Rombauer Wins the Preakness, Surging as Medina Spirit Fades to Third

The long-shot win assured that Bob Baffert’s colt could not claim a Triple Crown under the cloud of a positive drug test.

BALTIMORE — Medina Spirit was running against more than the nine rivals on the track on Saturday. He was taking on an ex-president who had called him “a junkie,” late night comics and a public skeptical of his natural talent after he won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago but failed a drug test afterward. For a mile and three-sixteenths, Medina Spirit chugged around Pimlico Race Course, leading for much of it. But so much hung in the balance: the colt’s reputation; another record for his absent trainer, Bob Baffert; and the credibility of an old and battered sport that very much needs to change. In the end, that load was too heavy for Medina Spirit.