Today’s race is beginning of ‘ playoffs’ for Baffert’s colt
clear they were pleased with the purchase.
“When Bob wants to get a horse, he normally gets it,” Schiappa said.
Baffert’s horse- talent IQ has always been off the charts. But in this case, he wasn’t alone knowing that this ridgeling, soon to be named Mor Spirit, could be something special.
Exactly how special remains to be seen, but more will be known Saturday after the running of the $ 150,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita. It’s the first major prep race on the West Coast for those hoping to make it to the Kentucky Derby.
Mor Spirit, winner of two of four races and considered Baffert’s top 3- year- old, will enter a field of seven in the fourth race. He’s listed as the morning- line favorite at 8- 5.
“This is when it starts, when they start separating themselves,” Baffert said. “It’s like the playoffs now.”
Clark Shepard was there before the playoffs, even the regular and exhibition season. He sets up the mare matings for Stuart Grant, a Delaware attorney who owns the Elkstone Group, which breeds and sells horses. Shepard chose a similar breeding to the one he used that resulted in Animal Kingdom, winner of the 2011 Kentucky Derby.
“It’s a Seattle Slew- line breeding with a Northern Dancer- line breeding,” Shepard said.
Mor Spirit was foaled in Pennsylvania and moved to Windham Hill Farm in Paris, Ky., when he was 2 weeks old.
“You could tell he was athletic looking,” said Bev Grovert, manager and owner of Windham Hill.
Grovert soon discovered a colt with extra personality.
“You couldn’t tell him what to do,” Grovert said. “He always had an attitude that he was better than anybody else. … He’s always been a horse that would assert himself.”
When he was a yearling, he was sent to an auction in Lexington, Ky., and sold for $ 85,000.
“He was a really good colt, but the sire [ Eskendereya] was not very hot at the time,” Shepard said. “He brought as much as he could bring.”
The horse was consigned to Wavertree Stables in
Ocala, Fla., and five months later was standing in the paddock at Gulfstream Park, having significantly grown and matured, as the bidding crossed over a half- million.
He was put in Baffert’s care and later in the year ran his first, race finishing a strong second by 11⁄ lengths at Santa Anita. After 26 days, he won a mile race at the same track.
At this point, Mor Spirit switched from unrealized potential to a horse to watch for a possible run in the Triple Crown races.
His jockey, Gary Stevens, compares him to Silver Charm, the horse that gave Baffert his first Kentucky Derby win in 1997.
“They are very similar,” Stevens said. “Silver Charm never won any of his races by a huge margin. He was the heart- attack kid. … When Mor Spirit broke his maiden it was by 41⁄ lengths. That might be as much as he ever wins by the rest of his career.”
He was also starting to get a track mentality while retaining the impish quality that was defining his personality, the jockey said.
“He seems to love” the race- day experience, Stevens said. “It’s still a game, it hasn’t become a job to him. ... He’s still a young, playful kid.”
Things didn’t go quite as well in the next race over a sloppy track at Churchill Downs, when Mor Spirit finished second by 13⁄ lengths.
The horse went back on everyone’s radar with a seemingly effortless win in the Los Alamitos Futurity in mid- December against a better- than- average field of 2- year- olds.
“I think he’s improved since then,” Baffert said. “He’s going to have to improve more [ to have a shot at the Kentucky Derby]. You want them to take baby steps forward, you don’t want to see a huge forward move because sometimes after that they can go backward on you.”
This is the time when everyone learns about their horses. It’s unclear where Mor Spirit will go after Saturday’s race. Because he came out of last year’s Fasig- Tipton sale, he is eligible for a $ 1- million bonus if he were to win the Florida Derby in April. But Baffert has made it clear he prefers to enter races that will set his horses up for the Kentucky Derby rather than just run for money.
“That’s up to the genius,” Stevens said of Baffert. “He’s the scientist that puts the rocket together and I’m the pilot. We learn more about [ the horse] with every workout and every race.
“I don’t know how fast he is. I don’t know how deep the tank is, but I know at some point I’m going to have to get there.”
Saturday, Petersen is scheduled to see his horse run for the first time. And Petersen knows his place in the order of who’s most important in this transaction.
“When I enter the stables at Santa Anita, I’m done coming up with any suggestions,” Petersen said. “I’m just doing whatever Bob says.
“If both of them [ Baffert and Stevens] are excited, then I think I should be excited too.”