BAFF' WAY HOME
Trainer has a knack for guiding winners
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, always on the go, could not help but stop.
Although he was overseeing Triple Crown threat Justify’s final preparations the other day at Churchill Downs, a clock being used to count down the days until the next Kentucky Derby caught his attention.
He used his cellphone to photograph the countdown and sent it to his wife, Jill.
“Oh, here we go!” she responded.
That Baffert would give the slightest thought to the first Saturday in May of 2019 says everything about the harddriving makeup that allows him to rank among the greats in his sport.
If undefeated Justify can follow American Pharoah (2015) by winning the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, Baffert would join “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons as the only trainers to produce two Triple Crown winners. Fitzsimmons com-completed the rare sweep with Gallant Fox (1930) and Omaha (1935).
With the current stakes so incredibly high, it is mind-boggling Baffert would be enamored of a clock referencing the next Triple Crown. And yet he was.
He recounted a conversation he had with the late Bob Lewis. Lewis, an influential figure in Baffert’s career, owned Silver Charm, the first of Baffert’s five Kentucky Derby champions among a record-tying 14 victories in Triple Crown races.
“He told me, ‘Never look back. Just keep going forward,’ ” said Baffert, 65. “And that’s the game.”
Baffert gets his game the way few others have. Remarkably, all of his Derby winners went on to win the Preakness to position themselves for a Triple Crown bid.
Silver CCharm was overtakentaken by Touch Gold by three-quarquarters of a length in the 1997 Belmont. Jockey Kent DesoDesormeaux appeared to make hhis move too soon aboard ReaReal Quiet the followinging year, anda Victory Gallop edged him by a nose. War Emblem ststumbled badly leavinging the startingsta gate in 2002 and never recovered.
Baffert wasw starting to wonderder whetherwhethe one of his horses would eveever join racing’s immortalsmortals when American Pharoah ccame along and left
no doudoubt about his superi- ority. After rattling off Derby and Preakness victories, American Pharoah led throughout in a 5 ½-length Belmont rout, the fourth-largest margin for a Triple Crown winner in the mile-and-a-half race.
He has trained the Eclipse Award winner for top 3-year-old colt in North America each of the past three years, with latedevelopers Arrogate and West Coast following American Pharoah. Now, along comes Justify, a winner of all five of his starts this season despite not gaining valuable experience when he went un-raced at 2.
“It’s a remarkable achievement on his part, to come up with what seemingly is a topclass 3-year-old every year,” rival trainer Todd Pletcher said. “It seems they keep getting better and better. They never regress. They hold up to a hard campaign really well.”
Baffert’s only setback occurred when he suffered a major heart attack in March 2012 while he was in Dubai for the Dubai World Cup. One artery on the left side of his heart was totally blocked. Another was 90 percent blocked.
As Baffert was wheeled to the operating room for a lifesaving procedure, he was said to be giving instructions regarding the care of his horses.