Improbable, Chasing Yesterday show depth of Baffert team

CYPRESS, Calif. - Trainer Bob Baffert’s already deep team of juveniles showed its remarkable strength at Los Alamitos on Saturday when Improbable won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity and Chasing Yesterday won the Grade 1 Starlet Stakes.

They join Game Winner, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2, as Grade 1 winners for the Hall of Fame stable this year.

Baffert’s Saturday winners were favored: Improbable was 1-5, while Chasing Yesterday was 3-2. Drayden Van Dyke, 24, was aboard for both wins, the first time in his career he won two Grade 1 races on the same day.

The style of the wins left Baffert enthused about the horses' development in recent months and how they might fare in major stakes in early 2019.

Improbable won the $300,345 Los Alamitos Futurity at 1 1/16 miles by five lengths over stablemate Mucho Gusto. Improbable is unbeaten after three starts. Mucho Gusto was beaten for the first time in his third start.

“Improbable was pretty spectacular,” Baffert said. “I think Mucho Gusto, stretching out for the first time, ran pretty good.”

Owned by WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, and Starlight Racing, Improbable had his graded stakes debut in the Los Alamitos Futurity. By City Zip, Improbable won his stakes debut in the Street Sense Stakes at a mile by 7 1/4 lengths at Churchill Downs on Nov. 2.

“Baffert has liked this horse all along,” Elliott Walden of WinStar Farm said in the winner’s circle.

“I loved his race. The best thing about it was his last eighth of a mile and the way he galloped out.”

Chasing Yesterday, who is owned by Summer Wind Equine, won the $300,345 Starlet Stakes by a neck over 30-1 Eyana Alrabb, who finished a neck in front of the Baffert-trained Mother Mother. With a furlong remaining, Mother Mother led by a length, but could not sustain the advantage.

“The Starlet was a horse race,” Baffert said. “For as wide as Chasing Yesterday was that was pretty impressive. (Drayden) rode her with a lot of confidence. I was proud of him.”

Van Dyke has gained a more prominent role in Baffert’s stable in the last year. He has won five graded stakes for Baffert this year. Baffert has won 20 maiden races with 2-year-olds in 2019. Van Dyke has ridden 12 of those winners.

“He’s smart,” Baffert said. “Horses run for him. He’s getting better and better and you can see that he wants to be better. He doesn’t panic.”

This was the final year the Los Alamitos Futurity was a Grade 1 race. Earlier this month, the graded stakes committee announced that the race will be run as a Grade 2 beginning in 2019. Baffert has won the race a record 11 times – six runnings at defunct Hollywood Park and all five runnings since the race was moved to Los Alamitos in 2014.

“It’s too bad they downgraded it,” Baffert said in the winner’s circle. “I’d like to see them revisit that.”