2022 Eclipse Awards: Taiba
When Taiba shipped out of Southern California and showed up at Monmouth Park for the TVG.com Haskell Invitational on July 23, he seemed a little like a teenager on spring break.
In his visitor’s stall, craning his neck into the shed row, his head bobbed, his gaze wandered, a colt interested in his surroundings but perhaps not fully processing them. Out on the racetrack for routine gallops, Taiba goofed around. You could imagine him shouting as he ran past, “Practice is boring!”
Taiba works that way, notoriously disinterested, hard to read until you realize he’s not really putting all that much into it. But, wow, can this compact chestnut colt run! His career debut didn’t come until March 5, and after that dazzling sprint win, where Taiba earned a 103 Beyer Speed Figure without even appearing to work all that hard, he was thrown into the Runhappy Santa Anita Derby.
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Already, things had gotten a little weird – and not just because this was a maiden sprint winner going into a Grade 1 over 1 1/8 miles. With trainer Bob Baffert banned from participation in the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve and horses he trained unable to earn points in Derby qualifying races, owner Amr Zedan moved Taiba to the barn of trainer Tim Yakteen before the Santa Anita Derby. And voila! – Yakteen had a Santa Anita Derby winner.
No Baffert at the Derby, and no Baffert Derby mystique for Taiba, who raced in contention to the far turn, then faded to 12th.
A son of Gun Runner and the Flatter mare, Needmore Flattery, Taiba regrouped, returned to Baffert, and still was far from a finished product at Monmouth. In the Haskell, Taiba was unhappy being stuck down on the rail and merely was spinning his wheels at the half-mile pole when jockey Mike Smith decided the only hope was an outside run. In the clear, Taiba picked up the bit again and finished like a train, but his greenness earlier in the race was the difference between victory and a narrow loss to Cyberknife.
Two months later, in the Pennsylvania Derby, Baffert hardly could believe he was watching Taiba pull nearly the same trip as in the Haskell – only this time, Taiba had no issue with it. Racing professionally enough, he buried Cyberknife and the good colt Zandon, winning by three.
Taiba improved again in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic – he just happened to run into Flightline, one of the fastest horses in decades, finishing a distant third behind him but only a half-length behind crack older horse Olympiad. On the cutback to seven furlongs in the Grade 1 Runhappy Malibu on Dec. 26, Mike Smith had to ride the hair off Taiba for a good half-mile. No worries, the colt was much the best, winning by more than four at a distance shorter than ideal. Again, here was a colt only seeming to scratch his talent’s surface.
Taiba was purchased for $1.7 million by Zedan at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton March 2-year-old sale. He was bred in Kentucky by Bruce C. Ryan.
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