in the sires future but would have gotten a little more had Mandaloun won, had a win wager based of his works pre-derby.
So now even our Kentucky Derby winner is a junky. This is emblematic of what is what happening to our country. The whole world is laughing at us!
(Sorry. Too easy.)
Poor Medina Spirit. Instead of a run at history in the Preakness, now he's got a fight scheduled with Jake Paul.
It would be impossible to correct the payouts even though it would probably be the right thing