In the US, there now seems to be no such thing as a good racing story.

My kids and I watched an old YouTube doco on Secretariat last night. On it, one US racing scribe said Secretariat’s wonderful story resonated far wider than the previous Triple Crown winner Citation (1948), because television had come along and put Secretariat in everyone’s living room.

America fell in love with the handsome red horse ridden by a battling jockey and owned by a powerful woman. In the Sport of Kings, these elements were irresistible.

In recent years, mainstream coverage seems only to broadcast the very worst of US horse racing and this is almost entirely horse racing’s fault; over 100 horse deaths at Los Alamitos and Santa Anita in the last 18 months, doping charges against famous trainers Jason Servis and Rick Dutrow and now you can add another, Bob Baffert.

There is no more famous trainer in the US than five-time Kentucky Derby winner Baffert.

Baffert has been suspended for a month by Arkansas officials over a drug breach that might be innocuous, but who knows. Two Baffert horses have tested positive to a pain blocker that is legal, but only under strict rules. It is illegal when found in a race-day swab.

Baffert has claimed traces of lidocaine had been inadvertently transferred from a medicine patch used by his assistant trainer for a sore back.

Mainstream media reports of a “Baffert drug ban” don’t read well and Baffert might feel they’re a bit unfair but then again, Baffert has had 27 prior drug breaches. All innocent? That’s a lot of human back patches.

The US has a history of trashing its own stories. You can’t read a yarn about Secretariat without also reading the rumblings that he never raced “clean.”

BY Matt Stewart, Racing Editor

RSN & heavily edited by me.