Undefeated Game Winner Earns Juvenile Male Championship

The second-most-important victory for trainer Bob Baffert at Churchill Downs in 2018 occured when the determined Game Winner overcame a tardy start to wear down his foes in the Nov. 2 Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1), ensuring his selection as champion 2-year-old male and making the colt the early favorite for the 3-year-old classics.

On that overcast day in Louisville, Game Winner notched his fourth victory in as many starts and ran his earnings to nearly $1.5 million for owners Gary and Mary West, who also collected the spoils for West Coast 's championship 3-year-old campaign of 2017.

Pulling the trigger on Game Winner at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale for $110,000, the Wests and their longtime bloodstock manager Ben Glass looked past an imperfect physical—a suspicious-looking foot—and have been well rewarded for their faith in the bay colt by Candy Ride —Indyan Giving, by A.P. Indy, bred in Kentucky by Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Equine.

Baffert took the wraps off Game Winner at Del Mar in August, and the colt kicked clear to take a six-furlong maiden heat by 5 3/4 lengths. Immediately stepped up to grade 1 action in the Sept. 3 Del Mar Futurity, he scored by 1 1/2 lengths at seven furlongs. His first journey around two turns came less than a month later, when he navigated the 1 1/16 miles of the American Pharoah Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park, winning off by 4 1/2 lengths before hitting the road and proving himself at Churchill Downs.

Game Winner proved his mettle after breaking 10th in the field of 13 in the Juvenile, spotting second-choice Complexity four lengths while enduring a wide trip and then grinding down Knicks Go in the lane to win by 2 1/4 lengths as the even-money favorite.

"I didn't want to be wrong about this horse. He's been training so well against good older horses," said Baffert, who watched the Juvenile from the saddling paddock, yelling "Get up there, boy," during the entirety of the stretch run. "That was a race I really wanted. To have a young horse run like that—at the eighth pole I started thinking about roses."

With the Juvenile/Derby curse broken by Street Sense  and Nyquist , thoughts can indeed turn to the first Saturday in May and some comparisons.

"Game Winner is a glutton, just like Justify ," Baffert said. "He eats up everything. We have a ways to go yet to be Justify-good, but we're moving down that road."