Rombauer dashes Medina Spirit's Triple Crown bid with Preakness victory

BALTIMORE — With a thrilling loop-and-a-quarter around Pimlico Race Course early Saturday evening, Rombauer redeemed a mostly miserable week for the sport of horse racing, winning the Preakness Stakes and denying the Triple Crown hopes of rival Medina Spirit and his embattled trainer.

Rombauer, an 11-1 underdog, held off Midnight Bourbon and Medina Spirit down the stretch to secure the first win in a Triple Crown race for trainer Mike McCarthy.

For the past six days, the sport had been consumed with the drama surrounding superstar trainer Bob Baffert, whose surprise Kentucky Derby champion, Medina Spirit, later tested positive for an anti-inflammatory drug that is not permitted to be in a horse's system on race day.

In the ensuing chaos, Baffert was suspended from Churchill Downs, a second test on Medina Spirit's blood sample was ordered that will decide whether horse and trainer keep their Derby title, and Medina Spirit was required to pass enhanced drug screening at Pimlico to get to the starting gate for the Preakness. It was only late Friday

afternoon when word came that Medina Spirit had been cleared to compete.

The results from the horse's Churchill Downs split-sample, meantime, likely won't be known for several weeks, even as the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, approaches on June 5. Baffert's response to the controversy became a controversy itself, as he first denied Medina Spirit had been given the substance — the corticosteroid betamethasone — and implied he and the horse had been sabotaged, then later acknowledged Medina Spirit had been given an ointment to treat dermatitis that contained the substance.

He watched the proceedings from his California home, making the unusual choice not to come to Baltimore — in order, he said, to not be a distraction.

“As I have stated from the beginning, there was never any attempt to game or cheat the system, and Medina Spirit earned his Kentucky Derby win,” Baffert said in a 536word statement released through his attorney. The apparent presence of betamethasone at Churchill Downs, Baffert said, had “nothing to do with Medina Spirit's hard-earned and deserved win.”