Baffert's Training Brings Classic Success

By John Scheinman 

When Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert's best 3-year-old horses get good they usually stay good, and that, along with enormous talent, is what makes Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner American Pharoah such a formidable favorite May 16 in the Xpressbet.com Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

Of the five horses that have won Triple Crown races for Baffert, only one—Lookin At Lucky  —failed to take successive races in the series, and that Preakness winner had the misfortune of drawing the ruinous inside post position in the 2011 Kentucky Derby.

After Lookin At Lucky finished sixth at Churchill Downs, Baffert said he considered not running in the second leg of the series for the next three days before changing his mind.

"I told the guys, 'I don't think I'm going to run,'" Baffert said the afternoon of May 13 at Pimlico Race Course while awaiting the arrival of American Pharoah and his other contender, third-place Derby finisher Dortmund. "But I want to go beat these guys. We're competitive. I wanted to show them that Lookin At Lucky, he was the horse."

In eight of the past 14 years, horses have won successive races in the Triple Crown, but no trainer in recent times has done it as often as Baffert.

The key, he said, lies in his training methods.

While more and more, modern trainers are relying on handicapping tools such as Len Ragozin's The Sheets and Thoro-Graph to determine where to run their horses, Baffert said they are not part of his arsenal. Where some trainers see lighter training regimens leading to a fresh and ready horse on race day, Baffert said fitness is paramount to the success of his horses, and they either stand up to the rigors of his program or they do not.

"I just train by gut," said Baffert, 62, who started his career with American Quarter Horses in his native Arizona before switching to Thoroughbreds in 1991. "When I trained Quarter Horses—and (Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne) Lukas is the same way—the 2-year-olds, the young horses, you trained them to run in the trials. Not too good, not too fast, just enough to get in, and then—bing!—the finals are a week or two later and they run their big race.

"You've got to know when to back up or lean on them. It's just a fine line, but you have to see them every day. That's why I don't go on vacations. You have to see them.

"Some can take it, some can't take it," he continued. "The good ones, they can take the work. You need to give them the work. They need that foundation. One thing I learned about these really good, talented horses: If you run them a little bit short, they'll win, but it's going to take a lot out of them. It will hurt them. When they get tired is when horses get hurt."

American Pharoah, a son of Pioneerof the Nile   owned by Zayat Stables, is one of the ones who can take it. When Baffert discovers a horse has great talent and can stand up to hard work, he will buckle down.

Baffert has won the grade I Del Mar Futurity a record 12 times, but in his estimation, none of the others won quite like American Pharoah, who cruised to a 4 3/4-length victory in his second start, as a maiden. 

"When he won the Del Mar Futurity, I've won that a lot and I've never had a horse win it like he won it," Baffert said. "And he won it on that synthetic stuff. He came back, and I thought, 'Maybe it's just the synthetic.' Then he came back and won the next race (the grade I FrontRunner, on the dirt at Santa Anita)."

The next step was supposed to be the Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile (gr. I), but American Pharoah skipped the race with a minor injury. He still earned the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male.

The colt took nearly six months off, and Baffert selected the grade II Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park for his return.

The workout he gave American Pharoah from the starting gate March 6 at Santa Anita Park, eight days before the Rebel, was a perfect example of Baffert's demanding—and rewarding—style.

"I put a mile gate (work) into him before I went (to Arkansas)," Baffert said. "He worked 1:37. (The clockers) gave him a 1:10 (2/5ths for six furlongs). It was the most awesome 1:37 that I've ever seen a horse work. It was a wow.

"I got that from the Quarter Horses. If you want to get a horse fit and you feel like you're a little bit behind, work them from the gate. That catches them right up. For some reason, working from the gate, they get more out of it. You can work them and work them and work them, but there's nothing like a gate work, especially for a horse that hasn't run in a while. I'll send them up to the gate to sharpen them up. It's more like a little race and you're putting them into it.

"I remember when training Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos, if you're horse hadn't run in a month, you had to re-qualify your horse and work them 350 yards," Baffert continued. "And I remember the reason they did that was for recency for the gamblers. If I was a gambler and I saw a Thoroughbred that was working off a layoff just half miles in 51, 50 (seconds) and that's all these guys do, you're not sure if he's going to be ready. You don't know that the horse is actually going 50 and then galloping out a mile.

"If they work from the gate and put a three-quarter gate work if they've been off three months, then you'll say, 'That horse is ready. He's ready to roll.' That's why I do the gate work, to sharpen them up and make sure they're ready."

Baffert said he admired the late Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Wittingham, who also put a premium on fitness. He also recalled a conversation with the late Bobby Frankel, another Hall of Fame trainer, who told him that turf horses can be trained easier than dirt horses "because they're only going to run a quarter mile.

"Dirt horses run hard the whole way," Baffert said. "That's the difference."

Despite his reputation, Baffert insisted he didn't work his horses very fast, but, rather, worked them often. Bodemeister  , his 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness runner-up, for example, had 26 workouts before he ever ran a race.

"You can't be afraid to train, especially these good horses," he said. "They're going to give it to you. If you have them fit, and they look happy and keep their weight, they'll give it to you."

While Baffert isn't afraid to work his horses hard, he didn't want American Pharoah expending too much energy in his final prep race before the Kentucky Derby if at all possible. Baffert said that before the Arkansas Derby, he told jockey Victor Espinoza, "Please, don't let him win by a lot."

American Pharoah crushed his opposition by eight lengths, and Espinoza came back afterward and apologized. Baffert said he didn't get upset: He knew the horse had not been pressured in the stretch.

In the Kentucky Derby, Espinoza had to ride far harder than normally on the backside and then used his whip in the drive to urge American Pharoah to victory.

"It wasn't an 'A' race for him because you could tell he was struggling all the way around there," Baffert said. "When he turned for home for Victor, he had to get after him. Usually, he doesn't have to touch him. I don't know if he had just used himself up a little bit or what, but it was like he still ran a good race. But I don't think it was his best race."

If American Pharoah won the Kentucky Derby on an off day, Baffert's emphasis on fitness likely had something to do with it.