Baffert eyes fourth Classic win

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This is the place Bob Baffert wants to be on the first Saturday in May – at Churchill Downs, in the winner’s circle. He’s gotten pretty good at it, having won the Kentucky Derby five times, twice with horses who went on to win the Triple Crown. The bloom is not off his roses.

He’ll be back here this week in his continuing quest to make winning a 1 1/4-mile dirt race on the first Saturday in November just as memorable. Three times in the last four years, Baffert has won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and he’ll try to run that to 4 out of 5 when he sends out McKinzie and West Coast in the $6 million Classic, the last and richest of the 14 Breeders’ Cup races to be run here Friday and Saturday. Baffert also was hoping Collected would draw into the race.

“Sometimes you can’t get close to winning a race, and then – boom,” Baffert said in a recent interview at his home track, Santa Anita. “I just want them to show up. Let me root for them. If they turn for home and they’re running, that’ll mean I prepped them well. You just hope that when you slice into that turkey, it ain’t dry. You can overcook them.”

Baffert has carved ’em up in recent years. Thanksgiving has come early. His Classic streak began with Bayern’s controversial victory at Santa Anita in 2014. He followed that with a powerhouse victory by American Pharoah when the Triple Crown winner authored a glorious final chapter in the gloaming at Keeneland in 2015. Back at Santa Anita in 2016, Arrogate ran down California Chrome with a relentless, electrifying stretch run to give Baffert his third straight win in the Classic.

Only Gun Runner has prevented Baffert from coming into this year’s race having won the Classic four straight times. He finished second and third behind Gun Runner last year at Del Mar with Collected and West Coast, respectively.

Baffert, however, never has won a Classic when it has been run at Churchill Downs. He has finished second twice, with Game On Dude behind the victorious Drosselmeyer the last time the Breeders’ Cup was here in 2011, and with Silver Charm – his first Derby winner – behind Awesome Again 20 years ago.

Both McKinzie, 3, and West Coast, 4, come into this year’s Classic fresh, having had one prep following lengthy, yet necessary, layoffs. McKinzie earlier this year, in fact, was thought by Baffert to be his best shot at winning the Derby. He went to the sidelines, and along came a more-than-worthy replacement in Justify.

“I still think McKinzie’s the second-best 3-year-old in the country, and he’s not even in the Derby,” Baffert confided a week before Justify wore the roses.

Justify went on to win the Triple Crown, then was retired. He resides about 68 miles east of here at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud, where he will begin stallion duty next year. McKinzie, meanwhile, sat out the entire Triple Crown, being sidelined from the San Felipe in March – a race in which he traded body blows with Bolt d’Oro – until returning to win the Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 22, giving him four wins in five starts.

“He had something suspicious in his hock,” Baffert said of McKinzie’s layoff. “It wasn’t bad, but it was the kind of thing where if you kept going, it could have been a land mine. I think it happened when he got jammed in the San Felipe. But it might have been a little blessing.

“I think Brad was looking out for him,” Baffert said, referring to McKinzie’s namesake, his late friend Los Alamitos executive Brad McKinzie. “That colt’s got an angel riding with him.”

West Coast, after finishing third in last year’s Classic, was second to Gun Runner in the Pegasus World Cup in January, then was second to Thunder Snow in the Dubai World Cup in March. When he returned from Dubai, he was knocked out, Baffert said.

After getting down time in Kentucky, West Coast finally returned Sept. 29 and finished second to Accelerate in the Awesome Again at Santa Anita.

“He always shows up. He never runs a bad race,” Baffert said. “He’s doing really well. He’s a lot better going into this race than last time.

“He’s happy, good, strong, and a mile and a quarter is up his alley.”

Be it the Classic, or the Derby, 10 furlongs has been proven to be in Baffert’s wheelhouse, too.

BARBARA D. LIVINGSTON McKinzie won the Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing on Sept. 22 in his last start.