The reality of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit dangling in horse racing limbo is this: People are running out of ways to defend trainer Bob Baffert.
The horse in question tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone, prohibited on race day in Kentucky. A split sample will be sent to an independent laboratory to confirm or refute the initial test. Months or even years of procedural and legal wrangling could follow.
None of this is about one horse or one test, to be clear.
This is about the most famous person in racing, by far, fending off another drug-related controversy -- now totaling five in the last year alone. This is about the front porch of a sport dogged by financial challenges, animal-rights protesters and an aging customer base catching flame at the exact moment of its national close-up.
In horse racing, Baffert is Bill Belichick, Phil Jackson and Tony La Russa rolled into one. The sport can't afford for him to become its Lance Armstrong. Baffert's the identity of racing for those who could not tell you the difference between a filly and a furlong.
"We did not cheat to win the Kentucky Derby," Baffert told Fox News on Monday.
Yet all of this is bigger than Baffert, given racing's eroding inroads related to public confidence. The front line has stretched from coast to coast as the sport fights to prove the game follows the rules, the game remains fair, the game can be believed.
Steroids brought Major League Baseball to the brink. The Astros banging on trash cans shook the sport again. You can't afford to tarnish the World Series any more than you can stain the Kentucky Derby. And for now, pending one more lab result, no one has collected more Derby wins than Baffert's seven.
Churchill Downs understands what's at stake, even if it rushed aggressively to beat due process out of the gate by indefinitely suspending Baffert.
"That statement [from Churchill Downs], that was pretty harsh," Baffert said in the Fox News interview. "With all the noise going on ... we live in a different world now. This America's different. It was like a cancel culture kind of a thing."
Whatever Baffert should have said in that moment ... that wasn't it.
It's hard for those working at tracks around the country to feel woe-is-me sympathy for someone who has made millions upon millions, while megarich owners and elite horses gather en masse at his door. It's even harder to imagine a broad conspiracy to unseat the king.
Throw in five drug-related dust-ups in the last year, including one after winning the biggest race, and Baffert's credibility now faces its biggest test.
In each case, a plausible reason was cited. As cases mount, however, the collective has strained the soundness of the bigger picture.
"I'm not a conspiracy theorist and think everyone is out to get me," Baffert told media members Sunday at Churchill Downs. "But there is definitely something wrong."
Coronado resident and San Diego business owner Mick Ruis, who owned and trained 2018 Derby runner Bolt d'Oro, found himself entangled with Baffert and Triple Crown winner Justify after the 2018 Santa Anita Derby.
Justify, who won the race by 3 lengths over Ruis' horse, later tested positive for the prohibited substance scopolamine -- though it could have been caused by contamination since seven horses in five barns produced similar test results.
All need to be accountable, Ruis said, including and especially its biggest name.
"I think this is great for the game," Ruis texted Monday, saying he has not produced a positive drug test in his two decades of racing. "Give a fair playing field for all the owners and trainers in our game."
Another thorny fact coloring the situation: In the previous 146 runnings of the Kentucky Derby, only once (Dancer's Image, 1968) has the winner been disqualified for a drug violation.
Baffert has his work cut out for him.
Step one: Prove beyond a doubt the sport can believe him again.