Breeders' Cup Mile: Du Jour could give Baffert elusive victory
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ARCADIA, Calif. - There aren’t too many mountains in American racing that Bob Baffert hasn’t climbed. There’s one peak, however, he barely has bothered to begin scaling. Baffert has won 18 Breeders’ Cup races, none on turf.
Not a surprise, in the end, as his barn revolves around dirt horses generally and Classic horses particularly. From 137 Breeders’ Cup starters, Baffert has run four on grass: Speed Boat Beach was ninth last year in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, Baffert’s first Breeders’ Cup turf runner since Much Better ran 14th in the Juvenile Turf.
The year before, Baffert nearly won the 1999 Mile at Gulfstream Park with his first turf starter in a Breeders’ Cup grass race. Tuzla finished fastest but Silic got the jump on her and Tuzla’s final lunge was good enough for only second. So, there’s old unfinished business in the Mile, and Du Jour will try to take care of it on Saturday.
Du Jour is a so-called house horse, co-owned by Jill Baffert, Baffert’s spouse. Du Jour is set to make his first start since Sept. 2, when he ran the race of his life in the Del Mar Mile, closing with verve to score by 2 1/4 lengths over BC Mile hopeful Exaulted.
That was not Du Jour’s only strong turf mile of the year, and the two others came here at Santa Anita, narrow defeats this past February and March in the Grade 3 Thunder Road and the Grade 1 Kilroe Mile. The Thunder Road marked Du Jour’s first race in about 13 months. The 5-year-old gelding had put together a strong 3-year-old run in 2021, winning the American Turf at Churchill Downs and later turning in competitive runs in Grade 1 races over 1 3/16 and 1 1/4 miles, well beyond Du Jour’s preferred trip.
“He's run well here at Santa Anita,” Baffert said Sunday morning. “When he’s on, he’s on and he’s really good. It took him a long time to really get that form back. This winter he was running okay, but when we got to Del Mar, I could see a big change in him.”
Only six of Baffert’s 151 victories the last two calendar years came on turf, but it wasn’t always thus. In 1999, the year he nearly won the Mile, 27 of 169 winners came on turf. Times have changed.
“Now, most of our program is buying young horses to run on dirt, develop stallions and fillies and stuff. Turf racing, you have to have so much luck,” Baffert said.
Even with Du Jour, who might really have a shot Saturday, Baffert hints at surface wistfulness. He references Du Jour’s lone dirt start, solid if unspectacular. When he bought the horse, Du Jour was training well over synthetic surfaces.
“But he looks great on the dirt, too.”
A previous version of this article misstated the last horse Bob Baffert ran on the turf in the Breeders' Cup. It was Much Better in the 2018 Juvenile Turf, not Cafe Latte in the 2000 Filly and Mare Turf.
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