Midcourt, Thousand Words Exit Saturday in Good Order

Victor Espinoza rode back toward the finish line Feb. 1, returning from a nice Saturday drive.

Four-year-old Midcourt, campaigned by Lee and Susan Searing's C R K Stable, lunged to the front in the San Pasqual Stakes (G2) and never slowed down, winning by a widening 3 1/2 lengths. The physicality was obvious. But Lee Searing, the steel executive from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., saw the mentality.

"We've named our horses after basketball and the Lakers for years," Searing said. "Those last few years, the main reason I went to those games was to see Kobe."

Former Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant remains inescapable, even seven days after his death in the helicopter crash that also took his daughter Gigi.

With John Shirreffs training, Midcourt has won five of his past six races.

"He's a goofball," Searing said. "He just didn't want to train. If you could stand beside the barn and see the little things John puts him through, it's amazing. Now he can't wait to get out there and compete. And we gelded him, which helped. I've only had one other horse in the Santa Anita Handicap (G1), so this is exciting. This is the best he's ever run."

But Searing also thought of Kobe's Back , who won five times in 26 races for him and brought in more than $1.1 million. In 2016, he won two stakes at Santa Anita within a month. Searing never met Bryant, but he did get a small note, relayed through a friend.      

"You gave him a good name," it read.

In 2015, Kobe's Back ran in the TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) at Keeneland, and he and Gary Stevens lost by a neck to Wild Dude in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship Stakes (G1).

"If he'd won that one, he'd be a stallion in Kentucky," Searing said. "Now he's a stallion in Maryland. But a lot of people have been asking me about him this week."

Roadster was seventh in the San Pasqual, but Baffert, as usual, had already had his moments. A 3-year-old filly named Auberge won the third race, and, three races later, Kentucky Derby contender Thousand Words, trained by Baffert, brought it home in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes (G3) over Royal Act, also owned by Searing, and High Velocity, another Baffert horse.

That was Baffert's 3,000th win as a Thoroughbred trainer. He ranks 32nd all time, but is seventh in win percentage (23%) and sixth in finishing win, place, or show (53%).

"It's just a number," Baffert said, when it clearly was not. He later said he was thinking about 3,000 when his horse was beginning to take control on the far turn. 

"Thousand Words, 3,000 wins, I mean, you can't make this stuff up," Baffert said. "And to do it in a race named after one of my all-time favorite owners (Robert B. Lewis) just makes it more special.

"I can't remember the first one. But I do remember a horse named Presidents Summit."

In late 1988, Baffert was still just a quarter-horse cowboy from southern Arizona. "I was struggling," he said. His friend Bob Baedeker pointed him to Presidents Summit, who won a claiming race.

"I'm trying to run down to the winner's circle. I've got my cowboy hat on," Baffert said. "I really needed a horse like that."

Pretty soon, Baffert got better talent, and one thing led to another, and another thing led to 15 wins in Triple Crown races and two Triple Crowns. Thousand Words is now 3-for-3, by margins of a neck, a half-length, and three-quarters of a length. "He won't blow you away in the middle of the week," Baffert said. "He's a hard horse to ride because he doesn't always want to work. But he shows up when the race starts."

Flavien Prat did the honors. A few minutes later, he rode United to victory in the San Marcos Stakes (G2T) for older horses on grass. United shook up Santa Anita in November when he made Bricks and Mortar, the 2019 Horse of the Year, dig as hard as he could to win the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) by a head.

Meanwhile, Searing has a buzzer-beating horse who could be playing well into the fall. But he was already looking ahead. "We have a (mare) named Lady Mamba, too," Searing said. "So we've got to breed Kobe's Back to Lady Mamba. I mean, that's going to happen."