Baeza will have quarter pads in gate for Whitney
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. − There may be a potential solution to Baeza’s poor gate-breaking habits.
When Baeza runs in the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes on Aug. 8, he will have padding on either side of him as well as the back in the starting gate. The pads are known as quarter pads and they replace what some may remember as the Monty Roberts blanket that was placed on a horse’s hind quarters and then slipped off when the horse left the gate.
“They have a pontoon there, some horses bump those pontoons and they don’t like it,” trainer Bill Mott said. “But if you put the quarter pads in, then it pads everything back there. They’re feeling a mattress instead of a hard metal thing touching their stifles.”
Scott Jordan, the starter for the New York Racing Association, recommended the quarter pads to Mott.
“It doesn’t let him brace up against the back doors,” Jordan said. “They strap onto the gate rather than the horse.”
Jordan said the pads in the gate will go from where the jockey’s feet would be to all the way behind the horse.
Baeza has schooled in the gate a couple of times in the morning at the Oklahoma training track.
“He seems comfortable in there,” Mott said.
Jordan said he uses the pads once or twice a week during the races.
“I think it’ll help him,” Jordan said. “It’ll put him more forward.”
Baeza, the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby winner, was compromised by poor starts in both the Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes, where he was a late-running third, beaten three-quarters of a length by Corporate Power, and in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster, where he finished second, 1 1/4 lengths behind Magnitude.
Meanwhile, Baeza put in a strong workout Saturday morning, going five furlongs in 1:01.35 over the Oklahoma training track in preparation for the Whitney. Baeza, under assistant trainer Neil Poznansky, started two lengths back of his workmate Veblen, an unraced 3-year-old, before joining that one after a quarter mile in 25.62 seconds. Baeza got his final three furlongs in 35.73 seconds as he left his workmate.
Mott said Baeza “worked some kind of good. When he let him go, ‘Whoosh.’ He breezed very good.”
About two hours later, Sovereignty, the reigning Horse of the Year who finished third in the Stephen Foster, worked five furlongs in 1:01.17 over the Oklahoma track in preparation for the Whitney.
Unlike last week, when Sovereignty started behind his workmate, Saturday Sovereignty, also ridden by Poznansky, started in front of workmate Thunder Roll and dictated the move through splits of 12.99 seconds, 25.14, 37.17 and came home in 24 flat under slight urging while keeping Thunder Roll at bay. Sovereignty galloped out six furlongs in 1:14.56 and seven furlongs in 1:28.89.
“Neil said he was on the bridle the whole way,” Mott said. “Last week, his workmate was three in front of him before he even got going, now he’s chasing. Generally, he doesn’t kick in until he goes a mile anyway.”
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