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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, LOUISVILLE, Kentucky-Ridden by jockey John R, Velazquez and with odds of 12-1, Medina Spirit (pictured) edged Mandaloun by a half length to win the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky last May, and as four protesters were arrested that day following a Black Lives Matter protest for Breonna Taylor held in the Derby City. But that win has been shot to hell due to a doping scandal that saw famed racehorse trainer Bob Baffert suspended on Monday by the Kentucky Racing Commission for 90 days, fined 7,500, and forced to hand over the $1.86 million purse money he won. And more importantly, Media Spirit was stripped of his Derby win.

Baffert is expected to appeal.

After winning the Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown, the since-deceased Medina Spirit, which paid $26.20 on a $2 win bet, was positioned to possibly win the Triple Crown that year, if he he had won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes,  the second and third legs of the Triple Crown respectively. The colt did came in third in the Preakness Stakes and won the Shared Belief Stakes and Awesome Again Stakes before coming second in the Breeders' Cup Classic. He crossed the first line first in the Derby, but was later disqualified after testing positive for the anti-inflammatory steroid betamethasone. After the Kentucky Derby, Medina Spirit finished third in the Preakness Stakes, but a few days later the New York racing officials banned Medina Spirit and Baffert from participating in the Belmont Stakes because of the drug violations.

The Kentucky Derby purse that was $3 million, the same amount as the year before and  was split between the top five finishers, and first place paid $1.86 million, which Medina Spirit carried home , only to have to return it later. In fact, the purse must now be recalculated since Medina Sprit's disqualification. It was or would have been the fourth Kentucky Derby victory for Velazquez behind the all-time record shared by jockeys Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack.

"There's no words to describe it," Velazquez said of the time of the since win that was later snatched from him, and his horse "This doesn't get old."

Velazquez teamed with trainer Bob Baffert for the second year in a row to win the 2021 Derby, Baffert becoming the first trainer in the 147-year history of the race to win seven Derby races. In 2020 Velazquez and Baffert brought home a Derby win with Authentic, who went on to lose at the Preakness to Filly Swiss Skydiver by inches.

“I don’t think about the records,” Baffert said after Medina Spirit's upsetting win last year, words he would later recant. “I just want to be back with a horse that’s competitive. There’s other races, but the Kentucky Derby is the race.”

In spite of a pandemic, some 52,000 Derby fans were on hand at Churchill Downs in May of 2021, But the attendance was down from 150,000 in 2019, 2020's event done virtually with no fans permitted in the stands or on Churchill Downs grounds whatsoever.

The city of Louisville continues to face national backlash from the March 13 Louisville Metro police killing of 26-year-old Taylor a year-ago, Taylor unarmed and  Black, and shot eight times in her apartment after police barged in via a no knock warrant and got in a shootout with Taylor's live-in boyfriend. No drugs were found on the premises

Around 50 protesters marched by the entrance of Churchill Downs on Derby day in 2021 with signs that read, "We haven't forgotten Breonna."

The protesters ended up at a Black Lives Matter march and at La Chasse restaurant where a confrontation with a man who allegedly pulled out a gun occurred, police said.

It is unclear why the protesters at the Black Lives Matter march,  two women and two men,  and all of them Black, were arrested and taken into custody.

Taylor's shooting death, which drew some police reforms and a $12 million wrongful death settlement by the city, triggered local and countrywide protests, and riots, Taylor among a host of unarmed Blacks erroneously killed by White cops nationwide.

Only one of the three White Louisville Metro police officer directly involved in Taylor's death, fired detective Brett Hankison, was criminally charged. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of wanton endangerment for allegedly firing errant bullets into Taylor's apartment that penetrated a wall and entered an occupied apartment next door to Taylor's residence.