Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
LOS ALAMITOS Baffert shows off team’s depth
CYPRESS, Calif. – Trainer Bob Baffert’s already deep team of juveniles showed its remarkable strength at Los Alamitos on Saturday when Improbable won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity and Chasing Yesterday won the Grade 1 Starlet Stakes.
They join Game Winner, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2, as 2-year-old Grade 1 winners for the Hall of Fame trainer this year.
Baffert’s Saturday winners were favored: Improbable was 1-5, while Chasing Yesterday was 3-2. Drayden Van Dyke, 24, was aboard for both wins, the first time in his career he won two Grade 1 races on the same day.
The wins left Baffert enthused about the horses’ development and how they might fare in major stakes in early 2019.
Improbable won the $300,345 Los Alamitos Futurity at 1 1/16 miles by five lengths over stablemate Mucho Gusto. Improbable is unbeaten after three starts. Mucho Gusto was beaten for the first time in his third start.
“Improbable was pretty spectacular,” Baffert said. “I think Mucho Gusto, stretching out for the first time, ran pretty good.”
Owned by WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, and Starlight Racing, Improbable had his graded stakes debut in the Los Alamitos Futurity. By City Zip, Improbable won the Street Sense Stakes at a mile by 7 1/4 lengths at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2.
“Baffert has liked this horse all along,” Elliott Walden of WinStar Farm said in the winner’s circle.
“I loved his race. The best thing about it was his last eighth of a mile and the way he galloped out.”
Chasing Yesterday, who is owned by Summer Wind Equine, won the $300,345 Starlet Stakes by a neck over 30-1 Eyana Alrabb, who finished a neck in front of the Bafferttrained Mother Mother. With a furlong remaining, Mother Mother led by a length, but could not sustain the advantage.
“The Starlet was a horse race,” Baffert said. “For as wide as Chasing Yesterday was that was pretty impressive. [Drayden] rode her with a lot of confidence. I was proud of him.”
Van Dyke has gained a more prominent role in Baffert’s stable in the last year. He has won five graded stakes for Baffert this year. Baffert has won 20 maiden races with 2-year-olds in 2019. Van Dyke has ridden 12 of those winners.
“He’s smart,” Baffert said. “Horses run for him. He’s getting better and better and you can see that he wants to be better. He doesn’t panic.”
This was the final year the Los Alamitos Futurity was a Grade 1 race. Earlier this month, the graded stakes committee announced that the race will be run as a Grade 2 beginning in 2019. Baffert has won the race a record 11 times – six runnings at defunct Hollywood Park and all five runnings since the race was moved to Los Alamitos in 2014.
“It’s too bad they downgraded it,” Baffert said in the winner’s circle. “I’d like to see them revisit that.”
Accelerate drills for Pegasus
Accelerate, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, has started a series of workouts in preparation for his final career start in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26.
At Santa Anita on Saturday, Accelerate worked a half-mile in 49 seconds under Juan Leyva, an exercise rider and assistant trainer to John Sadler.
“It was just the first work to get started,” Sadler said Sunday. “Juan thought his energy was good.”
Sadler said Accelerate will have seven or eight workouts in advance of the Grade 1 Pegasus, which is run at 1 1/8 miles. Accelerate, who is owned by Pete and Kosta Hronis, is booked to go to stud in Kentucky in February.
Accelerate was the most prominent of several notable workouts at Santa Anita on Saturday and Sunday in advance of the launch of the track’s winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26.
Catapult, second in the BC Mile on Nov. 3, worked a halfmile in 47.80 seconds for the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26. The $7 million Pegasus World Cup Turf will be run at 1 3/16 miles.
Sadler trains Catapult, the winner of two Grade 2 races at Del Mar in the summer.
Dream Tree readies for La Brea
Dream Tree, the undefeated 3-year-old filly, worked five furlongs in 59.60 seconds Sunday for the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at seven furlongs for 3-year-old fillies on Dec. 26. Trained by Bob Baffert, Dream Tree has not raced since winning the Grade 2 Prioress Stakes at Saratoga on Sept. 2 in her first start since February.
Dream Tree was scheduled to run in the BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, but was taken out of training briefly in late October because of an entrapped epiglottis. Baffert said she galloped out six furlongs in “1:12 and change” on Sunday.
“We’re playing catch-up,” Baffert said.
Solomini, third in the Arkansas Derby in April and 10th in the Kentucky Derby a month later, worked six furlongs in 1:13.20 on Sunday for an expected start in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs on Dec. 26. Solomini has not raced since finishing third in the Grade 3 Affirmed Stakes at Santa Anita in June.
“He did that easy,” Baffert said of the workout. “The freshening helped him.”
Baffert said he has not finalized his runners for the $300,000 Malibu Stakes, and has Ax Man, McKinzie, Nero, and Super Soul as other possibilities. Entries for the race will be taken on Dec. 21.