Baffert to scratch McKinzie from Bing Crosby

DEL MAR, Calif. – The best horse and presumptive favorite in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes on Saturday at Del Mar will scratch from the six-furlong race and wait for the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs later this summer.

McKinzie, whose seven graded stakes and $3.4 million in earnings tops the 10-entrant Bing Crosby field, will scratch from the $250,000 sprint, trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday.

“If I had an outside post, I was going to take a chance at it,” Baffert said. “But he’s down in the four-hole, and this track’s been playing weird. It’s real loose and deep. A horse like him wouldn’t have a chance.”

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McKinzie would have been running shorter than seven furlongs for the first time. Instead, he will wait for the seven-furlong Pat O’Brien on Aug. 29. McKinzie is 3 for 3 at seven furlongs – maiden, Grade 1 Malibu, and Grade 2 Triple Bend.

Although the Pat O’Brien is a Win and You’re In for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Baffert said the goal is a mile and one-quarter. “The Breeders’ Cup Classic is the objective,” Baffert said. McKinzie finished second in the 2019 BC Classic at Santa Anita.

The defection of McKinzie from the Bing Crosby leaves a field of nine. Leading contenders include the 3-year-old graded stakes winner Collusion Illusion, graded stakes-winning turf sprinter Wildman Jack, Lexitonian, Fashionably Fast, and Law Abidin Citizen. The Bing Crosby, a Win and You’re In for the BC Sprint, is race 10 of 11 on Saturday.