Matz, Baffert could have Kentucky Derby favorite
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Michael Matz is back at the Kentucky Derby with a strong contender for the first time since he won in 2006 with Barbaro, whose bronze likeness now greets all visitors to Churchill Downs.
Bob Baffert is a regular at the Derby, a three- time winner who’s been looking for No. 4 since 2002. Only this year, he returns a changed man. A heart attack has a way of doing that.
Either trainer could have the favorite for Saturday’s big race.
Matz trains Union Rags, who has never finished worse than third, while Baffert’s top horse among his two runners is Bodemeister, named after his 7- year- old son Bode.
Wrenching as it may be to recall Barbaro’s tragic end — he broke down in the Preakness and, despite a valiant fight, was euthanized nine months later — Matz doesn’t try to temper his delight to be back in the Run for the Roses.
“It’s a great feeling to be here after six years, especially with a
horse that has a good chance,” Matz said. “This doesn’t happen too many times and I was lucky enough once. It’s hard to believe you can get lucky twice.” Baffert knows you can. His lifestyle of eating fried food and lots of meat, combined with already high cholesterol, caught up with him last month in Dubai, where he had gone to watch his horse, Game On Dude, run in the $ 10 million Dubai World Cup. He fell ill and was rushed to a hospital, where surgeons inserted three stents in two arteries.
“It was a pretty big scare for him,” said Bernie Schiappa, who co- owns Game On Dude. “He thought he was going to check out.”
“I wouldn’t listen,” Baffert said, understating that he’s “a little hard- headed.”
When his family isn’t around, Baffert has Schiappa to keep him on the straight and narrow. In Louisville, the duo has been hitting the hotel gym at 5: 30 a. m. to exercise. Baffert does 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer followed by light weights.
“I’m training him, he’s training the horses,” Schiappa said.
Bodemeister’s owner, Ahmed Zayat, greeted Baffert with a big hug outside his barn Monday. The biggest change Zayat sees in Baffert is a new contentment.